A Blue-Collar Worker Who Never Finished School Gave $150,000 So Others Could

In 1995, an 87-year-old woman from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, sat down with a bank officer to decide what she wanted to do with her life savings. Her name was Oseola McCarty, and she had earned nearly every dollar washing and ironing other people’s clothes.

She had never finished elementary school, never held a high-paying job, and spent most of her life living in a modest home. But after decades of putting away whatever money she could spare, she had accumulated a remarkable amount of savings.

The bank officer placed ten dimes on the table in front of her. Each dime represented 10 percent of her money.

He asked Oseola how she wanted to divide it. She set aside one dime for her church and three more for relatives. Then she pushed the remaining six dimes toward the University of Southern Mississippi.

Those six dimes represented $150,000. Oseola wanted the money to help young people who couldn’t afford a college education. She knew what it was like to want an education and not be able to get one.

A Childhood Spent Working

Oseola was born in 1908 and grew up in Hattiesburg, where she began helping her mother, grandmother, and aunt with laundry work when she was just eight years old. The family washed, dried, and ironed clothes for other people, earning money from households that needed help with their laundry.

Even as a little girl, Oseola had a habit of saving some of what she earned. She tucked her money into a doll buggy, keeping it safe instead of spending it. She also enjoyed school and dreamed of becoming a nurse someday.

But when her aunt became seriously ill, Oseola left school in the sixth grade to help care for her. She expected to return eventually, but that never happened. Instead, she continued working alongside her family, washing and ironing clothes to make a living.

As the years passed, laundry became her full-time occupation. She worked long hours, handling clothes, scrubbing, washing, and ironing for customers around Hattiesburg.

The work was physically demanding, and she earned relatively little compared with people in more established professions. But Oseola was careful with her money.

She lived simply, avoided unnecessary purchases, and regularly deposited part of her earnings into her bank account. She didn’t have an elaborate investment strategy or a business bringing in thousands of dollars every month.

She simply kept saving. For approximately 75 years, she continued taking in laundry until arthritis made the work too painful. By the time she retired, the savings she had built through decades of small deposits had grown far beyond what most people imagined.

Ten Dimes and a Remarkable Decision

When Oseola began working with bank advisers to organize her finances, she knew she wanted some of her money to benefit others. She cared about her church and family, but she also remembered how much she had wanted to stay in school.

The University of Southern Mississippi was located in her hometown. She knew young people who wanted to attend college but couldn’t afford the tuition.

She decided she could do something about that. With the help of her advisers and attorney, Oseola arranged for 60 percent of her savings to support scholarships at the university. The result was the Oseola McCarty Scholarship Endowment, established through her extraordinary $150,000 gift in 1995.

For a woman who had spent her working life washing other people’s clothes, it was an enormous sum of money. And she was giving it away.

When the university announced the donation, the story attracted national attention. Reporters wanted to meet the quiet woman who had accumulated so much money through laundry work and then chosen to use most of it to help students.

Oseola didn’t see the decision as particularly complicated. She had enough for her own needs, and she knew an education could change someone else’s future. Soon, other people began donating to the scholarship fund as well.

From a Laundry Room to National Recognition

As Oseola’s story spread, honors and invitations began arriving from organizations across the country. In June 1996, Harvard University awarded her an honorary doctorate. Two years later, the University of Southern Mississippi presented her with the first honorary degree in its history.

President Bill Clinton honored her with the Presidential Citizens Medal, recognizing the generosity that had inspired people throughout the United States. She also received the United Nations’ Avicenna Medal for her commitment to education.

For someone who had left school in the sixth grade, receiving honorary degrees from major universities was an extraordinary experience. But Oseola was still the same woman who had spent decades washing and ironing clothes in Hattiesburg.

She continued living modestly, grateful that her savings were being used to help young people attend college. Oseola died in 1999, four years after announcing her gift. The scholarship fund continued operating, providing financial assistance to students who might otherwise have struggled to afford their education. And the donations kept coming.

Her $150,000 Became $1 Million

In March 2025, the University of Southern Mississippi announced that Oseola’s scholarship endowment had reached a major milestone. The fund had grown to $1 million.

Approximately 1,400 donors had contributed over the years, building on the original $150,000 gift she had made three decades earlier. By that point, 133 students had received assistance through the scholarship program.

With the fund reaching $1 million, the university announced that it could support 20 Oseola McCarty Scholars annually, providing $2,000 to each student. The program also offered mentoring, career planning, financial education, and other support to help students succeed.

One scholarship recipient had a particularly meaningful connection to Oseola’s story. Her name was Destiny Johnson, and she had graduated with a nursing degree.

Oseola had once dreamed of becoming a nurse herself, but she was forced to leave school to care for her aunt. Decades later, the scholarship she established had helped another young woman accomplish that very goal.

Destiny spoke about how learning of Oseola’s unfinished dream had encouraged her to complete her own nursing education.

The House Where It All Began

In March 2026, another part of Oseola’s legacy opened to the public. Her former home in Hattiesburg had been preserved and turned into the Oseola McCarty House Museum, allowing visitors to see the place where she had lived and worked for so many years.

Inside, exhibits tell the story of her daily life, including the laundry work that supported her and the careful saving that eventually made her donation possible.

By the museum’s opening, the University of Southern Mississippi reported that 142 students had benefited from the scholarship endowment. The fund had grown considerably since Oseola sat down with those ten dimes in 1995, and it was continuing to help new students every year. She had spent most of her life washing and ironing clothes, putting aside whatever money she could spare.

She never got to become the nurse she had dreamed of being.

But because of her, someone else did.