When Wellington Lytle checked into a Milwaukee hotel after the 1929 stock market crash, he was down to his last four cents and emptied of hope.

But before he put a revolver to his head, he took out a pen and left the following note:

“My body should go to science, my soul to [Secretary of Treasury] Andrew W. Mellon, and sympathy to my creditors.”

November 5, 2006

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you,

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