In my unending quest to bring life affirming stories to the forefront, here's the latest found in the stalwart NY Times (by Corey Kilgannon):

Even by the dizzying standards of New York City philanthropy, a recent $6.24 million donation to the

Henry St Settlement on the Lower East Side was a whopper — the largest single gift from an

individual to the social service group in its 125-year history.

It was not donated by some billionaire benefactor, but by a frugal legal secretary from Brooklyn

who toiled for the same law firm for 67 years until she retired at age 96 and died not long afterward in 2016.

Her name was Sylvia Bloom and even her closest friends and relatives had no idea she had amassed a fortune over the decades. She did this by shrewdly observing the investments made by the lawyers she served.

Since Ms. Bloom never talked about this, even to those closest to her, the fact that she had carefully cultivated more than $9 million among three brokerage houses and 11 banks, emerged only at the end of her life — “an oh my God moment,” said Ms. Lockshin, the executor of Ms. Bloom’s estate.

“I realized she had millions and she had never mentioned a word,” recalled Ms. Lockshin.

“I don’t think she thought it was anybody’s business but her own.”

Nearly all the money was in Ms. Bloom’s name alone, Ms. Lockshin said, adding that it was “very possible” that even Mr. Margolies did not know the size of his wife’s fortune.

In 1947 she joined a fledgling Wall Street law firm as one of its first employees.

Over her 67 years with the firm, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, it grew to its current size, with more than 1,200 lawyers, as well as hundreds of staff members, of which Ms. Bloom was the longest tenured, said Paul Hyams, a human resources executive for the firm who became good friends with Ms. Bloom over his 35 years working there.

Just before she retired, Mr. Hyams said he saw the 96-year-old Ms. Bloom trudging out of the subway and headed to work in the middle of a fierce snowstorm.

“I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ and she said, ‘Why, where should I be?’” he recalled.

Dana, do you have secret?

Reform can be accomplished only when attitudes are changed. - Lillian Wald