It was a touching moment, full of poignant gentleness, amid great wealth.
The occasion was a news conference before yesterday's dedication of the new George School library, and the usual dignitaries were there: the big-ticket donor, board members, even reporters from the Quaker high school's newspaper, the Curious George.
The main donor, Barbara Dodd Anderson, who found a nurturing home at the school when she was 13, began to speak. Now 77, she has given the Bucks County school donations valued at well over $135 million.
Listening to her was the man responsible for her wealth, billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett, chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a holding company in Omaha, Neb.
Dodd Anderson's father, David L. Dodd, had been Buffett's mentor. Later Dodd bought shares of Berkshire Hathaway in his daughter's name, long before they traded at more than $100,000 apiece.
For a moment yesterday, Dodd Anderson lost her train of thought. "Dementia stinks," she said cheerfully, sitting in the library's meeting room before a fire in the hearth. "I'm sorry."
Then, as her son hovered protectively, she began a lovely, if rambling, speech about the world and the solving of problems and young people, like her granddaughter Mollie, 12, for whom the $12.5 million Mollie Dodd Anderson library is named.
In the middle of it, she looked over at Buffett and broke into a huge smile. "Warren Buffett," she said. "I'm so thrilled with that man. I can't tell you. He's so honest."
Buffett looked back affectionately, smiling over the head of Mollie, who sat between them.
"Eat your heart out, George Clooney," Buffett said, his reference to the handsome movie star evoking chuckles.
Next it was Buffett's turn to talk, and he told the same story he would later recount in the packed meetinghouse nearby during the official ceremonies.
When he was 9 or 10, growing up in Omaha, he read every book on finance in the public library, Buffett said.
He particularly admired Security Analysis, a 1934 investing classic cowritten by David Dodd.
Later, after Buffett had been rejected from Harvard University's graduate school of business, he was thumbing through a Columbia University catalog and noticed that Dodd was assistant dean.
Even though it was August, just weeks from the start of the fall term, he wrote to Dodd: "I thought you guys were dead, but now that I realize you are alive, I'd like to come and study with you."
In 1950, the same year that Dodd Anderson graduated from George, Buffett headed to New York. He was 19 and a graduate of the University of Nebraska, having completed two years of study at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dodd "started treating me like a son," Buffett said. Besides Dodd's ideas about value investing, Buffett learned the value of having the right heroes, especially for young people.
"You don't grow up in an orderly way," he said. "You have lopsided moves. . . . Learning how to live is much more important than learning how to make a living."
Obviously Buffett managed to learn how to make a living. When he took over Berkshire in 1965, its stock was trading at $18 a share. On Friday, its shares closed at $100,577.
On Sept. 18, 2007, shares were trading at $118,700. That was when Dodd Anderson gave George the largest gift to an existing independent school in the nation.
She created an irrevocable trust designed to pay out a record $128.5 million over 20 years. The value of that $70 million trust is now $68.5 million, down just as Berkshire Hathaway shares have dropped.
"It'll change," Buffett said. "There are only two [share] prices that matter - the price on the day you buy it and the price on the day you sell it. If you own good businesses and you don't do anything stupid with your money, value tends to rise."
Yesterday's focus wasn't on Dodd Anderson's biggest gift, but on an earlier $5 million donation that became the lead gift for the library.
In the meetinghouse, she stood up and read a speech, recalling "slinging pats of butter onto the ceiling with your napkin," as well as scary walks at night between George's buildings. "I was so far away from my city home, and the woods were dark," she said.
Then, again, she looked over at Buffett, who had helped her to the microphone, holding her hand gently in his. "I, too, have been fortunate in knowing Warren. He's a wise and talented man. I loved him, but someone else beat me to him."
The audience laughed, and she went on.
"Warren believes in giving generously while you can still see the results," she said. "I agree. This library amazes me. I'm so pleased with it."
These days, slightly more than half of George's 541 students live on the coed campus in Newtown. Tuition is $30,240 for day students and $40,870 for boarders. Just under half the students receive financial aid, with an average award of $23,100.
Contact staff writer Jane M. Von Bergen at 215-854-2769 or jvonbergen@phillynews.com.
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