An Alabama farmer in rural DeKalb County secretly paid the pharmacy bills of those unable to pay, or without insurance, for years.

And it was only after his death on New Year’s Day that the full story of what Hody Buford Childress had done came to light.

The Washington Post is reporting that Childress, 80, had an arrangement with Geraldine Drugs on Richey Street in the town of less than 1,000.

For about a decade, Childress walked into the pharmacy, at the first of every month, with a folded up $100 bill.

His only instruction – use the money for anyone who couldn’t afford their prescriptions, and don’t tell where the help came from.

“He said, ‘Don’t tell a soul where the money came from – if they ask, just tell them it’s a blessing from the Lord,’” owner Brooke Walker remembered. He only told her to use her judgment as to who would receive the help.

Childress, who retired from Lockheed Martin in Huntsville as a product manager, was a farmer who survived both his wife and a son. He lived quietly and kept up the secret donation for years, sometimes sending someone to deliver the money when his health was bad.

“Hody said you would know what to do with this,” was all the person would say, according to Ashley Sargent, a relative.

His generosity was only revealed publicly, following his death on New Year’s Day, at the funeral four days later.

Walker said the fund was used to help children needing Epi-Pens for allergic reactions, families in-between insurance coverages, and people just leaving the hospital.

According to The Daily Mail, Walker said she used the money for non-medical reasons only twice- once to help a woman in an abusive relationship, and to help an elderly man caring for his special needs son and his wife, who had broken her hip.

His daughter, Tania Nix, said it may have been paying for the medications of his first wife, Martha Jo, that inspired his donations. She died in 1999.

Those who knew him are establishing a Hody Childress fund to continue the practice.