Esther Birch Wiley, an attendance counselor for the Los Angeles public school system who is more than 80 years old, gave her alma mater a large portion of her life savings -- $500,000, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

The school, Philander Smith College, reported the 1938 graduate's gift is the largest private donation in its history. Wiley says the money is the result of "frugal living."

The daughter of a sharecropper, Wiley accumulated the money in several bank accounts over the decades of her career, the newspaper reports.

Philander Smith, a 123-year-old historically black college with 950 students, will build a library with the money.

Wiley still has savings left, and says she will make donations to other colleges including Arkansas State University, Tuskegee University, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. She also will give money to California State University in Los Angeles, where she received her master's degree.

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