Miss Minnie's Millions

Everyone who knew her had to admire plump, kindly Minnie Mangum of Norfolk, Va. Generous to a fault. Miss Minnie showered her friends with expensive presents and gave openhandedly to charity. What made Minnie's generosity all the more admirable was that since early girlhood she had worked hard to support her invalid mother and blind sister.

Minnie's virtue had not been without its rewards, however. At 52 she was assistant secretary-treasurer of the Norfolk Commonwealth Building and Loan Association, and according to an admiring interview in the Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch more than two years ago, her $9,000 salary made her "the highest-paid woman building and loan employee in Virginia." Not that anybody doubted that Minnie earned every penny of her salary. For 20 years she had literally run Commonwealth's business, auditing accounts for four branches as well as the home office. She also did all the hiring and firing, and she preferred girls without bookkeeping experience because they were more likely to be eager "to learn my system."

Last fall Minnie hired a new clerk, Esther Marie Cannon, who, as it turned out, was an experienced bookkeeper. Some of Minnie's accounting methods struck Esther as odd. and in November she openly expressed her doubts. Minnie fired her on the spot, but the damage was done. Shortly before Christmas, a team of federal auditors descended on Minnie's office, and after one horrified look at her books, decided that Commonwealth might be short as much as $900,000.

After a full day's questioning, Minnie finally signed an admission of her guilt (which she later retracted), was thereafter arrested on a charge of having stolen the nominal sum of $100,000. Last week, in the midst of their second 30-day check of Minnie's tangled accounts, federal auditors revealed that Commonwealth's entire reserve fund of almost $2,200,000 seemed to be missing. It was beginning to look as though Miss Minnie had been not only the highest-paid woman building and loan employee in Virginia but also the most spectacular embezzler in U.S. history.

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