Seeing him having fun on his lawn tractor, riding his bike and living in his somewhat decrepit mobile home, no inhabitant of the American village of Hinsdale, located on the borders of New Hampshire, could ever have imagined that Geoffrey Holt was hiding such a secret. The man, who died in June at the age of 82, after a long illness, was in reality… a multimillionaire, reports the Associated Press (AP) this Tuesday, November 21.
Jealously hidden during his lifetime, the existence of his jackpot of 3.8 million dollars (3.5 million euros) surprised this town of 4,000 souls northwest of Boston, which happens to be the beneficiary of his legacy. “I don’t think anyone ever suspected that he had succeeded,” city council member Steve Diorio told AP, who was delighted with this “exceptional gift.”
No villa with swimming pool or flashy car: Geoffrey Holt always cultivated an image of a modest, if somewhat extravagant, man, one of whose favorite pastimes was driving his lawn mower – he maintained the mobile home park in which he lived. His mobile home was almost unfurnished, his bed “sunk into the ground” and he had no television or computer.
After university, he taught sociology for a time and gave driving lessons at school, before working for a mill. He collected model cars and trains, as well as history books. “He seemed to have everything he needed, but he didn’t need much,” recalls his former employer Edwin Smith, who became his best friend.
However, he himself had no idea of the jackpot on which Geoffrey Holt was sitting. Certainly, he remembers that his friend, an avid newspaper reader, had the habit of settling near a stream and reading magazines on finance. He would have invested in particular in communications, before the appearance of the cell phone.
“In the early 2000s,” recalls Edwin Smith in the local Battleboro Reformer newspaper, “he came to tell me that his investments had worked quite well” and that he didn’t really know what to do with the money. The man then joked that he “just had to leave it to the city”, far from suspecting that the sum in question was so substantial… and that it would be taken seriously.
“He always told me that his goal in life was for no one to notice anything,” his sister Alison Holt, 81, told AP. I just feel so sad that he didn’t enjoy it a little.” Geoffrey Holt had no children, unlike his partner Thelma Parker, who died in 2017, reports USA Today.
Heir to the $3.8 million, the city has not yet decided how to use the funds. Residents have proposed restoring the town hall clock, public buildings or even replacing electoral equipment. One thing is certain for Kathryn Lynch, the city administrator: Hinsdale “will use the money frugally, as Mr. Holt did.”
