Alabama farmer secretly paid drug bills for residents of his town for 10 years

Hody Childress was a farmer living off his meager retirement savings in the small town of Geraldine, Alabama. About 10 years ago, he walked into Geraldine Drugs and took owner Brooke Walker aside to ask if there were families in town who couldn't afford to pay for their drugs. That's when it all started. How an ordinary farmer paid strangers for medicines and how this story became known, the publication told The Washington Post.

Photo: IStock

“Yes, unfortunately it happens a lot,” Walker, 38, said at the time. “And he handed me a folded $XNUMX bill.”

The farmer suggested using it for those who can't afford prescription drugs.

“If you are asked, do not tell anyone where the money came from. Just tell them that this is a blessing from the Lord,” Hody asked.

Childress returned the following month to give Walker another folded $100 bill. And he did this every month for years, until late last year he became too weak due to the effects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to make the traditional trip.

When Childress died on New Year's Day at the age of 80, Walker said she decided to let his family know about the donations that helped several hundred people in the city.

Years passed, and according to the drugstore owner, Childress's $100 bills folded into thousands of dollars. Usually helped two people a month who didn't have insurance or whose benefits didn't cover their medications.

On the subject: American kindness: life lessons in the USA

When Walker thought about calling Hody Childress's family, his daughter, Tanya Nix, was preparing to let people know about her father's generosity at his funeral on January 5.

According to her, before his death, he told her about his donations to the pharmacy.

“He told me he took $100 to the pharmacy on the first of every month, and he didn’t want to know who it helped with it—he just wanted to bless people with it,” Nix, 58, explained.

Her father was a modest man who lived on a small pension and welfare, but he never hesitated to help those in need, she added.

“He really was like that—it was in his heart,” Nyx noted. “My father didn’t spend a lot of money, but he always gave everything he could.”

According to her, no one in the family, including Tanya's stepmother Martha Jo Childress, knew about his monthly trips to the pharmacy.

“We were all amazed, but we knew he was full of kindness,” Nicks said.

Her father was an Air Force veteran and had to face hardships. Tanya's brother and grandfather died in a tornado in 1973.

“It was very hard for him, but he never complained,” Nix said. “My father never lost his optimism.”

Childress worked at Lockheed Martin in Huntsville as a product manager until he retired, she said, but even when he did, he always found time for farming.

“Working on the tractor was his therapy, and my father spent a lot of time helping neighbors plant their gardens,” Nix recalled. “Every time he went to the post office, he would take the postmaster an apple or some sweet potatoes, pumpkins or okra that he grew on his farm.”

When Tanya's mother, Peggy Childress, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which left her unable to walk, her father took care of her for years, taking her back and forth to places she wanted to go.

“Everyone in town remembers my dad carrying her to the top row of the stands so she could watch Friday night games in high school,” Tatiana noted. “My father continued to do this until he had heart surgery in 1998 and could no longer lift it.”

When Peggy Childress died in 1999, Nix said her father found solace on his farm. He found love again and remarried about a year later.

“I can’t say exactly what prompted him to start going to the pharmacy, but I know that when my mother was sick, her medicines were expensive,” Tatiana suggested. “So maybe it has something to do with it.”

At Hody Childress's funeral, when people in town found out what he had done for them, they were stunned.

“Heard from people they said they had a hard time, but their prescriptions were paid for when they went after them,” she said, remembering one woman who didn’t have $600 on an EpiPen for her son.

“She admitted to me that she never knew who helped her until my father died,” Nix assured. “She admitted that this brought her great relief as a mother. The woman couldn’t find the words to thank my father.”

Walker heard similar stories from behind the Geraldine Drugs counter.

She remembered how a single mother and her daughter needed medicines that were not covered by their insurance. When Walker paid for the Childress fund medicine and handed the woman the prescription with the receipt attached, she burst into tears, she said.

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“She came back a few months later and asked to pay in advance,” Walker said. “Obviously Hody sparked that in her heart.”

Walker says she's honored that Childress has trusted her month after month to manage his money properly.

“His kindness motivated me to become a more compassionate person,” she said. “Hody was just a good guy who wanted to bless his community, and he certainly did.” He created a legacy of kindness.”

People in Geraldine who hope to keep that legacy alive are now entering the pharmacy with their own donations, Walker said.

“We call it the Hody Childress Foundation and will support it for as long as the Hody community and family want to support it,” she said.

“If what he did could touch even one person and make it clear that there is still good in the world, it was worth it,” Nix said. "That's what my father would like."

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