From The Columbus Dispatch:
Lois Chappelear for 47 years she lived at Woodland Meadows, the East Side apartment complex so crime-infested and decrepit that the city is tearing it down. She rode the bus. She worked in factories until she was 70 years old. She never married and never had children.
But she came from a huge family of high achievers -- she was the eighth of 13 children.
She left Woodland Meadows only when the city condemned the property. She moved across the street to another apartment complex. She watched PBS and read poetry. She once stopped with a niece to eat lunch and asked that they sit somewhere so they could keep an eye on the car. She said she had $9,000 in her bag. That shocked the niece, but she figured it was all the money her aunt had in the world. Lois must not have trusted banks, the niece figured, growing up during the Depression.
She died in April at 80 years old, just as she had lived. A nephew found her in a chair with the television still on. It was the kind of anonymous end people expected from Lois Chappelear.
Then the family got a look at her will.
Lois grew up on a small farm in Morgan County in southeastern Ohio, the daughter of a schoolteacher and a homemaker. "They all had an intense love of learning," said Mary Ellen Wright, 68, the daughter of Lois' oldest sister. "Every single one of them graduated from high school. Back then in Morgan County, that was a real rarity."
Almost all of the siblings came to Columbus to find work. Lois worked in a factory or factories -- in keeping with the private way she lived, her family can't quite remember. Her brother recalls a shoe factory.
And that was about it. She talked to her nieces and nephews regularly. She died April 22. Other family members thought she was essentially destitute. They offered to help, and she said no. She told Mary Ellen that it was very important to her that she be able to pay for her own burial.
And so the first shock came: Michael Chappelear found that his aunt's estate added up to well over $100,000. The same woman who wore clothes until they were falling apart and then sewed them back together, who never paid more than $350 a month for rent, had plenty of money. She had saved.
In retrospect, Mary Ellen Wright said, maybe she could have seen the second shock coming. The love of AmeriFlora, the love of poetry. She never mentioned paintings, though.
Lois once told her youngest sister, Sandra Towles, that she planned to give some money to the Columbus Museum of Art. She apparently didn't tell anyone else.
"I said, 'That's very nice.' Then it went right out of my head," Towles said.
Here was the second shock: Lois wanted her entire estate, which even after expenses is still more than $100,000, to go to the museum.
The museum has no record of her being a member or a volunteer. A spokeswoman said that because the museum had not yet received the gift, museum officials could not talk about it. The development office was in contact with the Chappelear family, though.
Michael said that the bequest will be made by the end of the year, once all the details are worked out.
But why the Columbus Museum of Art?
Every relative has a theory, but most are like Michael Chappelear's. His aunt lived in a terrible place that she couldn't seem to part with. She had to stay inside at night to keep away from the crime. She might have been scared.
This is the best explanation Michael Chappelear can give for her last wish:
"I wonder if she didn't use the museum as a way to see some beauty in the world."
Jeb.phillips@dispatch.com
http://www.dispatch.com/
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