Farmer who grew up dirt poor secretly paid for neighbors' prescriptions; he's gone, but legacy of giving is spreading

Hody Childress and daughter Tania Nix (Photo by Ronald Nix)

The kindness of strangers, it seems like a fable . . . or so croon the lyrics of an old Susan Ashton melody.

In Geraldine, Alabama, pop. 910, this fable came to life: "Every month for more than a decade, a local farmer, Hody Childress, had made anonymous cash donations to the pharmacy, Geraldine Drugs, aiming to help neighbors struggling to pay for prescription medication," reports Emily Schmall of The New York Times. "The wider community learned of his good deed only after he died at 80 in January. Now, his family and donors from across the United States have vowed to continue his legacy."

Schmall shares a recent example: "When the doctor saw what a hornet sting had done to Eli Schlageter, 15, causing his mouth and throat to swell, his advice to Eli’s parents was unequivocal: Get an EpiPen. . . . But they were stunned to learn that a single dose of the lifesaving drug cost $800 . . . So, to help the family, the pharmacist, Brooke Walker, turned to an envelope full of carefully folded hundred-dollar bills from an anonymous donor."

Childress's giving often made a difference. "Over the years, Dr. Walker said, the fund had helped at least two people a month who didn’t have insurance or whose benefits didn’t cover their prescription medicine," Schmall reports. Eli Schlageter's mother, Bree Schlageter, told Schmall, “What he doesn’t know, now that he’s in heaven, is that he helped a kid that works on a farm that he started. Look at that circle.”

Geraldine and DeKalb County (Wikipedia)

Now it spawns other circles. "Ms. Nix and her family and Dr. Walker have received calls and messages on social media from people across the United States wanting to donate," Schmall reports. "Last week, Dr. Walker received a check from someone in Tennessee. On Monday, a person called from Miami. He told her that unless she needed the money, he was going to approach his local pharmacy and start his own Hody Childress account."

Childress "grew up poor, surviving with his family on subsistence farming and by hunting small game," Schmall reports. His son said the house had no electricity until his father was about 7. His daughter, Tania Nix, said, “Giving that way, that just got on his heart and he felt like he needed to do it.”

UPDATE, Feb. 3: Nix and her brother told Steve Hartman of CBS that their father was "nearly broke" at his death because he had spent $10,000 or more helping people pay for prescription drugs.