Grace Groner – Secret Millionaire – True Amazing Grace

Grace Groner was truly an Amazing Grace. The secret millionaire donated her $7 million fortune to Lake Forest College after she died in January at the age of 100. Groner’s estate stemmed from a $180 stock purchase she made in 1935. When the Lake Forest College president got the gift, he said, “Oh, my God”.

[Chicago Tribune]

The money is going into a foundation that will enable many of Lake Forest’s 1,300 students to pursue internships and study-abroad programs they otherwise might have had to forgo. It will be an appropriate memorial to a woman whose life was a testament to the higher possibilities of wealth.

“She did not have the (material) needs that other people have,” said William Marlatt, her attorney and longtime friend. “She could have lived in any house in Lake Forest but she chose not to. … She enjoyed other people, and every friend she had was a friend for who she was. They weren’t friends for what she had.”

Groner was born in a small Lake County farming community, but by the time she was 12 both of her parents had died. She was taken in by George Anderson, a member of one of Lake Forest’s leading families and an apparent friend to Groner’s parents.

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