Oseola McCarty and the Gift of a Lifetime

Oseola McCarty (1908-1999) lived quietly in her humble Hattiesburg, Mississippi, home. Young Oseola dropped out of elementary school to stay home and care for an ailing relative and to work as a laundress, a trade that defined her for the better part of a century. Throughout her years, she harbored dreams of going back to school, but those dreams were unfulfilled. After never marrying or having children of her own, Oseola McCarty gave away the lion's share of her life's savings, $150,000, to the University of Southern Mississippi to support scholarships, so others could realize the dream that she could not. That decision changed her remaining years in ways she never dreamed possible. This humble washerwoman, who spent much of her free time reading her Bible, rarely watching the black-and-white TV she owned, and only turning on her air conditioner for visitors, became the center of attention for a world stunned by her selfless gift. She seemed to disdain material wealth or worldly pleasures of any sort, anchored by her strong belief in God and a work ethic that seemed quaint in the get-rich-quick scheming of modern society. Her act of generosity propelled her to a visit at the White House with President Bill Clinton, who honored her with the President's Citizen Medal, one of multiple recognitions at home and abroad for her gift to USM. Within four years of "The Gift," as it came to be known, Oseola McCarty succumbed to cancer. She lay in state at the university's Administration Building for her funeral, where hundreds of mourners filed past her casket to pay their last respects. Today, as her cousin Mary McCarty so aptly stated, "She lives on in the students who benefited from her gift."