Long Beach woman who lived frugal lifestyle leaves behind $4.5M

When Verna Oller was living at the Circle of Life retirement home in Long Beach, friends told her her coat was looking pretty ragged.

So she took a bus to a thrift shop and bought a new coat, for $2. It was so cheap because the lining had ripped out. Oller detached the zipper from the lining and used it to lace her shoes.

Why spend $2 for laces, she told her friends, when the zipper worked just fine.

She told Andrea Noonan, who heads Circle of Life, that she'd never been to a hairdresser in her life because it was cheaper to cut her own hair, or to buy a wig, as she did in her later years. She would clip coupons, and dig up flower bulbs from neighboring gardens and plant them at Circle of Life.

So when she died May 10, at age 98, no one had any idea of the legacy she would leave behind. Oller, through her careful investments and frugal lifestyle, left behind $4.5 million.

She donated $500,000 to a public-school endowment and another $500,000 to a foundation to be used for student scholarships and grants to teachers. The rest she left to the city of Long Beach to build an indoor swimming pool.

Oller made her money by saving and investing what she and her husband earned and from a sizable inheritance from her sister and a bequest from an uncle.

"She was a very interesting person. Her whole culture didn't involve spending money, it was more about being extremely cautious with her money," said Oller's attorney Guy Glenn, one of the few in Long Beach who knew of her wealth.

"Her story is really unique; I've been along for the ride for a long time. (Her money) was a deep, dark secret. She didn't want anyone coming looking for money."

Glenn said Oller was a student of finance. He would take her The Wall Street Journal after he'd finish reading it, and she'd pore over the financial information. "She did a lot of research," Glenn said, "and was a total equity investor."

Before she moved into Circle of Life, she lived alone in a house with a woodstove, where she would haul the wood in a wheelbarrow into her 90s. She didn't want to pay to heat her house, Glenn said.

When deciding where to leave her wealth, she first thought she'd pay for a new library in Long Beach. But then she decided she wanted something that would benefit everybody, from infants to the elderly, so she settled on a swimming pool. She took a bus to Astoria, Ore., and asked a lot of questions about how much its pool cost.

The question is whether the city of Long Beach will accept it. While Oller is paying to have a pool built, there's no money to maintain it, which could be tough on the financially strapped city.

City Manager Gene Miles figures the pool will be built — the closest public pool to Long Beach is the 45-minute drive to Astoria — but it has to go through a committee. It won't happen quickly.

"It came as a total shock," Miles said. "No one had a clue. This is not something she wore on her sleeve by a longshot. No one had any idea of the kind of money she'd leave to the school district or the city."

Bob Andrew, mayor of Long Beach, agreed it will take some study before the city accepts Oller's money. "It's a very generous offer, and we don't know in a small community what it takes to build the pool," he said. "We have to explore the process and talk to our citizenry. It's a wonderful surprise that someone felt that strongly about the community."

He said he had no idea Oller had accumulated so much money or that she was leaving it to the city and school district. And Andrew, who owns a bakery in town, said he didn't even know Oller.

"A bakery would be a luxury she wouldn't spend on herself," he said.

Carolyn Glenn, the lawyer's wife, was close to Oller, and the Glenns' children considered her a grandmother.

"This is an incredible story," she said. "You will never meet another Verna. She really was one of a kind, and the best thing about her is she was totally happy."

She said Oller, who was childless, was humble and never sought public recognition, shocking townspeople when they learned about her bequest.

"I call her the original dream lady. She grew her own vegetables and was organic before the word 'organic.' She recycled everything."

She would eat meals at a local senior center, where she would get her meals free because she volunteered there, then would bring extra food home and distribute it to others.

Sydney Stevens, a Long Beach writer who has chronicled Oller's life, said Oller's husband died in 1964. When they married in 1932, her husband had $2 cash, $46.75 in the bank and $20 worth of prepaid coal oil.

Oller worked picking cranberries, shucking oysters and filleting fish, working until she was 76. The day she quit she sold her car.

In 1979, said Stevens, 15 years after her husband's death, Oller began investing. At first she went to a stockbroker in Astoria, but soon discovered she could manage her investments on her own.

"The fact she got interested in investing and learned the process on her own, that was the amazing piece," Stevens said.

Stevens said Oller's investment began with $10,000 she and her husband had saved. She received a bequest from an uncle of $3,000 in 1964 and $600,000 from her sister. Oller told Stevens it wasn't her money, so she didn't feel right about spending it.

Guy Glenn said Oller told him that when she died she didn't want a funeral or even an obituary notice in the newspaper. He wrote a death notice anyway.

"She said that all cost money, and she didn't want anybody to feel like they had to do anything for her," Glenn said. "She was very independent."

Noonan, with Circle of Life, said that after Oller died, the staff was cleaning out her room and were surprised to see what she had left behind: an unopened bag of brand-new shoe laces.

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com