When someone stole Grace Groner’s car, she did not replace it. She just walked, according to the Grace Elizabeth Groner Foundation. She also kept gardening into her later years with the help of a walker. With how frugal she lived, her accumulated wealth eventually allowed her to pay it back to her alma mater.
Groner was born in 1909 on a small farm in rural Lake County, Illinois, and she was orphaned at 12. She graduated from Lake Forest College with an English degree in 1931, then went to work at Abbott Laboratories, where she was executive secretary to the president, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy. She stayed 43 years, per ABC7 Chicago.
In 1935, she bought three shares of Abbott stock at $60 apiece, per Cabot Wealth Network, for $180 in all. She never sold, and she reinvested the dividends. By 2010, the foundation says, those three shares had split into more than 100,000 shares worth $7.2 million.
But if you looked at how she lived her life, you’d never guess her net worth amounted to millions. She lived in a modest one-bedroom cottage and spent decades volunteering at First Presbyterian Church of Lake Forest, ABC7 reported. “She was one of the most unassuming people you would ever meet,” Lake Forest College President Stephen Schutt said.
Groner died in January 2010 at age 100. Before then, she had set up the Grace Elizabeth Groner Foundation, and she left it her estate. ABC7 called it the largest gift in the college’s history, and the college’s announcement said it would fund internships and study abroad. Earlier, she had also donated $180,000 to the college for a scholarship program, CBS News reported, though the coverage does not say when she gave it or whether it came in a single gift.
Today, the money goes toward service learning. Students who receive Groner support volunteer three to six hours a week with approved nonprofits in Lake County, and those who finish two semesters of local service can move on to national and international opportunities, according to the college’s Groner Foundation page. The foundation’s 2024 tax filing shows about $280,000 in grants, including service learning for six students with Falmouth Heritage Renewal and an internship at Colonial Williamsburg, per Grantmakers.io.
Her cottage is part of the legacy, too. It is now called Grace’s Cottage, and each year it hosts two female seniors from the college, per the foundation.