Perhaps the only clue that Ronald Read, a Vermont gas station attendant and janitor who died last year at age 92, had been quietly amassing an $8 million fortune was his habit of reading the Wall Street Journal, his friends and family say.
It was not until last week that the residents of Brattleboro would discover Read's little secret. That is when the local library and hospital received the bulk of his estate, built up over the years with savvy stock picks.
"Investing and cutting wood, he was good at both of them," his lawyer Laurie Rowell said on Wednesday, noting that he read the Journal every day.