Being homeless often leads to a vicious cycle.
When a person has no safe place to call their own, they may easily find themselves falling victim to circumstance. Cold weather becomes a serious problem. Finding work can be difficult when you have no way to make yourself presentable or store clothing. Money comes and goes quickly along with one’s daily needs, making it difficult to save—or to pull oneself out of the situation at hand.
Sometimes, it takes a lucky break to turn things around—which is what happened to one man in Chicago.
The story began about 30 years ago in Junction City, Kansas at a small place called Jack and Dick’s Pawn Shop.
The store is currently owned and operated by Chris Mathis, after his father before him. After looking around the store one day, he found a drawerful of savings bonds that had never been cashed. Mathis took it upon himself to return all of those bonds to their rightful owners—though he was having trouble tracking down one man named Woodrow Wilson Jr (or Woody for short). Though he only had one photo to go by, Mathis was determined.
With the help of local journalists, Mathis was able to track Woody down in Chicago.
As it turned out, Woody was a US Army veteran who had been homeless for approximately three years.
When the local WGNTV news team finally tracked him down, they handed over the property that was rightfully his under the law. As he opened it, he was in for a huge surprise. The bonds, originally bought for him by his aunt Rubbie Mae, had matured.
Though the bonds were only worth few hundred dollars at the time, they were now worth $3,000.
Needless to say, Woody was very grateful to hear the news.
As many people probably know, winters in Chicago can be unforgiving. For his part, Wilson said that the shelters had been very crowded—but the money would help him stay off the streets for the entire winter. Mathis was also relieved that he had seen his task through:
“I’ve been staring at these bonds with his name for years . . . I started thinking I’d never be able to get them back to him. Hearing his voice on the phone today was more than I could have hoped for. Made it all worth it.”
Congratulations on the windfall, Woody!
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