Released July 23, 1996
Oseola
McCarty's Gift Keeps Right on Giving
By Sharon Wertz
HATTIESBURG --
Oseola McCarty never set out to get attention.
When on July 26, 1995,
the quiet, 87-year-old washerwoman gave $150,000 to The University of Southern
Mississippi, it never occurred to her she had done anything remarkable.
"I was
surprised," says McCarty of the international media frenzy that, a year later,
continues to swirl around her gift. "I wish I'd had a tablet to write it all down,
but I didn't know I was going to have all this to remember. I just thought it (the
attention) would go up and down in a few days."
It hasn't. Since
signing an irrevocable trust agreement to give the bulk of her life's savings for
scholarships for needy students, with preference to blacks, McCarty has been honored by:
* President Clinton
with the Presidential Citizens Medal at the White House
* Harvard
University with an honorary doctoral degree
* the National
Urban League with the Community Heroes Award
* UNESCO with its
Avicenna Medal. (The organization wanted to give it to her in Paris; but when she refused
to fly, they came to Hattiesburg.)
* the National
Caucus and Center on Black Aged Inc. with their Living Legacy Award
* the National
Federation of Black Women Business Owners with their Premier Black Woman of Courage Award
* J.C. Penney and
Essence Magazine with their 1996 Essence Award
* the Aetna
Foundation with its Achiever Award
* AARP with its
1996 Andrus Award
* being chosen to
carry the Olympic torch
McCarty, a small,
stooped woman who washed and ironed other people's clothes for more than 75 years, was
spotlighted on a Barbara Walters CBS-TV special as one of "The 10 Most Fascinating
People of 1995." She was featured on every major TV network, on the front page of the
New York Times and in nearly every major U.S. newspaper and magazine, as well as many
foreign publications and TV.
The rights have been
sold for a book on McCarty's life, which is expected out in November. And the awards -- or
"rewards," as McCarty calls them -- are still coming. So are the gifts, cards
and letters.
No small gifts
Now, it is a more
talkative McCarty who leads a visitor to the dining table in her modest home, left to her
by an uncle in 1947. The table is piled with white plastic bags and boxes, topped by a
white crocheted afghan made for her by an admirer.
A curly gray wig now
covers McCarty's straight, gray hair, and she is full of stories about her experiences of
the past year.
During that year,
McCarty, who had been outside Mississippi
only once in her first
87 years, traveled to New York City five times, Washington, D.C., three times, and to
Denver, Colo.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Cambridge, Mass.; Atlanta, Memphis and many other
cities.
"I've enjoyed all
of it," she says. "I can't tell you how much I enjoyed everything -- the
traveling and the scenery... and I've met so many wonderful people."
Afraid to fly, she at
first insisted on taking the train. Finally persuaded to fly by her traveling companion,
Jewel Tucker (USM President Aubrey Lucas' administrative secretary), she now says, "I
liked flying fine. It was real good."
She also likes the
change in herself.
"I used to
wouldn't talk," she says, her soft drawl compelling close attention. "I hardly
ever said anything. I lived by myself and didn't have anybody to talk to. But I really
enjoy talking now, and I'm more braver than I was."
She opens a box and
proudly displays a large framed picture -- "Miss Oseola's Gift" -- sent by a New
Jersey artist.
"See the iron and
the white shirt," she says, pointing, "and there is a basket of clothes ... and
some clothespins and clothesline ... and see, there's a rub board."
There also is a small
painting of a sweet potato pie -- "my favorite pie," she says.
She unfolds a letter
that accompanied the paintings.
"Please accept
these works of art that I exhibited in New Jersey where I live," wrote artist Russell
A. Murray. "Your act of faith and giving was an inspiration to me."
Murray's gifts and
letter are among hundreds McCarty has received since news of her gift was made public. She
has read each one, but now most of the awards, gifts and letters have been sent to the USM
Archives for safekeeping.
"I love 'em
all," she said, "but I just don't have room for them. I gave 'em to the school.
When I'm gone from this world never to come back, they'll have them to show the
students."
The most recent ones,
however, still cover the table and buffet in her dining room. McCarty, who wanted to be a
nurse but had to drop out of school in the sixth grade to care for a sick aunt, pulls from
a plastic bag the luxurious red suede-bound diploma from Harvard; a nurse's cap and
honorary diploma in nursing from Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis; a baseball cap from
Sisterhood Outreach in Memphis; keys to the cities of Memphis and Columbia, Miss.; and
assorted corsage ribbons.
To McCarty, they are
all the same. There are no big or small "rewards." She is as proud of the key to
the city of Columbia as of the honorary doctorate from Harvard.
She unrolls a white
banner lettered in blue that proclaims, "Welcome home! Congratulations, Dr.
McCarty!"
"They hung that
up by my house when I came back from Harvard," she says proudly. "There was
people all down the street and lots of cameras. It was just great."
From another plastic
bag she pulls her Olympic torch, a heavy pillar of wood and brass.
"I was between
two patrolmen on motorcycles," she recalls. "One said when I got tired to hand
it to him and to just put my hand under it until I got my distance. I couldn't run. I had
to walk. I have my arthritis in my foot and hands. But I just did the best I could."
She is unimpressed by
the long list of celebrities who have interviewed, introduced and otherwise honored her.
She had never heard of most of them, anyway.
She tells of a woman
singing to her at the National Urban League dinner in New York.
"She sang
`Amazing Grace.' Everybody had watered eyes. Her name was Alberta or something."
Roberta Flack?
"That's the
one," she says. "She's a songster."
She recalls visiting
with keynote speaker Hillary Clinton at the AARP Convention in Denver.
"She was nice.
She talked about how her husband was talking about me often, about how my gift will help
children."
Asked if she had met
the First Lady before, she replies matter-of-factly, "Yes ... when I was at her
house."
Little in McCarty's
house has changed in the year since her gift. The same pink bedspread is pinned neatly
over the living room sofa. The same spotless linoleum covers the floor. Despite
temperatures in the '90s, she still only turns on the window air conditioner when a
visitor comes. She has a new TV set, but she rarely watches it.
She still reads her
Bible daily, but the old, tattered one has been replaced many times over by new Bibles
sent by admirers.
"I got so many
Bibles," she said. "I gave some to my pastor, Rev. Woodrow Armstrong. Some were
in large print, so I gave them to old people that can't read that little print."
No regrets
Some people have
worried that the constant media demands, traveling and public appearances would be too
much for McCarty. But she says, "I'm not tired of it, as long as I'm able. It gives
me something to think about now that I'm retired."
After the announcement
of her gift, the USM Foundation led a drive to match it, and donations poured in from
across the nation. Although McCarty's gift will not officially go to the university until
after her death, more than $200,000 has been added to it to endow scholarships now.
The first recipient,
Stephanie Bullock of Hattiesburg, calls McCarty, who never married and is childless, her
"honorary grandmother." Recently, USM junior chemistry major Carletta Barnes,
also of Hattiesburg, became the second Oseola McCarty Scholarship
It is these
scholarships, not the media attention and honors, of which McCarty is most proud. Her
dream is to live to see Bullock and Barnes graduate.
"I didn't know
how to do it," she says, "but I wanted to fix up a scholarship at USM so young
people could get their education. You can't do nothing nowadays without an education. I
don't regret one penny I gave. I just wish I had more to give."
She can't understand
others' amazement at her saving so much from her meager earnings.
"It wasn't
hard," she says simply. "I didn't buy things I didn't need... The Lord helped
me, and he'll help you too... It's an honor to be blessed like that."
Persons who would
like to contribute to the Oseola McCarty Scholarship Fund may send checks to: Oseola
McCarty Scholarship, USM Foundation, Box 10026, Hattiesburg, MS 39406. ##### |