A faithful diner's last will and condiments

LA Times ^ | March 8 | My-Thuan Tran

[PghBaldy]

Bruce Lindsay knew a good bargain when he saw one: For decades, the millionaire ate three square meals a day in the cafeteria of tiny Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, surrounded by students who called him the "campus grandpa."

When he passed away last month at 79, the college learned just what a generous tip he had left. He bequeathed his fortune -- amassed by buying up cut-rate oil leases and flipping beachfront homes -- to the Christian university, which like many private colleges across the country has been bedeviled by the slumping economy.

[PghBaldy]

Very nice sort article. Nice to see he was not alone in his later years.

[nothingnew]

A frugal curmudgeon, the type of person who I model my life on.

FMCDH(BITS)

[scottteng]

How much wisdom did that old man impart to students of that college at the cost of some food which might well have gone to waste. A wonderful reward to the university for an act of Christian charity

[Paul Heinzman]

Growing up in Byesville, Ohio, there was a guy named Pee Wee Palate. Pee Wee lived in this squalid little shack, got his clothes at the Salvation Army or the Army Navy surplus store. He didn't have a car; walked everywhere. I don't know what he ate, but whatever it was he didn't eat much of it. It had long been rumored that Pee Wee was rich. Well, when he died, he wasn't rich by most standards, but he had (as I recall) about a quarter million, which was pretty rich by Byesville's standards. He willed that money to establish a scholarship foundation. There was a write up on it at the time in one of the weekly news magazines, Newsweek, IIRC. These good deeds so often come from the places you least expect it.