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 hob­
nobbed 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 nev­
er 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.
A
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.

2. 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.
WASHERWOMAN Continued
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 sil­
ver-haired McCarty with a smile seem­
ingly for everyone, from the Black
neighbors who criticized her for
"washing them White folks' dirty
drawers" to the White fat-cat cus­
tomers who considered her a poor lit­
tle 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 Mc­
Calty decided to give $150,000 to the
nearby University of Southern Mississ­
ippi, a school she had never visited. .
It's a remarkable story ofhow 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 Mc­
Calty, who had to drop out ofschool 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 per­
son weal's? Heck, as a kid, she would
cut the toes out ofher shoes when they
became too tight. She'd run through
the fiery red Mississippi dirt, toes flap­
ping 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,
EBONY • December
the dremns soon turned empty. Any­
how, coming from a fmnily of washer­
women, she was told empty dreams
were the best kind. They were less dis­
appointing. 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 boil­
ing 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 automat­
ic washer and dryel~ but gave both
away after using them once and finding
them miserably insufficient. "The wash­
ing 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
1995 Continued on Page 8886

3. 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 gro­
cery store), never used her air condi­
tioner (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 sav­
ing, 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'g­
ing 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 cer­
tificates of deposit, savings bonds, mon­
ey market and Christmas club ac­
counts 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 aIthIi­
tis 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 es­
tablishes an endowed scholarship fund,
with priority given to needy Black
EBONY • December
students.
"I have every­
thing I could want and I had more mon­
ey 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
Continued on Page 90199588

4. 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 offi­
cially 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 stu­
dent 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 brack­
et 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 washer­
woman 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.
EBONY • December 199590