4/27/2023 0 Comments Yep programmingIn 2019, she found this animal shelter that agreed to manage the money. GUO: It took a few years, but Christina finally figured out a way to honor Barbara's wishes. MOYLAN: You have to balance what the philanthropists - what the grantors want to do with their money with what's realistic over time. GUO: Christina says charitable trusts are tricky because we have to follow the instructions of the dead forever - even if the world changes - even if the instructions are kind of vague, so. MOYLAN: Well, I'm not sure the taxpayers who fund state government, and ultimately my salary, would be too in favor of that, to be honest. Get into a mood and just see what the ghost of Barbara, if she appears - what she might say? You never thought about, like, oh, maybe we'll just, like, light some candles, like. GUO: Christina works for the attorney general of Maine, and one of the weirder parts of her job is to basically speak for the dead - to ensure that the instructions of people like Barbara Thorpe are carried out. GUO: The cat ladies didn't win their lawsuit, but they did get the attention of someone very important.ĬHRISTINA MOYLAN: My name is Christina Moylan. Well, we did fight it for years until it stressed me out so much that I just gave up. Which is why, eventually, Brenda and four other cat ladies in town joined forces to sue - to liberate the money on behalf of the cats of Dixfield. JARVIS: And they knew that what they were doing, in my opinion, was wrong. For many years, her money just sat there, and the people in charge of her trust - they weren't really spending it. And Barbara wanted her fortune to benefit the cats of Dixfield, but it didn't quite work out that way. It's basically a form of economic immortality. This is a special legal arrangement where you set aside some money, and that money has to be spent according to your wishes, even long after you die. GUO: When Barbara passed away in 2002, in her will, she put almost all her money into a charitable trust. JARVIS: If you don't have children, you have something missing in your life, so you need something to fill it in. Neither of them had children, and they both loved cats. GUO: And Brenda was really close with a woman in town named Barbara Thorpe. She's, like, the chief cat lady around here. GUO: Brenda Jarvis has been looking after the town's strays for more than 40 years. I visited one of them on a chilly day in February.īRENDA JARVIS: Welcome to the Arctic Circle. JEFF GUO, BYLINE: Dixfield, Maine, is a small town with one gas station, one diner and lots of cat ladies. Jeff Guo from our Planet Money podcast tried to track down what happened to all that cat money. This programming card is suitable for YEP and RotorStar ESCs.About 20 years ago, a woman in rural Maine left behind a small fortune - $200,000 - to the stray cats of her hometown, and that is when all the trouble started.
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