Download - Washerwoman Philanthropist
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The Washerwoman Philanthropist
Mississippi senior citizen gives $150,000 to local university By Kevin Chappell
Photographs by James Mitchell
LTHOUGH she has hobnobbed with some of Hattiesburg, Mississippi's, most polished people, Oseola McCarty has nev
er been one to get excited by fancy stuff. So when the small town's big wigs would come to her house, infonning her about an upcoming Iitzy social event, government function or showy country club luncheon, she would never consider attending.
It didn't matter that she was never invited. McCarty had learned to be happy simply lending an ear and a hand. After all, she was only the town's washerwoman.
So day after day, for much of her 87 years, she waited for the "impOltant" people to bIing their clothes to her old wood-frame house. She'd lUsh out to their car, gather the ditty laundry and make a little small talk before cmting their clothes to the backym·d.
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Honored at the White House, Oseola McCarty shares a private moment with President Bill Clinton. The president was so moved by her life StOlY he invited her to Washington recently as his special guest at the Congressional Black Caucus' annual dinner and awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal. McCarty poses (left) in her backyard with the pot and sClUb board she used to wash clothes for more than 70 years.
Receiving a standing ovation, McCaJty was made an honorary alumna of the University of Southern Mississippi by President Aubrey Lucus (r.) and other school officials before the school's first home football game.
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There, she made the clothes look nice, persnicketily scrubbing them until the colors sparkled, the whites gleamed and her hands ached.
All the while, the tiny woman kept a secret that has recently rocked the town's 45,000 residents. "There's good money in washing clothes," says the silver-haired McCarty with a smile seemingly for everyone, from the Black neighbors who criticized her for "washing them White folks' dirty drawers" to the White fat-cat customers who considered her a poor little old washelwoman, who never married, never had kids and lived alone. "People didn't think there was money in washing, but there was. And I wasn't saying nothing."
For 60 years, only the local bankers knew that while McCarty was elbow deep in ditty water, she was knee deep in money, having squilTeled away what would eventually total nearly a qUalter of a million dollars. The town and the world found out about the virtues of washing clothes recently when McCalty decided to give $150,000 to the nearby University of Southern Mississ
ippi, a school she had never visited. . It's a remarkable story of how a sim
ple woman's work and savings ethic, unselfish giving and unyielding faith have inspired an entire country and crushed stereotypes in the Deep South. "I want to give some child the oppOltunity I didn't have," says McCalty, who had to drop out of school in the sixth-grade to care for her sick aunt and stayed out of school when her grandmother became ill. "I hope this money can help children, for years to come, make their dreams come hue."
McCatty used to dream, and think, sometimes about things like shoes, or rather people's fascination with them. She always thought what difference does it make what kind of shoes a person weal's? Heck, as a kid, she would cut the toes out of her shoes when they became too tight. She'd run through the fiery red Mississippi dirt, toes flapping and mind dreaming. At first, she would dream vivid dreams about exotic places she wanted to go, exciting things she wanted to do, expensive items she wanted to buy and wearing shoes that fit.
But with a bundle of soiled clothes always there to jar her back to reality,
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the dremns soon turned empty. Anyhow, coming from a fmnily of washerwomen, she was told empty dreams were the best kind. They were less disappointing. Wash clothes and dream empty dremns. That's what her mother did and that's what her mother's mother did. And eventually, that's what she did.
Before the washerwoman knew it, she was caught in a vicious spin cycle. Every day was the san1e: At the first sign of daybreak, she would begin boiling white clothes in a big iron pot, grinding dirty socks and underwear on her old Maid Rite scrub board in water she had drawn from a neat'by fire hydrant. She would then wring the clothes and hang them to dry on about 100 feet of line. By the time she reached the end of the line, the clothes at the beginning would be dly. The day ended with her ironing as the sun set.
In the '60s, she bought an automatic washer and dryel~ but gave both away after using them once and finding them miserably insufficient. "The washing machine didn't rinse enough and the dryer turned the whites yellow," she says. _ Through it all, the quiet woman
never took sick, never complained
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Living frugally, McCarty saved her money while living many years of her life alone in her modest house. But no,,· she's been "adopted" by Stephanie Bullock (I.), the first recipient of the University of Southem Mississippi scholarship in McCarty's name. The 18-year-old freshman calls McCarty her "second grandmother. "
WASHERWOMAN Continued
much and never raised her voice much above a whisper. In fact, McCmty's life has been filled with nevers. She's never owned a car (she still pushes a buggy about a mile to the local Big Star grocery store), never used her air conditioner (unless visitors insisted), never attended a play or conceIt ("There was never anything I pmticularly wanted to see"), never traveled out of the South ('There was never anywhere I wanted to go") and never even treated herself to a new Bible (her old one has been read so much, tape is the only thing holding together the Old and New Testan1ents) .
Through bank mergers, closings and name changes, she just kept saving, every week depositing half her earnings into the bank. "I'd take so much for my groceIies and my bills," she says, "and save the rest." McCmty saved just in case one day she wanted to stop washing clothes and start dreaming vivid dreams again.
Inher20s, when McCmtywas chm'ging only 50 cents for a load of clothes
for a family of four, she began saving pennies and nickels. She never kept up with how much she had saved and never withdrew any money. In her 80s, she was charging more than $10 a bundle and her change had changed into certificates of deposit, savings bonds, money market and Christmas club accounts at four different banks. But she hadn't changed a bit.
McCalty retired last December and continued not to want anything, except maybe some new hands, which aIthIitis has ravaged so much her knuckles look like Iipened acorns and her palms like pitted prunes. Instead, she found herself a good doctOl~ a good lawyer and decided to give the University of Southern Mississippi $150,000, the largest gift ever by a Black to a Mississippi university. The money establishes an endowed scholarship fund, with priority given to needy Black
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students. "I have every
thing I could want and I had more money than I could possibly spend," says McCmty, justifYing her gift, which some Blacks have said should have gone to an African-American university. "I made the decision on my own to give the school the money. They used to didn't let Negroes go to the school, but now they do, so they should have the money."
McCmiy decided on the amount she wanted to give after her attorney, who was one of her former customers, showed her 10 dimes, each representing 10 percent of her money. He also gave her pieces of paper labeled "church," "relatives" and "university." She placed
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Deeply religious, McCarty reads her taped-up Bible every day. She gave some of her savings to her church and some to distant relatives.
WASHERWOMAN Continued one dime in front of "church," three in front of "relatives" (which consist of a few distant cousins) and six in front of "university," a stone's throw from her house. She signed an irrevocable trust agreement, stating her wishes and giving the bank responsibility for managing her funds. No money officially goes to the university until after her death. But since receiving national attention, the school has been flooded with conhibutions from people across the country, including a Houston man who sent $10,000. The school is using these donations to stmt the scholm-ship now in hopes McCmty will be around to see the graduation of the first student she helped put through school.
That student is Stephanie Bullock, an IS-year-old Hattiesburg native. As the first Oseola McCmty Scholm'ship recipient, she'll receive $1,000 each year, as long as she makes good grades. The school's yearly tuition is $2,400. "At first, I was really surplised and shocked, but now I'm very proud," says Bullock, who now visits McCalty, runs errands for her and blings her "second grandmother" her mother's special homemade ice cream. "She's great. I gave her a big hug and thanked her."
VVhile McCarty is enjoying the attention, she doesn't think much about being in the same income bracket as the judges, doctors, businessmen and others she used to wash for. In fact, she now gets a good laugh out of them, many of whom are scrambling to pool
resources and "outdo" her gift. It all amuses her. "They say can't no washerwoman do more for the university than they can. They say they're not going to have it," McCarty says with a healty chuckle. "I think they're embarrassed. That's good. I got 'em." 0
At Congressional Black Caucus dinner, Congressmen William Jefferson and Donald Payne join the group in applauding McCarty who, afraid to fly, took a 24-hour train ride to the nation's capital.
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