Ronald Read was born into almost nothing.
He grew up on a poor farm in Dummerston, Vermont. He walked or hitchhiked four miles each way to high school, and in 1940 he became the first in his family to graduate.
He went to war as an Army military policeman in Italy. He came home just before Christmas 1945 and went to work at his brother's service station.
In 1960, he married Barbara March and helped put her two children through college. Ten years later, Barbara died of cancer. He never remarried.
From the outside, it was a small, quiet life.
But Ronald Read had two hobbies, his lawyer, Laurie Rowell, later said. The first was cutting firewood.
The second was the secret.
Every day, he read The Wall Street Journal. And he picked stocks. "Investing and cutting wood," Rowell said. "He was good at both of them."