In April, I took the bonds to Marshalltown Savings Bank in a shoebox, with Ruth’s letter folded inside the lid.
Mr. Okafor, the grandson of the man who had registered them, was a young, serious, freckled man in a gray suit. He received the shoebox at his desk with something close to reverence.
“My grandfather talked about your mother-in-law,” he said. “The lady with the egg money. First Monday of December, every year, for twenty-six years. He said she always paid in small bills, folded flat.”
He spent an hour on it. He examined each bond under a lamp and ran each one through the Treasury’s redemption calculator, one by one, with a small, soft beep.
Then he pulled up the savings certificate account. As the payable-on-death beneficiary, all I needed to claim it was my ID and a certified copy of Ruth’s death certificate, which Mr. Pruitt had given me.
At the end, Mr. Okafor sat back.
“Mrs. Haddon, the twenty-seven bonds come to $31,214.40, including the interest they earned. The savings certificate account, with interest, is $17,145.72.” He wrote the total on a slip of paper and turned it toward me. “Together, that’s $48,360.12.”
I stared at it.
“That’s more than I thought.”
“Some of the early bonds were bought when interest rates were much higher. They’ve been compounding for decades.” He paused. “Your mother-in-law was very careful.”
“She was a farm wife.”
“She was an investor.” He smiled. “My grandfather would have hired her.”
He gave me two pieces of advice. First, the interest on the bonds would be taxable on my federal return that year, and the bank would send me a 1099 form showing the amount. Second, he suggested I set aside about a quarter of the interest for taxes.
“I’m a bookkeeper, Mr. Okafor,” I said. “I’d already done the math.”
He laughed. “Of course you had.”
I set aside $4,500 in a separate account for the IRS. Then I did what I’d decided to do on the drive over.
I set up a scholarship fund through the Marshalltown Community College Foundation with $40,000: the Ruth Haddon Scholarship, for young women from rural families who plan to farm or work in agriculture. The first recipient, chosen that May, was a girl named Priya, whose mother cleaned the Lutheran church. Priya had won a blue ribbon at the Marshall County Fair for a jar of pickled beets.
I signed the papers with Ruth’s own pen, a thin black fountain pen I’d found in her desk drawer.
In the box labeled Purpose, I wrote one line.
For the ones who keep the jars.
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