Bruce Lindsay knew a good bargain when he saw one: For decades, the millionaire ate three square meals a day in the cafeteria of tiny Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, surrounded by students who called him the "campus grandpa."
When he passed away last month at 79, the college learned just what a generous tip he had left. He bequeathed his fortune -- amassed by buying up cut-rate oil leases and flipping beachfront homes -- to the Christian university, which like many private colleges across the country has been bedeviled by the slumping economy.
It's not yet known how far Lindsay's donation will go toward easing Vanguard's mounting $42-million debt. The university is still calculating the value of his estate, estimated to be at least several million dollars.
But the beloved penny-pincher never married and had no children, and the university is his sole beneficiary.
Lindsay, who ate his last meal at the cafeteria just days before he died, was a product of the Great Depression. He scrimped and saved wherever he could. Despite his wealth, he lived modestly. He drove a Prius in his later years to save gas money and relished a good cheap meal -- which is what brought him to the student commons on the 70-year-old Vanguard campus.
"It was a great meal at a great price," a friend recalled him saying.
Over the years, the gray-haired man in the short-sleeved plaid shirt became a legend at the 2,200-student university, where -- over a plate of Swedish meatballs and a large bowl of soft-serve ice cream -- he would hold court in the crowded dining hall. Lindsay befriended students and dispensed Depression-era advice to anyone who would listen: Respect your parents, never drink or smoke, be frugal, save money.
"I didn't sit with him every day, but there was always a big group of people who would eat with him at breakfast," recalled sophomore Brandon Arias.
Before Lindsay discovered Vanguard's food in the 1960s, he was a regular at the cafeteria at Newport Beach's Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian. That is, until someone alerted him that a cheaper deal could be found up the road at Vanguard: All you can eat for a buck and a quarter.
" 'Frugal' is not the right word for Bruce," suggested business professor Ed Westbrook, who befriended Lindsay. "He was real miserly."
