Cleaning lady makes clean sweep of $294m lottery

Geraldine Williams, a 67-year-old cleaning woman, can afford to hire her own help now – after scooping $294m (€237m), the second-largest undivided lottery jackpot in US history.

Mrs Williams recalled staring at the television, clutching her ticket and muttering, “Oh, God! Oh, God! Let it be! Let it be!” as the winning numbers in the multi-state Mega Millions drawing were announced last week.

She will take her winnings in a lump sum of $117.6m (€94.7m) after taxes - and said she plans to travel and give money to her three children and to charity.

Mrs Williams cleaned homes after retiring as a custodian at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, where she worked for 15 years.

She said she fully intended to keep an appointment to clean someone’s home this week until she was told she had to meet with financial advisers in Boston.

A grandmother-of-eight who moved to the former mill city of Lowell more than 40 years ago, Mrs Williams said she planned to continue living in the area.

“She’s had a rough life, just working hard all her life, and (she’s) so genuine, just as you saw her on TV today, she’s no different than like that at home and she hasn’t been any different all week,” her son Dick Williams said yesterday.

She told her children about her good fortune as soon as she knew, but hid it from everyone else, keeping the winning ticket at a bank.

“It’s horrible,” she said. “I don’t like lying, I don’t like sneaking around.”

The largest single-ticket lottery jackpot winner ever in North America was Jack Whitaker of Scott Depot, West Virginia, who won a Powerball jackpot of $314.9m (€253.7m) on Christmas Day 2002.

Other states participating in the Mega Millions game are Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

Mrs Williams recalled going to a yard sale with her long-time companion, Thomas Scanlon, even after they knew she had won the jackpot.

“I said, ‘Hey, all that stuff’s for free’ and Tom said, ‘Come on!”’ she said.

Paula Peacock, a 39-year-old neighbour, called Williams “a bundle of energy.”

Mrs Peacock said her neighbour picked up trash in their neighbourhood of two-and three-family homes.

She added that Williams, “takes care of people that are elderly. If I know Gerry, she’ll still want to go and take care of them”.