An interesting life

Her friends had to talk her into getting a couple of window air conditioners when she was well into her 80s, and this was in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where it gets a bit toasty in summertime.

She did not subscribe to a newspaper or own a car. She got the news via broadcast channels on a black-and-white TV, and caught a ride to church with friends. When she needed groceries, she walked a mile to the store, pushing her little cart along.

The woman we are talking about was named Oseola McCarty, and she left school in sixth grade to care for an ailing aunt, never to return to the classroom. She began a life's work as a washerwoman, and did that until she retired at age 86, describing her day thus:

“I would go outside and start a fire under my wash pot. Then I would soak, wash, and boil a bundle of clothes. Then I would rub ’em, wrench ’em, rub ’em again, starch ’em, and hang ’em on the line. After I had all of the clean clothes on the line, I would start on the next batch. I’d wash all day, and in the evenin’ I’d iron until 11:00. I loved the work. The bright fire. Wrenching the wet, clean cloth. White shirts shinin’ on the line.”

A friend of hers said, "Work became the great good of her life. She found beauty in its movement and pride in its provisions. She was happy to have it and gave herself over to it with abandon."

(Quick question - how many people could say that of themselves?)

Also unlike most people, Ms McCarty began to save her money at a young age.  Specifically, at eight years of age, she began keeping money in a doll buggy, and then she took that buggy and all her money to a local bank when still a small girl and added to her account whenever she had enough to put away.

"I commenced to save money. I never would take any of it out. I just put it in. . . . It’s not the ones that make the big money, but the ones who know how to save who get ahead. You got to leave it alone long enough for it to increase," is how she put it.

The common notion is that one can't make a fortune scrubbing and ironing clothes from sunup to sundown, but that's not true. A wise person saves more than he/she spends, and looks for ways to get the most out of their money, and lives simply.

From that money she earned as a washerwoman, Ms McCarty retired at age 87, and only then because the arthritis in her hands made working impossible.  She retired with a savings account that held $280,000.

That's over a quarter of a million dollars, earned and saved over almost 80 years of work.  

Oseola McCarty (right) with the first
McCarty Scholarship recipient,
Stephanie Bullock

And then, setting aside enough to live out her years, she gave $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi, a college just a couple of blocks from her home, although she had never visited it. She just wanted her hard work to be of benefit to others seeking to better themselves.

Over 600 people heard about this donation and added to it, tripling her original endowment, and allowing USM to award several full scholarships every year to deserving students through the McCarty Scholarship program.

When a journalist asked Ms McCarty why she chose this path, rather than spending the money on herself, she replied that by doing what she did to set up scholarships, she WAS spending the money on herself, that she was proud to be leaving some good to the world, and that her only regret was that she didn't have more to give.

Another quote from Oseola McCarty that I think a good many people will get a lot of good from is this:

"Some people make a lot of noise about what’s wrong with the world, and they are usually blamin’ somebody else. I think people who don’t like the way things are need to look at themselves first."

  
Oseola McCarty died at 91, her life's work done, her legacy complete. But who know what greatness will come from the  recipients of her largesse?