Janitor who held his coat together with safety pins leaves $6 million dollars for hospital and library

Janitor who held his coat together
with safety pins leaves library and
hospital $6m after he dies
People often thought Ronald Read was
poor

Thursday 05 February 2015
A former janitor who wore an old coat
held together with safety pins shocked
his community when he left a Vermont
library and hospital $6 million (£3.9
million) in his will.
Ronald Read, who died at the age of 92
in Dummerston, made a series of
investments over the years that helped
him quietly amass an $8m (£5.2m)
fortune, his lawyer Laurie Rowell told
the Associated Press .
Mr Read, the first person in his family to
graduate from high school, was usually
seen wearing old flannel shirts and spent
his free time scavenging for fallen
branches for his home wood stove. He
drove a second-hand Toyota Yaris.
Before his death in June earlier last year,
Mr Read's only indulgence was eating
breakfast at the local coffee shop, where
he once tried to pay his bill only to find
that someone had already covered it
because they believed he could not
afford to, according to Mr Rowell.
Connie Howe pours coffee for Ronald Read,
left, and Dave Smith during the Charlie
Slate Memorial Christmas breakfast at the
American Legion in Brattleboro
"You'd never know the man was a
millionaire," Mr Rowell said. "The last
time he came here, he parked far away
in a spot where there were no meters so
he could save the coins."
Mr Read graduated from Brattleboro
High School in 1940 and during served in
North Africa and Italy during the Second
World War. After returning home, he
worked at a gas station for 25 years. He
retired but became bored and worked as
a janitor at a JCPenney store for the next
17 years to keep himself occupied.
Last week, Brooks Memorial Library and
Brattleboro Memorial Hospital each
received their largest donations ever. Mr
Read left $1.2m (£785,000) to the library,
founded in 1886, and $4.8m (£3m) to the
hospital, founded in 1904.
The library's executive director, Jerry
Carbone, described the money as "a
thunderbolt from the sky.”
"Being a self-made man with his
investments, he recognised the
transformative nature of a library, what
it can do for people," Mr Carbone said.
"People were stunned that he had that
much money," one Dummerston resident
told the Brattleboro Reformer. "I bought
some old fence wiring from him once
because I thought he could use the
money."
Even his step children were oblivious to
his fortune. His stepson Phillip Brown
told USA Today: "He was a hard worker,
but I don't think anybody had an idea
that he was a multimillionaire."
Additional reporting by the Associated
Press