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They were worried that the elderly woman, who lived in such apparently modest circumstances, didn’t have the means to buy one herself.
Boy, were they wrong.
When Ruth Solie passed away in July 2007 at age 91, she repaid that kindness and more when she bequeathed the bulk of her estate — nearly $4.7 million — to the HospiceCare organization, based in Fitchburg.
No one, not even Kathleen Harty, Solie’s best friend for nearly 30 years, had any idea that Solie was in fact a very wealthy woman.
“She never, ever hinted in any way that she had money. It was so weird,” Harty said.
To Harty, Solie was the one who only rarely ate meat because it was too expensive. She was the one who chided Harty for buying cut flowers because they’re an extravagance, or who was always bargaining to get that better price from jewelry vendors at art fairs.
“It just never entered my mind about her that she had money. There were not a lot of clues,” Harty said.
On Thursday, a dining room and adjoining chapel garden at the HospiceCare Center will be dedicated in Solie’s name.
“When we realized this (gift) was maybe in the millions, we were pretty floored,” said Susan Phillips, executive director of HospiceCare.
Solie, a longtime interior decorator in the Madison area, was very specific in how she wanted her gift used, Phillips said, and designated the entire amount for the center’s $20 million capital campaign for its Ellen & Peter Johnson HospiceCare Residence.
“Her goal was that people who could not stay in their own homes would still have a beautiful environment,” Phillips said. “I think it just fits beautifully with how she herself had helped with the interior design of hundreds of homes in Madison.”
Solie’s gift, the second largest in HospiceCare’s history, will bring the center within $300,000 of meeting its campaign goal.
Phillips called it “one of the really wonderful surprises in life — especially with the economy being what it is.”
It was through interior design that Harty first met Solie when she sought out Solie’s services during the remodeling of her home in 1978.
“I think we talked together just about every day for 29 years,” Harty said.
Money, however, was never really discussed, she said.
“She told me she used to go across the street to a stock broker and buy a stock a day. But I don’t know,” Harty said, with a shrug. “She was so very frugal.
“In a way it would have been nice to know she had enough money. I worried so about her.”
Solie’s only living relative is a nephew in North Carolina.
Kelly Fischer and Kris Simon were Solie’s registered nurse case managers for the year or so that Solie received hospice care in her home. When Solie’s lung condition worsened and she moved into the HospiceCare center in Fitchburg, they stayed in touch with their sharp-tongued patient, often stopping by at the end of their shifts to eat pizza, sip a little wine and watch Jack Nicholson movies with her.
“She was challenging,” said Simon, recalling, with a wry smile, how Solie always felt free to pass judgment on their wardrobes or hairstyles. “She was really tough in the beginning. She did not want us to be there. She really kept us at arm’s length for as long as she could. She would push and push, but if we were feisty, she liked that.
“At the very end, she actually told us we’d become her family. That was huge. After trying to keep us out for so long … and then giving us a kiss and saying we were family.”
“I think the trust built up over time and she saw we were just there to support her,” Fischer added.
Neither woman had any inkling that their patient was well off.
Although noted for her interior decoration of such showplaces as the Governor’s Mansion under Gov. John Reynolds or the early days of the Edgewater Hotel, Solie’s own home on Seminole Highway was unpretentious.
And at the time they knew her, the slightly unkempt woman was far removed from the days when she was voted best dressed woman on the UW-Madison campus in the mid-1930s.
But Harty said she always knew her friend had a generous heart.
Solie was the kind of person who’d discreetly pick up the tab for a stranger at the lunch counter who looked down on his luck, Harty said. Or she’d pass along a few bills to someone who helped her out in some way.
“That was her private way of giving to charity, as I think back,” said Harty, 76. “It was her way of saying you need it more than I do.”
In retrospect, Solie’s gift — and how she made it — were probably right in character, Harty said.
“It must have been fun for her to keep the secret,” Simon said. “I like to think of her just kind of gloating that someday you guys are going to know about this.”
“She really had us fooled,” Harty said. “She fooled us all.”
Heather LaRoi is a reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal.
