Before Larry Stewart was Kansas City's beloved Secret Santa, he was a hungry man with nowhere to sleep and a breakfast check he couldn't pay. A stranger's $20 bill in a Mississippi diner in 1971 set in motion a giving spree that stretched across decades and into the lives of thousands of strangers. The tradition outlived the man himself.
According to NBC News, Stewart had slept in his car for eight nights and gone without food for two days when he walked into the Dixie Diner in Houston, Mississippi. As CBS News tells it, he tried to leave without paying for breakfast, and diner owner Ted Horn stopped him with a $20 bill and the words “I think you may have dropped this.” Stewart vowed to return the favor if he ever got rich.
From Hard Luck to Cable and Long Distance
He did get there eventually. CBS News reports that Stewart made millions in cable and long distance. In 1996, per NBC News, an arbitration panel ordered Sprint to pay Network Communications and its sales agents $60.9 million in owed commissions, and Stewart's cut came to $5.2 million.
His giving, though, started well before the windfall. ABC News reports that just before Christmas in 1979, right after being fired from his job, Stewart passed along the good will with an extra large tip to a cold drive-in carhop. That small gesture became a December ritual.
Hundred-Dollar Bills and Thrift Store Aisles
Stewart started small and kept escalating. NBC News describes how he came to hand strangers $100 bills, wish them “Merry Christmas” and walk away. He worked the rooms where people were likely to need a lift, distributing thousands of dollars in visits to coin laundries, thrift stores, barbershops and diners.
Parade Magazine's retelling of the origin story puts his total giving at about $1.3 million over 26 years, all without revealing his name. The figure has varied across accounts, and the New York Times obituary also cites $1.3 million, though the supporting evidence for that number is a low-confidence snippet.
The Reveal and the Handoff
In November 2006, NBC News identified the man behind 26 years of cheer as Larry Stewart, 58, of Lee's Summit. He stepped forward because he had cancer and wanted to start speaking to community groups about his belief in random acts of kindness. ABC News adds that he was suffering from esophageal cancer and thought it might be his last Christmas.
He wasn't planning to let the tradition die with him. ABC News reported in late November 2006 that Stewart had trained four new Secret Santas to continue his efforts, and NBC News noted that four other Secret Santas planned to distribute a total of $70,000 of their own cash that year. Legacy.com records that Stewart, 58, had fought cancer of the esophagus since April, and he died in January 2007.
A Legacy That Kept Handing Out Cash
Stewart's death didn't end the giving. NPR reported that a friend carried on the work, planning to hand out some $75,000 in $100 bills stamped with the words Larry Stewart Secret Santa, and that he was training disciples all over the country.
Later, CBS News reported that a newer Secret Santa had run the total to more than $2 million over a decade, all from $20 bills. The whole thing circles back to the same denomination that started it, a modest bill that turned out to be worth a great deal more than its face value.
Not the Only Quiet Giver
Stewart wasn't alone in giving big without the spotlight. Observer reports that Chuck Feeney's Atlantic Philanthropies gave away more than $8 billion to charitable causes worldwide before closing, and that Feeney was a direct inspiration behind the creation of the Giving Pledge. Stewart's scale was different, but the instinct was the same: give first, skip the credit.
