The jig is up for "secret Santa" Larry Stewart, regardless of his intentions. The official story released Sunday suggests that the Kansas City philanthropist, left weak from cancer treatment, wanted to ensure his generous intentions outlived him. Fair enough. But it doesn't take a Dickensesque plot outline to explain how someone as filled with the milk of human kindness as Stewart clearly is could have their identity withheld until after their death.
The official story also makes some odd claims about this Santa's helpers needing to be "trained" to hand out American currency. The other story, although thus far unverifiable, seems nonetheless much more plausible. In this story, a middle-aged woman who spoke on condition on anonymity whom, in keeping with our Christmas theme, we'll call Martha, claims to have received a much needed green gift from a "secret Santa" last winter.
"I was near the end of a long streak of bad luck," Martha recalls. "And then my car broke down." Standing in the freezing cold with her ruptured radiator billowing steam like a geyser, she began to cry, sure she wouldn't make it to the first day of her new job the next morning. Suddenly a man she describes as an angel and answer to unasked prayer appeared and handed her more cash than she needed to repair her vehicle.
And that's really the point on which the story rests.
"I don't like taking charity, but I understand and appreciate those who offer it," Martha says. "But to take more than you need, really isn't right."
Despite her insistence that her sister was en route to pick her up, her kind benefactor had scribbled out a phone number she could call, should she need a ride. With no other clue how to reach the man and desperate to at least pay him back the unused portion of his gift, she started doing some sleuthing.
"I called the number and left a couple of messages, but didn't hear back from anyone. I just figured he wasn't going to consider being paid back," Martha recalls. "And the phone book had no listing for Kris Kringle, so I didn't know what else to do."
What she did was begin searching the web for a way to identify the number she had, which happened to be a cell phone. Her search brought her to a website that normally investigates infidelity and harassing phone calls. For much less than she owed Jolly old St. Nick, she was able to order a reverse lookup search and get a name and some contact information. The rest was simply an accident.
"My cousin had been telling me for days that it must have been the "secret Santa," and I had no intention of revealing his identity--I mean that'd be like blowing the whistle on Clark Kent or something," she laughed.
Sadly, before she could even get the check written and sent out, her cousin had given Stewart's name to a friend with a friend in local media. Christmas came and went with no mention of it and Martha was relieved.
"I guess the media just sat on it until it would make the biggest splash," says Martha who feels awful about her role in the discovery. "He's just such a great, giving person and I never wanted to mess up his program."
Martha says Larry Stewart's final gift to her was his apparent refusal to cash her check.
"I actually ended up with a good bit more money for gifts than my checkbook said," she sniffled.
"Thank you, Mr. Stewart, and Merry Christmas."
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Elizabeth Knightly
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