The secret millionaire: mobile-home caretaker leaves $3.8m to New Hampshire town | New Hampshire | The Guardian
Hinsdale will utilize the money left very frugally as Mr Holt did, said Kathryn Lynch, town administrator.
Holt s best friend Smith, a former state legislator who became the executor of Holt s estate, said he had learned about his fortune in recent years.
He knew Holt, who died in June at age 82, had varied interests, such as collecting hundreds of model cars and train sets that filled his rooms, covered the couch and extended into a shed. He also collected books about history, with Henry Ford and the second world war among his favorite topics. Holt had an extensive record collection too, including Handel and Mozart.
Smith also knew that Holt, who earlier in life had worked as a production manager at a grain mill that closed in nearby Brattleboro, Vermont, invested his money. Holt would find a quiet place to sit near a brook and study financial publications.
Holt confided to Smith that his investments were doing better than he had ever expected and wasn t sure what to to do with the money. Smith suggested that he remember the town.
I was sort of dumbfounded when I found out that all of it went to the town, he said.
One of Holt s first investments into a mutual fund was in communications, Smith said before the advent of cellphones.
Holt s sister, 81-year-old Alison Holt of Laguna Woods, California, said she knew her brother invested. She recalled that not wasting money and investing were important to their father.
Geoffrey had a learning disability. He had dyslexia, she said. He was very smart in certain ways. When it came to writing or spelling, he was a lost cause. And my father was a professor. So, I think that Geoff felt like he was disappointing my dad. But maybe socking away all that money was a way to compete.
Good man.