The Chicago Sun-Times recently reported that Grace Groner, a long-time resident of Lake Forest, Illinois, passed away in January at age 100, leaving a $7 million bequest to her alma mater, Lake Forest College. Although Groner lived in one of the country's wealthiest communities, she hardly fit the profile of a trust-fund socialite. An orphan at age twelve, she was cared for by neighbors and attended college, earning an English degree in 1931. She went to work as a secretary for nearby Abbott Laboratories in Chicago where she worked for forty-three years. She never married, never owned a car, and lived for much of her life in an apartment before moving to a tiny one-bedroom house willed to her by a friend.
Her $7 million estate was the fortuitous result of a lifetime characterized by frugality, simplicity, and a large dose of good luck. She had purchased three shares of Abbott stock for $60 each in 1935, reinvested the dividends, and never sold them. Over the subsequent seventy-five-year period, her three shares multiplied to well over 100,000, and her $180 initial investment grew over 38,000-fold to approximately $7 million.
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