To friends and relations, Donald and Mildred Othmer seemed the epitome of the American dream. From humble beginnings they secured good jobs, she as a teacher and buyer for her mother's dress business, he as professor of chemical engineering at Brooklyn's Polytechnic University.
With no children, they concentrated on what they loved, their work. He was granted scores of chemical patents and colleagues assumed they had put a little by for their retirement.
Indeed they had. Though it was rather more than the average couple dreams of. For the Othmers had, in the early 1970s, invested $25,000 (£18,000) each with an old friend from Omaha.
The friend's name was Warren Buffet, now America's second-richest man after Bill Gates. And the Othmers' savings grew to $750 million.
The size of their fortune, which they never dipped into, was only discovered when Ms Othmer's will was read. The couple left $200 million to the Polytechnic University. They also left Long Island College Hospital about $160 million, while two more academic institutes devoted to chemistry research will each receive more than $100 million.
"Don and Mid had said: `Don't worry, we're putting you in our wills,' " said Arnold Thackray, president of the Chemical Heritage Foundation. He assumed they might be talking about several thousand dollars. "When someone does that, you smile and say, `Thank you, that's very nice.' " He had no idea they were talking about $100 million.
Mr Buffet acknowledges theirs was an unusual tale. "They were such high-quality, nice people, who had no children and wanted to translate their wealth into something beneficial to society," he told the New York Times. When they first invested in his company, Berkshire Hathaway, they paid $42 a share. Last Friday the market closed at $77,250 a share.
Not surprisingly, a relative is contesting the will. One of Ms Othmer's nieces, Mary Donahoo Seina, who stands to get just under $2 million, claims her aunt revoked her will and no longer wanted to leave the money to academic causes.
Meanwhile, friends are marvelling at Mr Othmer's resourcefulness and luck in bumping into Mr Buffet. As a boy there was nothing to signal his financial potential. He grew up in a frugal home, walking a farmer's cow to and from its pasture to earn a few cents.
Though students recall him being less interested in teaching classes than in his consulting and inventing work, they also say he was a mentor and enthusiast, frequently inviting them home and into his laboratory to explain his latest discoveries.
Now his legacy will live on in equally pragmatic fashion. "We start from being one of the have-nots and go to being one of the very well-endowed schools," said David Chang, Polytechnic's president.
