07/10/2026
That we should all be so so service oriented and generous!
For 75 years, she washed and ironed other people's clothes by hand. She started at age eight. She never owned a car. She walked nearly a mile pushing a shopping cart just to buy groceries. Then, at 86, this quiet woman from Mississippi did something that stunned an entire nation.
Her name was Oseola McCarty.
She was born on March 7, 1908, in Shubuta, Mississippi. Her family moved to Hattiesburg around 1916.
As a girl, she dreamed of becoming a nurse. But in the sixth grade, she left school to care for a sick aunt. She never returned to a classroom.
So she went to work. She took in laundry, scrubbing clothes by hand in big pots, ironing for the families of Hattiesburg.
She earned very little. A few dollars here. A few dollars there.
But she did something most people never do. She saved almost every penny.
As a child, she tucked coins into her doll buggy for safekeeping. As an adult, she carried that money to the bank.
She lived with almost nothing. She received only broadcast television. She didn't subscribe to a newspaper because she thought it was too expensive. The house she lived in until her death was given to her by her uncle in 1947.
Decade after decade, she saved. And the small piles of coins slowly grew into a small fortune.
By 1995, this washerwoman had saved roughly $250,000.
Then she made a decision that changed everything.
With help from a bank trust officer and a local attorney she had once done laundry for, she planned out her estate using slips of paper and dimes. Each dime stood for ten percent.
She set aside one dime for her church. She set aside three more dimes for relatives.
The remaining six dimes — sixty percent — she gave to The University of Southern Mississippi.
That gift was worth $150,000.
She asked that the money fund scholarships for students who could not otherwise afford college, preferring those of African-American descent.
Here's what makes the story even more remarkable.
For much of her life, that same university had not admitted Black students. Yet she chose to give the bulk of her savings to help young people walk through doors that had once been closed to people like her.
When people asked why she gave away money she could have spent on herself, her answer was humble and clear. She said she didn't regret a single penny, and her only regret was that she didn't have more to give.
The news spread fast.
People across the country were moved by a woman who had so little, yet gave so much. Donations began pouring in from strangers who had never set foot on the campus.
Local business leaders quickly matched her gift. An endowment was created in her name.
The first scholarship was awarded in 1995 to a young woman named Stephanie Bullock. Oseola met her in person.
The honors came next, and they were extraordinary for a woman who had spent her life behind a washtub.
President Bill Clinton presented her with the Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation's second-highest civilian honor. Harvard University gave her an honorary doctorate in 1996. In 1998, USM awarded her its first-ever honorary degree.
She was named one of Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People in 1995.
Through it all, she stayed exactly who she had always been. Simple. Faithful. Generous.
Oseola McCarty passed away on September 26, 1999. She was 91 years old.
But her gift did not stop with her.
For 30 years, roughly 1,400 donors from all over the country have added to the fund she started. More than 130 students have received McCarty scholarships.
In March 2025, the endowment reached a milestone she once dreamed of. It hit $1 million — meaning it can now fund $2,000 scholarships for 20 students every single year, forever.
A woman who scrubbed clothes by hand for three quarters of a century turned coins into a legacy that will outlive everyone who reads this.
She measured her wealth not by what she kept, but by the lives she could lift.
And she lifted them by the hundreds.
~WonderWeb
