She must be a favorite waitress at a New York steak house. When the 53-year-old waitress got a call from a lawyer, she heard the almost unbelievable surprise she ever heard of.
Before Robert Ellsworth, an Asian collector, passed away he left in his will something for Maureen Donohue-Peters.
“I said ‘Oh my God!’. I did not expect anything. He’s a very generous man, he’s always been good to everybody,” Donohue-Peters said about Ellsworth, a patron at Donohue’s Steak House for more than half a century.
Ellsworth’s lawyer called her to inform that the late art collector left her $100,000 to be split with 28-year-old niece Maureen Barrie.
Ellsworth was a renowned collector and seller of Asian art with a penchant for generosity.
Earlier, he donated some $22 million worth of Asian paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1986, according to local media. The New York Post estimated he had a fortune of around $200 million.
The waitress said Ellsworth was a customer at the steak house from the beginning, he befriended her father after the restaurant opened in 1950.
“He had always a smile in his face. He always got the same food, same drink,” Donohue-Peters said.
“I would give anything to have him back. No amount of money can replace him,” she said.
H/T: Inquirer.net;