Modest Man Of Means Quiet, Unassuming Retiree’s Estate Tops $1 Million, Surprising Everyone Who Knew Him

It isn’t the passing of Henry Kramaries that surprises people.

The French-born steamfitter, who quietly lived the remainder of his 72 years alone in a modest Richland apartment, lost his larynx from cancer, and he was starting to lose his eyesight, too.

But if his death from a heart attack Jan. 10 wasn’t exactly shocking, the size of his nest egg is.

Kramaries, a lifelong bachelor and miser, probably was worth more than $1 million in investment bonds the day he died.

No one who knew him realized he was rich, said Benton County Coroner Floyd Johnson. It certainly wasn’t apparent from the look of his two-bedroom apartment, crammed full of clothes and tires, decorated with velvet wall hangings and adorned with a 1997 calendar showing classic American muscle cars.

“I was flabbergasted when I learned he had all this money,” said John Schultz, a Kennewick attorney who represented Kramaries in a minor traffic accident a couple of years ago.

Schultz was touched by Kramaries’ concern for the jogger who collided with his car, and he grew fond of his client.

“The one thing I never talked to Henry about was his assets,” he said. “I figured he was a retired Hanford worker who lived on a pension and Social Security.”

So did Joe and Rita Yourdan, the couple who manage the apartments where Kramaries lived the last 13 years.

The Yourdans said Kramaries was a quiet man who grew herbs in his front yard and watched the construction of a nearby building with keen interest owing from his days as an international construction worker.

“He’d look at it and just shake his head,” said Joe Yourdan, who recalled Kramaries telling him he once worked on a construction job in Saudi Arabia.

Rita Yourdan said she bought groceries for Kramaries when he stopped driving his old, brown Cadillac Coupe de Ville.

Despite his riches, she said he always had to go to the bank before he repaid her, and he often reimbursed her slightly less than what she spent.

“He was something else,” Rita Yourdan said. “That’s probably why he had all his money.”

It probably helped, too, that he didn’t have any family.

Kramaries’ only known relatives are three nephews who live in Hungary.

He left a handwritten will leaving his estate to one of the nephews, but it isn’t legal because two people didn’t witness him signing it, Schultz said. Unless any other relatives are located, the money will be divided equally among the three nephews, he said.

Meaning they soon will have their miserly uncle from Richland to thank for a big windfall.