Unexpected Connections
The Same Order Every Morning
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The Same Order Every Morning

Every morning, Ronald Read went to the same place.

The coffee shop at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.

Every morning, he ordered the same thing. A cup of coffee and an English muffin with peanut butter.

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To the people who worked there, he was just another quiet regular. The old man in the flannel shirt, sitting with his breakfast.

None of them could have guessed what he was planning for the place.

In his will, Ronald Read left Brattleboro Memorial Hospital $4.8 million. It was the largest gift in the hospital's history. A spokeswoman called it "just amazing, and incredibly generous."

But there was one more name in the will.

A place where, until he was in his 80s, Ronald Read hadn't even had a card.

It was the one place in town that had never asked what he could afford.
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