union front
LOST AND FOUND
UAW striker’s family returns cash to rightful owner
When UAW Local 364 member Kent Hilliard and his two daughters went shopping in Elkhart, Ind., in March, they found something unexpected.
On the floor of the store, Kali Hilliard, 11, and Heather Hilliard, 6, spotted an envelope. Not just any envelope but one from a local bank, stuffed with $300 in cash.
“All the money was lying out on the floor like a fan,” Kent Hilliard said of the March incident.
Like most families, the Hilliards could use a little extra cash these days.
Along with his fellow members of UAW Local 364, Kent has been on strike against musical instrument maker Conn-Selmer for nearly three years. He’s been getting by on UAW strike pay and an occasional temporary factory job.
With a badly needed potential windfall of $300 staring them in the face – and nobody looking – Kent, Kari and Heather didn’t think twice.
“Both of my daughters are very responsible children about handling money,” he said. “They think about other people. They just don’t think about themselves.”
As far as the Hilliards were concerned, there was only one thing to do: Get the money back to its rightful owner as soon as possible.
As it happened, the woman who accidentally dropped the money, Mearl Williamson, had just come from the bank. Her driver’s license and a deposit slip were still in the envelope.
The bank was just down the road, and the Hilliard family was soon handing the found money to an astonished teller, who called Williamson to tell her what had happened.
The next day Williamson called the Hilliards.
“She was very grateful,” Kent recalled. “She had just gotten laid off from her job not too long ago, and that was all of her money to pay her bills that week.”
Although Hilliard insisted his family did not need a reward, Williamson came by with gift cards for Kari and Heather.
The real reward, he said, was knowing they did the right thing. “I knew I could never have lived with myself if I had spent that money. I know what kind of person I am. … It would have just haunted me.”