Notorious "tightwad" leaves $10 million to churches

Tightwad, standoffish, loner, and frugal, are some of the labels placed on recently deceased farmer Bud Skalla.

Now residents of the town Skalla called home have a new title for him, philanthropist.

When the 92-year-old died in November of last year it was discovered his will leaves a total of $10 million to over a dozen Catholic churches in Iowa.

"He must have had inside of him a very generous heart," Father John Dorton told The Des Moines Register. "

But he certainly had a crusty exterior and hid it quite well from most people,” he went on.

The money will come from the auction of Skalla’s over 1,200 acres of beloved farmland.

Skalla, who went by the nickname Bud, never married, but he did have two sisters. He didn’t leave either of them a single penny.

“I think that he got so much that he just didn’t trust anybody,” one of them said.

More here.