One Fat Cat
Just a few years ago Tommaso was a stray cat living on the streets of Rome. Now, he’s the richest feline in the world. When his rescuer, Maria Assunta, the wealthy widow of a property tycoon, died in 2011, she left her entire estate to Tommaso. The $13.3 million in cash and properties in Rome, Milan and Calabria, is being managed by Assunta’s former nurse, who promised her employer that she’d spoil the one-time alley cat with all the finest feline comforts. Tommaso’s fortune makes him the third wealthiest pet, behind Kalu the chimp, who was left $80 million by his owner, and Gunther IV, a German shepherd who inherited $372 million.
Photo via Daily Telegraph
Quite the Tip
In 1992 then 17-year-old Cara Wood was working as a waitress at Dink’s Colonial Restaurant outside of Cleveland. Customer Bill Cruxton, a widower with no children, took to sitting in Cara’s section every day. They became friends, and Cara began helping Cruxton around the house and running errands for him. The old man appreciated her kindness so much that he rewrote his will to make her—not his sister—the main beneficiary. Cruxton died at age 82, and the high school senior was awarded $500,000. She invested in the stock market and then lived off of the earnings, which also paid for college.
Photo via WKYC
The Reclusive Heiress
Huguette Clark’s net worth was estimated at $400 million; she owned a 42-room apartment on New York's Fifth Avenue, an oceanfront estate in Santa Barbara and a country manor in Connecticut. For the last 20 years of her life, Clark cut off all contact with her family and lived in almost complete isolation. When she died in 2011 at 104, she left the bulk of her fortune to charity: her California estate became a museum, and her collection of art, instruments and rare books was given to a foundation to promote the arts. Hadassah Peri, Clark’s nurse, walked away with a cool $37 million, while the copper heiress’s family was awarded zilch.
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Campus Grandpa
Bruce Lindsay ate lunch in the cafeteria at Vanguard University in Orange County, Calif., every single day for several decades. A child of The Depression, he was extremely frugal and loved its $1.25 all-you-can-eat meals. Students and staff, who often chatted with Lindsay, referred to him affectionately as “campus grandpa.” Unmarried, childless and evidently not close with his other relatives, the school became his surrogate family. When he passed away in 2009 at 79, Lindsay left his whole fortune—reportedly a couple of million—to Vanguard, who used part of the money to revamp the cafeteria.
Photo via NBC News
The Modest Millionaire
Most of John White’s neighbors in Somerset, England had no idea that he was a millionaire. The one-time Royal Air Force kitchen hand, who had made most of his money on stock in supermarket giant Tesco, lived humbly. When he died in 2007 at age 94, his will specified that the vast majority of his fortune—roughly $3.2 million—should go to a number of churches, children’s groups and schools. The only beneficiary who knew Mr. White was his local Methodist church; the rest of the organizations had never heard of the generous man. Less than 2 percent of the fortune, about $64,000, went to John’s family.
Photo via Daily Mail
D.C.'s Philanthropist
When railroad heir Richard A. Herman passed away at age 100, he left nearly his entire fortune to the city he loved, Washington, D.C. Ironically, the city had no idea that the shy, low-profile millionaire even existed. Though he had donated to organizations before, he had never attended the associated social functions. The $28 million Herman gave to Family Matters, a social service organization for needy families, was more than double its normal yearly budget. An arts patron, he also designated that $15 million be split between the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera.
Photo via The Washington Post
Hometown Hero
Though he spent very little time in Elkhart, Ind., after his childhood, David Gundlach left $150 million to the small town in which he was raised. After leaving Indiana as a teen, Gundlach made his fortune in the U.K., where he built a prosperous car insurance business that he sold in 2006. Between 2006 and 2013, he bought mansions across the country, financed a Hollywood film and tried his hand (unsuccessfully) at day trading. When the unmarried Gundlach died at age 56 of a heart attack this past September, his will stipulated that his entire estate, including 11 homes, 15 cars and valuable art, go to Elkhart, much to the town’s surprise and delight.
Picked at Random
Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral de Camara claimed aristocratic Portugese lineage and possessed plenty of money but had few friends and no children. So, when he wrote his will more than 20 years ago, he decided to pick his beneficiaries at random from the Lisbon phone book. When Luis died in 2007, the 70 individuals he had selected were alerted that they could claim their share of the estate. With a 12-room apartment in Lisbon, a house near the northern town of Guimaraes, a few robust bank accounts, a luxury car and two motorbikes to his name, Luis Carlos's heirs walked away with several thousand euros each.
Photo via Outside The Beltway
The Great Stork Derby
Canadian lawyer and all-around prankster Charles Vance Millar had a number of unusual bequests in his will. He left his vacation home in Jamaica to three friends who disliked one another and specified that they could only live there if all three of them did so together. An avid horse racing fan, he left $25,000 in Ontario Jockey Club stock to several anti-horse-racing activists. Millar stipulated that the remainder of his fortune was to be liquidated 10 years after his death and given to the Toronto woman who had borne the most children in that amount of time. In 1936, four women who had nine kids apiece received $125,000 each. Two other moms were awarded $12,500: one had birthed 10 babies, two of which were stillborn, and the other had delivered 10 but wasn’t married (a no-no at the time).
Photo via blogTO
A Strange Request
In 1949, Arizona miner James Kidd disappeared. Seven years later he was declared legally dead. In 1963 his handwritten will was found. Though neither religious nor scientific, James wanted his entire $275,000 estate to go toward “research for some scientific proof of a soul of a human body which leaves at death." He was hoping that someone could even capture a photograph of the occurrence. The court dismissed over 100 petitions, including a handful from distant relatives, ultimately awarding the money to the American Society for Psychical Research in 1971. Though the organization has yet to succeed, Kidd’s will has gone down in history as one of the all-time oddest.
Photo via Google Books
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