To all - longer (NYT) story on that couple that gave away $23 million.
November 27, 1999
A Couple's Million Thanks, Times 23
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
OSGOOD, Ind. -- In an age of multibillion-dollar buyouts and nine-digit
lottery jackpots, $23 million might not seem like a fortune anymore.
But to this one-stoplight southern Indiana town, whose annual
operating budget hovers around $300,000, it's enough to make a huge
difference.
And that is the difference that was made by Gilmore and Golda Reynolds, a
pair of lifelong locals, when they decided to bequeath all their wealth, most of
it earned through the stock market, to their beloved Osgood, population
1,688.
Most residents had been aware that the couple were well off. But few had
known the extent of their wealth until just last week, when the estate of Mrs.
Reynolds, who was widowed in 1990 and died in March of last year,
announced that the Gilmore and Golda Reynolds Foundation, which she had
established soon after her husband's death, would be funded with everything
the couple had amassed: $23 million after taxes. The foundation, which will
serve as a conduit for the largess to Osgood, is an endeavor on which the
Reynoldses long planned together.
"Everyone knew they had money, they just didn't know how much," said
Kenny White, who has lived in Osgood all his 53 years. "We all thought they
maybe wanted to give a million dollars or so. It's amazing they made that kind
of money in such a small town."
Made it, and saved it. The Reynoldses, who had no children, lived modestly
and very privately on the town's main street in a white stucco house where,
friends say, the worn carpet bunched up in spots and the furniture lasted
decades. Perhaps the only hints of their affluence were vacations to far-off
places and the new Cadillac they bought every two years. They also liked to
eat out, but usually ventured only as far as the nearby town of Versailles, for
nothing fancier than fried chicken.
"I'll never forget when Goldie came back from a trip -- I think it was a cruise
-- and Gilmore had convinced her to go first class," said Donna Hooton, a
close friend of the couple. "She said to me, 'Donna, don't waste your money,
it's not worth it.' "
Gilmore's death in 1990, at the age of 91, brought an end not only to a
62-year marriage that sprang from a checkers game at a local barbershop but
also to an extremely lucrative business partnership. During their years in
Osgood, the couple owned a variety of businesses: an appliance store, a car
dealership, a candy and tobacco wholesaler.
And if their furnishings at home often seemed dated, the same could never be
said of their wares. White recalled that as a boy, he watched a World Series
game on a color television set in the Reynoldses' appliance shop, at a time
before most people in Osgood had black and white sets.
After selling their last business, a propane distributorship, in the 1960's, the
couple spent daylight to dusk poring over The Wall Street Journal in the
dingy basement furnace room where they honed their investing skills.
Gilmore was the one with the grand ideas; Golda made the meticulous stock
charts that lined the walls.
The Reynoldses intended that the money they left benefit schools, libraries,
churches and the like, said their lawyer, Neil Comer. So their bequest will
flow not to the coffers of the municipal government but instead to the area's
nonprofit organizations, which will apply with the foundation's trustees for
grants.
In fact, Golda, through the foundation, began doling out relatively small
grants to nonprofits soon after Gilmore's death.
Some of that money enabled the volunteer fire department to buy a new
engine last year.
One of the six trustees who will now be charged with distributing grants
from the couple's fortune is Michael Black, a detective with the Indiana state
police, an Osgood resident and a grand-nephew of Mrs. Reynolds. He shrugs
off a question surely obvious to any of the couple's relatives.
"Would it be nice for all of us to have $23 million?" he said. "Sure. I'm sure
some thought about what it would be like to be an heir. But this way, the
money will go to the good use of a lot of people."
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company |
