Said Alison Holt, the sister of Geoffrey Holt, the subject of "He lived a quiet life — then donated $3.8 million to his small N.H. town" (WaPo).
[Geoffrey] Holt worked as a social studies and driver’s education teacher and in a grain mill before retiring and moving to the trailer park, where [he worked] as a handyman and groundskeeper.... Holt was shy and took to others slowly.... Holt collected die-cast cars and model trains and spoke excitedly about automobile history. In his mobile home and a nearby shed, he... was content to spend most of his time at home tinkering with model cars.... He dressed plainly in clothes he rarely replaced. He owned an old car but never used it, opting instead to ride his mower to a nearby Walmart if he needed to shop....
He had no children, and the sister told him she didn't need the money, so he left it to the town, where people barely knew him. Why did he have so much money? It seems that's what happens if you're frugal, invest what you don't spend, and live to be 82.
Posts
37 comments:
May I be a contrarian and say.....what a dumbass.
"Why did he have so much money?"
Just look at him. He's white.
My grandparents had 9 kids, 45 grandkids, around 120-130 great-grandkids, plus working on the next two generations after that. I ca’t imagine what it would be like to have no family to leave some money to.
A very New England story
You may be weird
But you'll never be riding your lawnmower to Walmart weird
(And yes, I saw The Straight Story.)
What a waste! Leaving one's money to a government entity without placing firm restrictions on its use is not much different than giving it to Hunter Biden to invest in his nose. He may have been frugal during the period when he built his small fortune, but he was a spendthrift in the end.
No kids. No wife also? Well, then it was much easier for him to save. Hell, I coulda done that too, perhaps.
Happy Thanksgiving, professor.
My wife's parents lived a middle-class life. He was a professor and she was a part-time librarian. They avoided debt and lived comfortably but simply. When he died and we needed to put her in assisted living, we reviewed her finances to see what she could afford and she had millions in investments and a 6-figure pension.
A lifetime of careful spending left her rich.
@Howard: it is, isn't it? I knew a pair of spinster sisters who were loaded but drove a beat up ancient Volvo wagon and wore plain clothing and sensible shoes. Lived in a large townhouse on Marlborough Street when they weren't in Gloucester.
"He left it to the town, where people barely knew him."
I think it says something that he didn't have a friend in need he deemed worthy. I've broken ties with a lot of people but I know somebody I'd help more if I could. Several actually. Just giving it to the government is a waste. He could've changed lives.
Seconding other commenters: what's the point of leaving money to a town?
Coulda been worse though. Think Ford Foundation, etc.
He owned an old car but never used it, opting instead to ride his mower to a nearby Walmart if he needed to shop....
He would have gotten along great with George Jones.
Charlie said...
"May I be a contrarian and say.....what a dumbass."
I would agree except to say it was his to do with as he pleased. It was his choice to give it away. The government had no say in his final act of charity. One would hope that the city would examine this windfall and rebate their citizens taxes in a like amount. But who am I kidding.
Compound interest. It’s the time part what does it…
…we deal with wealth planning. It’s difficult. Gates squanders his. Those giving pledge people won’t have much to show for it. The difference between the virtuous givers and blowing it on beer and hookers is minute. A small NH town might do something respo…haha, who am I kidding?
Hinsdale is a poor town, with much of it Appalachia-style rural. I used to get nervous seeing patients up in some of its dark corners, frankly. Its budget is small enough every year, and the town fathers cheap enough, that he likely really is spreading this out over all friends and neighbors. It will likely cause the town to buy some stupid things, but that will more likely come later. It will most likely go to road, school, and other infrastructure maintenance.
The Glass Menagerie!
“He could've changed lives”
Yes, but his lifestyle suggests that the possibility wouldn’t even have occurred to him. Empathy follows engagement. Most people learn this in childhood but, from what I’ve seen, the solitary adult forgets it quickly.
"Our Town" by Thornton Wilder
The only thing worse than leaving it to government would have been donating it to NPR.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL
Remember when $3.8 million was a nice amount of money?
The Holts are an old New England family - been around since 1636 living in New Hampshire and western Massachusetts till the 1830's and then most of them that had children moved to Michigan and then became lost in gen pop. They fought in the French and Indian wars and in the Revolution. One was in George Washington's personal guard during the battle of Princeton. Another in 1760 built the house where I spent summers as a child. I thought they were all gone from New Hampshire but apparently one was left who still wanted to build up New England.
He sounds slightly autistic.
Having that much money is not difficult if you're not an idiot with spending, as most people are...
If he perceived himself as content, he was content. He led a useful life and although perhaps he had no one to laugh his joy, there were none to curse his existence. He did no damage, enjoyed his hobbies, and did some measurable good to his neighbors. I'd put his life down in the win column....It's not that easy to have a successful life. Here in my dotage, I read a lot of bios and memoirs. A awful lot of people with intelligence, drive, good looks, wealth manage to drive their Rolls into a ditch enroute to their coronation. They'd be better off driving a tractor to Walmart...I recently read the auto bio of Trotsky. Bright guy. Born rich. Dedicated his life to the revolution. While reading it, I couldn't help but be struck by how much misery he inflicted on himself and his loved ones and how pointless it all was......While in prison during Czarist times, he became obsessed with the Freemasons and how they fit into Marxist dialectics. (Both Robespierre and Louis XVI were Freemasons.) While in prison, he spent several years assiduously researching the topic and writing a long, thoughtful book. After he was released, he kept the book with him but couldn't find a publisher. He had to move suddenly to evade arrest. His landlady had the book and burned it for use as kindling. Trotsky's insights into the Freemasons are thus lost to posterity. He claimed that the book's destruction was one of his biggest regrets....Well, it shouldn't have been. While moving from NY to Russia to participate in The Revolution, he had to pass through Canada. The Canadian government arrested him and tried to take his children away from him based on his revolutionary activities. He fought the arrest and the forfeit of his parental rights. He won and he and his family got to continue on to Russia. Save for one who died of TB, his kids died in the Gulag. They would have had happier lives in foster care. He, also, probably would have had a longer, happier life, if he had served a few years in a Canadian prison. Lots of Russians too.
On the other side of the coin, I'm currently reading a bio of the Duke of Wellington's later years. All those years of marching to the gunfire, left him deaf. One of the doctors of that era tried to cure his deafness by the topical application of acid to his eardrum. The treatment nearly killed him and left him in excruciating pain for years....He recovered and got to live a long life, but he could never hear all those hosannas sung in his praise.....So there you have it. Even if you win all the golden prizes, you can still end up deaf and in pain....When the gang at the Spoon River Cemetery talk about how their lives played out, Mr. Holt does not have the saddest story and perhaps has one of the happiest.
There have been a few stories like this, often with donations to universities. This one from 1995 I'm familiar with: A 101-year-old spinster died and left $22 million to Stern College for Women (the women's college at Yeshiva University), completely out of the blue--she hadn't gone there, had no prior connection to it. She'd never earned more than $4000/year, according to the story, she started with $5,000 in savings in the 1940s. A quick calculations says that would have required an 18% annual return.
He sounds slightly autistic
He sounds like a woodchuck. There are lots of them in the woods in those parts…
Yankee thriftiness. It would be appropriate for the town to have a plaque made to honor his endowment...out of aluminum.
I tried being never noticed
Then my wife found me, and started blowing out kids.
My thinking was this is NO way to be inconspicuous. My thinking was adjusted.
Women don't like inconspicuous.
Poor people pretend to be rich; rich people pretend to be poor. As our family lazily awaits Thanksgiving Dinner I'm sitting in a big room with a relative worth well more than $100 million; he rarely dresses in anything fancier than a t-shirt.
Makes me wonder what I would do in his situation…. So many outfits seem not worthy.
The lawnmower bit is a bit odd. Often a resort after license revocation.
Reminds me of the story a few years ago about the bachelor librarian at a small college who left a few mill to the football team. (What was he thinking?)
Unless I win the lottery (which I don't play) I'll not have a tenth of the Holt fortune to leave.
Whatever my wife and I have left, and whatever my brother has left, will go to our son if he doesn't piss us off, which he hasn't, much.
"It seems that's what happens if you're frugal, invest what you don't spend, and live to be 82."
At some point, you've made too much money? Or lived too long? Or both? Or maybe he was entitled to do as he wished.
This story would not have happened under a Socialist regime.
Backwoods villages aren't modern towns, nothing wrong with leaving the money to it.
With regards to his small fortune: small town governance is often very different from Government. Hopefully, this is the case, here.
walter said...
The lawnmower bit is a bit odd. Often a resort after license revocation.
11/23/23, 6:24 PM
Live in the country and you’ll see some ‘odd’ things. Then, one day, you will find that there are no odd things; just things.
Whoa! So he didn't take out a second mortgage to put an Escalade in his driveway in 2008?
I wasn't able to read the article behind the paywall, but I gather from the comments that he just handed the money to the town with no strings attached.
That seems like a dreadful mistake, with an intolerably high risk that it would be consumed by government locusts and layabouts without any tangible benefit to his neighbors. This would of course be a metaphysical certainty in any place governed by Democrats.
I hope this is one of the thrifty little New England towns that still governs itself by a town meeting, and has the fortitude and foresight to ensure that a boot is kept permanently on the throat of the government employees' union.
Post a Comment