Frugal Woman dies, leaves 35 Million to charity

[MasterBlaster]

< This woman never learned the 4 % SWR - MB >

CORAL GABLES, Fla. - A 100-year-old woman who quietly amassed a vast fortune before her death last year left $35.6 million to local diabetes and cancer research.

Eugenia Dodson donated two-thirds of the money to the University of Miami’s Diabetes Research Institute, the largest gift in its 35-year history. The rest goes to the university’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.

[peggy]

I hope she enjoyed her life and spent accordingly.

I'd hate to think she deprived herself or her family/loved ones just to leave money to charity.

[wabmester]

The magic of compounding. Save $5000/year every year for 80 years. Average 8% returns. Die with $35M at age 100.

[haha]

I feel that whatever a person does with her money, other than having the government take it away or having it stolen must necessarily be among the decisions most likely to reflect that persons wishes taken as a whole.

Unless she was rich from birth, or a big executive, obviously she engaged in what many of us might consider deprivation. Was she more deprived than many another LBYMer? Who knows, but her use of the money seems 100% laudable. And if it weren't, it is fortunately her business.

Ha

[Cool Dood]

Here is perhaps the most miserly miser of all. I read somewhere that her son had to have his leg amputated because she refused to pay the hospital fees, but Wikipedia tells that particular story slightly differently.

[audreyh1]

Well, sounds like she made good use of her money to me! So what if it was after she died.

Audrey

[farmerEd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wab The magic of compounding. Save $5000/year every year for 80 years. Average 8% returns. Die with $35M at age 100.

Of course, saving $5000 in 1926 (in the middle of the depression), would have been quite a feat ..that would be like socking away $55K in today's dollars...even harder considering in 1926 she would have been just 20 years old.

$35M is hard to accumulate anyway you cut it...I suspect it wasn't just good old LBYM.

[wabmester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldMcDonald $35M is hard to accumulate anyway you cut it...I suspect it wasn't just good old LBYM.

Dodson, born Eugenia Johnson, grew up in small-town Minnesota and followed a girlfriend's dare to move to Tampa at 19 and, at 20, to Miami. She met her husband, J. Enloe Dodson, a Miami civil engineer and businessman on a train in Washington D.C. They married in 1943 and never had children.

Dodson owned 40 percent of an oolitic limestone quarry with members of the prominent Belcher Oil Co. family. When he died in 1949, Eugenia Dodson received his interest in the company and valuable land it owned.

So, instead of saving $5000/year, she inherited a small fortune. Either way, I bet compounding over 80 years didn't hurt.

[kowski]

It's said that if you die with a dollar in your wallet, it was a dollar you didn't need. :

[retire@40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kowski It's said that if you die with a dollar in your wallet, it was a dollar you didn't need. :

Another way to look at it is, depending on how you lived and died, it was a dollar you didn't know how to use.

[Spanky]

It's wonderful story about giving.

[audreyh1]

She DID use the money! She just waited until she died to spend it.

Audrey

[Sheryl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by retire@40 Another way to look at it is, depending on how you lived and died, it was a dollar you didn't know how to use.

Or a dollar you might have been very happy to have, had a need come along at the end of your life.

[Lazy Jack]

No kids...that would explain a lot...I'd be retired now if I hadn't had to pay for kids

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lazy Jack No kids...that would explain a lot...I'd be retired now if I hadn't had to pay for kids

Sure, you would undoubtedly have $35 million too. Everyone on this board with no kids has $35,000,000.

It's mostly the tuition that sops up all that money.

Ha

[My Dream]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HaHa Sure, you would undoubtedly have $35 million too. Everyone on this board with no kids has $35,000,000. It's mostly the tuition that sops up all that money. Ha

i don't mean to highjack this thread but I read once about how much on average it costs a family to raise each child up untill I believe it was the age of 21. Does anyone ever remember that?

[MasterBlaster]

MD:

If you include a stay at home mom's lost wages, the BIG house, and the price of college the sum can be outrageous. If you include their Blueblood trust fund then the cost is astronomical.

If you just dress em' in hand-me down clothes and feed em' beans then they aren't that bad.

[My Dream]

What I read was based on a place to stay, clothing, food, education, gifts, health care, daycare, etc.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by My Dream What I read was based on a place to stay, clothing, food, education, gifts, health care, daycare, etc.

I think the number was around $250K.

The first time.

[Donzo]

Summer jobs for the kids and state schools can really lower the cost of getting a college education.
At the risk of starting an issue....In my many years in the corporate world - once you had the job..it did'nt matter where you went to school - it was how you performed. Many MBAs were passed up by BAs because of performance and insight.