SweepstakesCentral - Wallgreens

             What would you do with a $1000 for Wallgreens?

Back in the 1940s, Russ Gremel thought it’d be a good idea to invest in Walgreens — people will always need medicine and women will always buy makeup — so he gave free $1,000 and snapped up shares of the Chicago-based pharmacy chain.

Clearly, it was a wise move. Just ask the Illinois Audubon Society.

According to a colorful profile in the Chicago Tribune, Gremel never sold any of it and eventually amassed $2 million as Walgreens WBA, -0.21%  value grew and grew. Did he buy a nice house? A fancy new car? Or even a flat screen TV? No.

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Gremel donated it. Every penny. To an environmental cause With the donation, the Illinois Audubon Society dedicated a nearly 400-acre wildlife refuge in Gremel’s name over the weekend.

A humble man of modest needs, Gremel has lived in the same brick bungalow for almost 95 years. He told the Tribune that he just didn’t need all that cash.

“I’m a very simple man,” explained the World War II vet who prefers oatmeal over fine dining. “I never let anybody know I had that kind of money.”

That’s a lesson he apparently learned from watching his family struggle through the stock market crash of 1929.

“We went from comparable wealth to abject poverty in 24 hours,” Gremel said. “We had no money. There were no food stamps. There was nothing except your friends and neighbors.”

He took that experience and developed a knack for saving money, having scaled back his standard of living to achieve his goal of retiring at the age of 45.