What does Jack MacDonald's remarkable story say about the USA, its capitalism and associated value systems in 2013?
(via Felix Salmon): http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022337460_childrensdonationxml.html ----------------------------------------------snip When he spotted a bargain price on frozen orange juice one year, Jack MacDonald bought so many cans that he had to purchase a new stand-alone freezer just to hold them all. He clipped coupons, wore sweaters with holes in them to make people think he was poor and took a bus — not a cab — to the University of Washington when he attended an alumni luncheon in his later years. Only a tight circle of family and friends knew that MacDonald was nurturing a secret fortune. When he died in September at the age of 98, he left in his will a $187.6 million charitable trust to Seattle Children’s Research Institute, the University of Washington School of Law and the Salvation Army. [...] In July, MacDonald took a serious fall and was rushed to Harborview Medical Center, where doctors began treating him for a head injury that would eventually end his life. Even in the middle of the emergency, MacDonald had the presence of mind to insist that the neurosurgeon treat him with generic drugs. “It’s so Jack,” said Dennis, his stepdaughter. “The neurosurgeon is trying to keep the man alive, and he says, ‘I don’t want those expensive brand-name drugs.’ ” Dennis said she helped MacDonald write his obituary three years earlier, when he had a health scare, and he told her that he wanted to be remembered as a philanthropist. “He felt really good about what he was doing with his money,” Dennis said, “and our family feels good about what he’s doing with his money.”
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