The question is whether the city of Long Beach will accept it. While Oller is paying to have a pool built, there's no money to maintain it, which could be tough on the financially strapped city.

City Manager Gene Miles figures the pool will be built — the closest public pool to Long Beach is the 45-minute drive to Astoria — but it has to go through a committee. It won't happen quickly.

"It came as a total shock," Miles said. "No one had a clue. This is not something she wore on her sleeve by a longshot. No one had any idea of the kind of money she'd leave to the school district or the city." 

Bob Andrew, mayor of Long Beach, agreed it will take some study before the city accepts Oller's money. "It's a very generous offer, and we don't know in a small community what it takes to build the pool," he said. "We have to explore the process and talk to our citizenry. It's a wonderful surprise that someone felt that strongly about the community."

He said he had no idea Oller had accumulated so much money or that she was leaving it to the city and school district. And Andrew, who owns a bakery in town, said he didn't even know Oller.

"A bakery would be a luxury she wouldn't spend on herself," he said.

Carolyn Glenn, the lawyer's wife, was close to Oller, and the Glenns' children considered her a grandmother.

"This is an incredible story," she said. "You will never meet another Verna. She really was one of a kind, and the best thing about her is she was totally happy."

She said Oller, who was childless, was humble and never sought public recognition, shocking townspeople when they learned about her bequest.

"I call her the original dream lady. She grew her own vegetables and was organic before the word 'organic.' She recycled everything."

She would eat meals at a local senior center, where she would get her meals free because she volunteered there, then would bring extra food home and distribute it to others.

Sydney Stevens, a Long Beach writer who has chronicled Oller's life, said Oller's husband died in 1964. When they married in 1932, her husband had $2 cash, $46.75 in the bank and $20 worth of prepaid coal oil.

Oller worked picking cranberries, shucking oysters and filleting fish, working until she was 76. The day she quit she sold her car.

In 1979, said Stevens, 15 years after her husband's death, Oller began investing. At first she went to a stockbroker in Astoria, but soon discovered she could manage her investments on her own.

"The fact she got interested in investing and learned the process on her own, that was the amazing piece," Stevens said.

Stevens said Oller's investment began with $10,000 she and her husband had saved. She received a bequest from an uncle of $3,000 in 1964 and $600,000 from her sister. Oller told Stevens it wasn't her money, so she didn't feel right about spending it. 

Guy Glenn said Oller told him that when she died she didn't want a funeral or even an obituary notice in the newspaper. He wrote a death notice anyway.

"She said that all cost money, and she didn't want anybody to feel like they had to do anything for her," Glenn said. "She was very independent. 

Noonan, with Circle of Life, said that after Oller died, the staff was cleaning out her room and were surprised to see what she had left behind: an unopened bag of brand-new shoe laces.

LINK TO PHOTO OF VERNA OLLER:

 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011987431_oller30m.html?prmid=obnetwork