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Map of Brooklyn, New York

motivational

She left $22 million to women she never met

Brooklyn, New York · 17 July 2026

She never got a raise. So she taught herself.

Anne Scheiber retired from the Internal Revenue Service in 1944 with $5,000 in savings and no promotions after 23 years of work. By the time she died in January 1995 at age 101, she had turned that money into $22 million. Scheiber, born in Brooklyn in 1893, taught herself the stock market and never stopped. "She did nothing but study the market," said Ben Clark, her lawyer. She bought into more than 100 companies, including Coca-Cola, and lived by a plain rule: reinvest your dividends and rarely sell. Through all of it she stayed in a rent-stabilized studio on West 56th Street, walking everywhere in the same black coat and matronly hat. Her broker, William Fay, said she was never looking for a quick buck. She left the entire fortune to Yeshiva University for a scholarship supporting Jewish women. It is still handing out money to people she never met.

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