Sylvia Bloom

Sylvia Bloom, a legal secretary from Brooklyn, worked for the same law firm for 67 years while quietly amassing a fortune. In her will, she left more than $8 million for college scholarships.

Jane Lockshin, the treasurer of the Henry Street Settlement’s board, said her aunt, Ms. Bloom, left $6.2 million to the settlement’s Expanded Horizons College Success Program, which helps disadvantaged students prepare for and complete college.

Ms. Bloom joins the ranks of unassuming and magnanimous millionaires next door, who have died with fortunes far larger than their lifestyles ever would have suggested. Like Ms. Bloom, Leonard Gigowski, a shopkeeper from New Berlin, Wis., who died in 2015, left his secret $13 million fortune to fund scholarships.

Grace Groner, who lived in a one-bedroom home in Lake Forest, Ill., and directed that her $7 million estate go to her alma mater when she died in 2010 at 100, shopped at thrift stores and chose to walk not drive.

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