Marshall Sanford: “I learned yesterday afternoon of an awfully interesting woman, a woman by the name of Osceola McCarthy of Hattiesburg…”

“I learned yesterday afternoon of an awfully interesting woman, a woman by the name of Osceola McCarthy of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I think to a great degree she represents what the American dream is all about, because the American dream is built around the very simple idea of being able to get ahead, of actually being able to build something, of actually being able to build wealth. Because what is interesting about Osceola McCarthy, a woman of age 87, is that she worked her entire lifetime as a washer woman. Yet toward the end of her life, she went to the local college and said, ``I'd like to help out.'' They were thinking, well, maybe she will give us a cloth doily or maybe a bath mat or something that she had made. Instead she gives them a couple of hundred thousand dollars. The New York Times found this story so interesting that it actually went down and asked her, ``How did you end up with a couple of hundred thousand dollars only working as a washer woman?'' She said, ``Well, I put a little bit away whenever I got a chance, and I put it away for a long time.''”