When Melvin Doyle told his priest that he’d like to donate his coin collection to St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in New Hope/Plymouth, Minn., the Rev. Bob Hazel imagined a few glass cases and cardboard binders.
Then Doyle, 89, had Hazel over to check out his collection and arrange to have it moved.
“Took three pickup trucks and 12 men,” Doyle said proudly. “I’m not a numismatist. I’m a hoarder.”
Many people do it: empty their pockets at day’s end and toss the loose change into a jar or a cigar box. “College for the kids,” they think. Trouble is, most people raid the coin stash every week or so for laundry money or bus fare.
Not Mel Doyle. He pretty much let his coins be. They filled and then spilled from jugs, buckets, jars and bags that accumulated in his Plymouth basement and made his wife nervous.
“If you die before me, I’m putting all those coins in your casket with you,” Marge told him more than once. “I don’t want somebody breaking in here for them.”
Mel, 90, is in good health. The coins wouldn’t fit in his coffin anyway.
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4 comments
This fellow reminds me of my paternal grandparents.
While raising five children in poverty in the Chicago slums, they dreamed of owning a little house in a rural village. After Johnny went off to serve in WWII, they started saving 20 cents a week (on food, I guess) and putting it in a tin can hidden in their closet. The next year, Bobby joined the marines, and they were able to save a bit more. When my dad married and moved out, they increased the weekly ante. They did empty out the cans a couple times — once to help pay for their only daughter’s wedding and once for an emergency medical thing.
When they were 63 (Grandma) and 69 (Grandpa), they finally retired from their city jobs and Johnny took them to central Illinois to find their little house in the country. They found a $9,000 2-bedroom bungalo in terrific shape and arranged to buy it. When Johnny came to get them to go to the bank for closing, it took 20 trips to the car with tin cans and mason jars, filled with coins! But it enabled them to pay cash for their little house. 🙂
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