An Army of Normal Folks - Oseola McCarty: The Generous Washerwoman

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

For Shop Talk, Coach Bill tells the story of Oseola McCarty, the washerwoman who donated $150,000 to a school she never visited.  Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney. Welcome to Shop Talk number 48. Welcome into the shop. I did not ring that bell. Alex's son, George, is in the shop. What's up, George? What's up, George? You gotta say something, dude.

Say hi. Say hi, louder. Hi, how are you? Do you like the shop? It's nice, isn't it? Actually, ask George, what question did you ask Mr. Bill coming in? Don't be shy. How many pieces of lumber?

Yeah? Are on the yard, and we figured about 600,000, right? So it's a big shop, isn't it? George rang our bell, everybody. George is Alex's youngest child, and he's the official bell ringer today. George, you're talking to thousands of people right now. You know what we're going to say? Welcome to the shop.

Welcome to the shop. Today, we are going to talk about... generosity, humility, and how no matter who you are or where you come from, you can be dignified in your generosity and your humility. And Ocello McCarty and her generosity teaches us a story right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human. John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian, and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight. You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story.

John has never been anything but gay, but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Polk story on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. And the winner of the IHeart Podcast Award is, you can decide who takes home the 26 IHeart Podcast Awards podcast of the year by voting at IHeartPodcastawards.com now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at IHeartPodcastawards.com.

Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Back in 2016, we said, let's do a podcast. Little did we know it would last 10 years. I mean, but here's the thing. Stay out of the forest. You're in a cult. Call your dad. This is terrible. Keep going.

You guys stay sexy. Don't get murdered. Elvis, do you want a cookie? A cookie? My favorite murder turns 10 this month. Join us for new episodes every Thursday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to my favorite murder. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Goodbye. What if mind control is real? If you can control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult?

NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games. a new podcast exploring NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, starting January 20th. Welcome back, everybody. I'm here with George, and we're to talk. The other siblings are going to feel real left out right now.

They're sitting in the room and you have not even acknowledged their presence. George is the official bell ringer, but the truth is in the shop today, we have all of Alex's children. We've been introduced to George. Way too many of them. Yeah, way too many of them. We've been introduced to George. Introduce yourselves, ladies. You got to be loud, okay.

So there you have it. All four kids are in the shop today, and we're going to talk about Oceola McCarty, a story I promise you, you've probably, never heard. And we got the story from the philanthropy roundtable. Oceola McCarty was born in the world in 1908, and it was a raw start. She was conceived when her mother was raped on a wooden path in rural Mississippi as she returned from tending to a sick relative. Oceola was raised in Hattisburg, Mississippi, by her grandmother and aunt who cleaned houses,

cooked and took in laundry. As a child, she would come home from elementary school in iron clothes, stashing the money she earned in her doll buggy. The three women relied completely on each other, and when the aunt returned from a hospitalization unable to work, Ocella dropped out of sixth grade to care for and take up her work as a washerwoman. She never returned to school. work became the great good of her life explained one person who knew her she found beauty in its movement and pride in its provisions she was happy to have it and gave herself over to it with abandon McCarty put it this way I knew there were people who didn't have to work as hard as I did but it didn't make me feel sad I loved to work and when you love to do anything those things

don't bother you sometimes I work straight through two or three days. I had goals I was working toward. That motivated me and I was able to push hard. Work as a blessing. As long as I'm living, I want to be working at something. Just because I'm old doesn't mean I can't work.

And hers was not a standard issue job. McCarty scrubbed her laundry by hand on a rubboard. She did try an automatic washer and dryer in the 60s but found that the washing machine didn't rinse enough and the dryer turned the whites yellow.

after years of boiling clothes and then doing four freshwater rinses, that wasn't good enough to meet her high standards. The machine was almost immediately retired, and she went back to her made right scrubbered, water drawn from a nearby fire hydrant, and 100 feet of open-air clotheslines. Asked to describe her typical day, she answered, I would go outside and start a fire under my washpot, then I would soak, wash, and boil a bundle of clothes. Then I would rub them, wrench them, rub them again, starch them on the line. After I had all the clean clothes on the line, I would start on the next batch. I would wash all day, and in the evening I'd iron until 11. I loved the work, the bright fire, wrenching the wet, clean cloth, white shirt shining on the line.

This extraordinary worth of ethic pursued straight through to her retirement at But 86. Apparently produced results or customers appreciated. In 1996, Hattisburg businessman Paul Loughlin wrote, I know one person who still has several shirts that were last cleaned almost two years ago by Miss McCarthy. He said that he does not intend to wear them. He just takes them out periodically to look at them and to enjoy the crisp fabric and scent. McCarty concludes Loughlin was a walking,

object lesson that all work can be performed with dignity and infused with quality. Hard work gives your life meeting, stated McCarty. Everyone needs to work hard at something to feel good about themselves. Every job can be done well and every day has its satisfactions. If you want to feel proud of yourself, you've got to do things you can be proud of. Shortly after she retired, McCarty did something that made many Americans very proud of her. She had begun to save almost as soon as she started working at the age of eight. As the money pulled up in her doll buggy, the very young girl took action.

I went to the bank and deposited. Didn't know how to do it. Went there by myself. Didn't tell my mom and them I was going. I commenced to save money. I never would take any of it out. I just put it in. It's not the ones that make the big money, but the ones who know how to save who get ahead.

you got to leave it alone long enough for it to increase. Of course, that requires self-control and modest appetites. My secret was contentment. I was happy with what I had, said McCarty. These sturdy habits ran together, excuse me, these sturdy habits ran together to produce McCarty's final secret. When she retired in 1995, her hands painfully swollen with arthritis,

this washerwoman, who had been paid, and little piles of coins and dollar bills her entire life, who dropped out of school in sixth grade, had $280,000 in the bank. Even more startling, she decided to give most of it away, not as a request, but immediately. Setting aside just enough to live on, McCarty donated $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi to fund scholarships for worthy but needy students seeking the education she never had. When they found out what she'd done over 600 men and women in Hattiesburg and beyond made

donations that more than tripled her original endowment. Today, the university presents several full tuition McCarty scholarships every year. Like a lot of philanthropists, McCarty wanted the satisfaction of giving while living, and she succeeded. The first beneficiary of her gift, a Haddisburg girl named Stephanie Bullock, was present of her senior class and had supportive parents, but also a twin brother and not enough family income to send them both to college. With her McCarty scholarship, Bullock enrolled at Southern Miss and promptly adopted McCarty as a surrogate grandmother. Like a lot of philanthropist, McCarty felt a power impulsion to act in her home region. When asked why she picked Southern Miss, she replied,

because it's here. The campus that she had never visited, not once in her life's step foot on, was located only a couple blocks from her home. Prior to making her gift, Oceola's one long trip had been to Niagara Falls. Here's her recollection. Law.

The sound of the water was like the sound of the world coming to an end. In the evening, we spread blankets on the ground and ate picnic dinners. I met people from all over the world. On the return trip, we stopped in Chicago. I liked it, but was ready to get back home. I missed the place where I belong, where I was needed and making a contribution.

No place compares to the peace of earth where you put down your roots. Like a lot of faithful philanthropists, Oslo McCarthy, was forgiving. Reminded that the university she was giving her money to had been white only until 1960s, she answered, they used to not let color people go there, but now they do, and I think they should have it. Like a lot of philanthropist, O'Shea O'Shea McCarthy had a strong and virtuous character and good habits. She lived frugally, walking almost everywhere, including more than a mile to get her groceries. When she stayed in a hotel for the first time after coming to public attention,

she made the bed before check it out. In addition to the dignity of work, McCarthy's satisfactions were the timeless ones, faith in God, family closeness, and love of locale. One friend described McCarthy's face as simple as the sermon on the Mount and as difficult to practice. She was baptized at age 13, dunked in a local pond while dressed in all white, a mixed blessing for someone who washed her clothes by hands. I start each day on my knees saying the Lord's prayer. Then I get busy about my work.

McCarthy told one interviewer, you have to accept God the best way you know how, and then he'll show himself to you. And the more you serve them, the more able you are to serve them. Some people make a lot of noise about what's wrong with the world, and they are usually blaming somebody else. I think people who don't like the way things are

need to look at themselves first. They need to get right with God, and changed their own ways. If everybody did that, we'd be all right. Like a lot of philanthropists, Oscello McCarty, knew that giving is its own pleasure. When a journalist from People magazine asked her why she didn't spend the money she'd saved on herself, she answered with a smile that thanks to the pleasure that comes from making a gift, I am spending it on myself. I'm proud that I worked hard and that my money will help young people who worked hard to deserve it. I'm proud that I'm leaving something positive of this world. My only regret is that I

didn't have more to give. Like a lot of philanthropist McCarthy hoped to inspire others to similar acts, and she did. In addition to the local outpouring that more than tripled her endowment, cable TV mogul Ted Turner decided to donate a billion dollars to charity after hearing her story. A billion dollars. He was quoted in New York. York Times saying, if that little woman can give away everything she has, then I can give a billion. And like a lot of flanceless, Ocelain McCarty knew she didn't have to save the whole world. She cast her buckets down and fixed what was at hand. I can't do everything, but I can do something to help somebody. And what I can do, I will do. Oceli McCarty deserves to be

recognized not only for our own accomplishments, but as a representative of millions, of other everyday Americans who give humbly of themselves year after year. Sounds kind of like a army of normal folks she represents, Alex. Amen, brother. As I read that to you guys, I challenge you to go to Google and look this woman up. It is the story of a washerwoman with a sixth grade education who worked from sun up to sundown

who gave of herself and at the end of the day saved over a quarter of a million dollars and quarters and dollars first in her buggy and then in the bank that gave to a university so that people that came from where she came could work hard and have an education. If you do not think that average Americans can make a massive difference, then you don't know the likes of Oceola McCarty. So shop talk number 48 is about generosity and humility and doing what you can, where you can, and recognizing that anything you do,

if you do it with all you got and you give and you're humble and you're generous, you never know how massive your contribution society can be. And if a sixth grade educated black woman from Hattisburg, Mississippi, who wouldn't have even been admitted to the university prior to 1960 that she gave her money to, can change the world? What can each of us do? The other thing I really like that she said is after visiting Niagara Falls in Chicago,

I'm saying, yeah, it was nice, but I want to be back in my little plot of land. Like God's given us this plot of land that we're all called to, and what can we, you know, do there? And it's such a beautiful sentiment of hers. Yeah, it reminds me of the story. Just grow where you are. Yeah. And that's what she did.

So shop talk number 48 is a call to me and to all of you. Recognize that you can do phenomenal things. You don't have to have great wealth. You don't have to have great education. You just be a normal person and do what you can where you are. and you can and change the world and inspire others. Maybe even a billionaire. I forgot about the Ted Turner part of the story.

Yeah, that was fascinating. I mean, this woman eventually had Ted Turner give a billion dollars because of her. It's pretty amazing. All right. So if you like this shop talk, rate it and review it, share your friends and on social. Join the Army at normalfolks. dot us become a premium member there and if uh you want to email me email me anytime at bill at normal folks dot us if you have an idea for a shop talk and i think we have something to add i'll

certainly take it up if not i will always respond hey i did that you crushed it was that about right yeah all right that's it that's it and uh you're just trying to show off to my kids that you know what you're doing. That's it. Me, Alex, and the four kids are leaving the shop. And, uh, you think he's ready? Do you know what he, I don't think he's ready to know what he's about to do. He's about to do it. So it's time to go, George. What are you going to do? Yeah, that's right. We'll see you next week. I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian and traveled the world telling my story. of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight.

You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story. John has never been anything that gay, but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Polk story on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the winner of the IHeart Podcast Award is, you can decide who takes home the 2026 IHard Podcast Awards, Podcasts. of the year by voting at iHeartpodcastawards.com now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at iHeartpodcastawards.com. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine

when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet.

I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Back in 2016, we said, let's do a podcast. Little did we know it would last 10 years. I mean, but here's the thing. Stay out of the forest. You're in a cult.

Call your dad. This is terrible. You guys, stay sexy. Don't get murdered. Elvis, do you want a cookie? A cookie? My favorite murder turns 10 this month. Join us for new episodes every Thursday on the Exactly Right Network.

Listen to my favorite murder on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone? to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast. or wherever you get your podcasts, starting January 20th. This is an IHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.