After He Returned From The Pacific Theater, A World War II Vet Bought $1,000 Of Walgreen Stock. 7 Decades Later, Russ Gremel’s $1,000 Investment Had Grown To Over $2 Million
A Chicago lawyer who survived the Pacific Theater came home, put a modest sum into his neighborhood drugstore, and never touched it again. What he eventually did with the fortune he quietly built stunned everyone who knew him.
Some of Wall Street’s most lasting lessons come from investors who tuned out the quarterly beats and weekly price swings that fill most days. Russ Gremel, a Chicago lawyer who served in the Pacific during World War II, put money into his neighborhood drugstore chain, Walgreen, and simply never sold. ABC News reported that he paid $1,000 for 20 shares in 1953, while Tom Clay, executive director of the Illinois Audubon Society, wrote that Gremel bought 20 shares at $30 per share, figures that imply a cost of $600 by our calculation. Once the fortune arrived, he gave it away to buy wildlife habitat.
Tom Clay wrote that Gremel’s logic was blunt. “women always need cosmetics and old people always need medicine.” Per EcoWatch, Gremel lived in the same Chicago home for 95 years and kept his wealth to himself. “I never let anybody know I had that kind of money,” he said, according to EcoWatch.
From Saipan to the Courtroom
Tom Clay’s profile follows a path that began when Gremel was drafted as a private, rose to lieutenant and served on Saipan and Tinian in the Mariana Islands. “When Russ returned from the Pacific Theater, he immediately enrolled in Northwestern University because, according to him, ‘I was born to be a lawyer,'” Tom Clay wrote. Gremel was called back for the Korean War, served stateside in Washington and left as a captain. Tom Clay noted that Gremel walked away from practicing law at age 45.
Scouting filled much of the rest of his life. Tom Clay credited him with 65 years as a scoutmaster, and Tom Clay wrote that he turned out 175 Eagle Scouts. The AP put his scouting tenure at 60 years, and an Illinois Senate resolution said over 150 Boy Scouts reached Eagle Scout under him.
How a Drugstore Stake Snowballed
Tom Clay wrote that the shares “doubled and they doubled again,” and that the original holding had grown to 27,648 shares by the time Gremel donated them. Tom Clay valued that gift at $2.2 million. ABC News, citing the Chicago Tribune, said the stake was worth more than $2 million, the AP also put the gift at $2 million, and the Illinois Senate resolution estimated it at $2.1 million.
Measured against the $1,000 purchase ABC News reported, a $2 million gift works out to about 2,000 times the original investment, by our calculation. Gremel held through recessions, wars and market panics, and compounding did the heavy lifting.
Turning a Fortune Into a Sanctuary
According to ABC7, a Walgreens spokeswoman said Gremel wrote to the company to say he wanted to donate the money. His reason was clear. Per EcoWatch, “You have to do some good in this world.” The Illinois Audubon Society bought the 395-acre Gremel Wildlife Sanctuary in Lee County for $2.1 million, funded by his gift, the Society’s land fund and an Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation grant the AP put at more than $1 million. The AP reported he was 98 when the gift made news, and the sanctuary was dedicated on June 4, 2017.
“I hope that generations of young land stewards and bird enthusiasts will visit and enjoy the sanctuary,” he said, per ABC News. The Illinois Senate resolution records that he was born in Chicago on Sept. 5, 1918, and died on April 22, 2018.
Why Nobody Can Copy His Trade Now
Walgreen Co. became Walgreens Boots Alliance in 2014, and the company has since struggled. The chain exited public markets when Sycamore Partners completed its take-private on Aug. 28, 2025, paying $11.45 per share in cash. Sycamore Partners also handed holders a non-transferable right to up to $3.00 more per share tied to VillageMD, and the stock left the Nasdaq.
What CVS Reveals About Pharmacy Giants Today
The surviving large-cap comparable, CVS Health (NYSE:CVS | CVS Price Prediction), shows how much the model has changed. Its shares rose 47.15% on an adjusted basis over the ten years ending Oct. 28, 2026, a modest climb next to Gremel’s run. CVS has absorbed pharmacy reimbursement pressure, Omnicare’s bankruptcy and a $5.7 billion goodwill impairment, as we covered in February. Management also warned that “We do expect 340B pressure to be a headwind next year.”
Still, the turnaround has gained traction. In its second-quarter report, CVS posted adjusted EPS of $2.58, beating the $1.85 consensus, on revenue of $106.10 billion, and at the time lifted full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $7.90 to $8.10. At $90.58, the stock trades at about 11 times that range and roughly 11 times the at least $8.44 management projected for 2027. The quarterly dividend has held at $0.665 per share since the January 19, 2024 ex-dividend date.
Lessons Investors Should Keep
Gremel’s result came from a single company that later stumbled badly, so a one-stock holding remains a fragile plan for anyone. His real edge was temperament. He bought something he understood and let time work (that same half-century-plus mindset is what we screened for in our free Dividend Kings report, ranking ten of them by valuation right now). I’m watching CVS’s next call, where management plans to detail 2027 headwinds and tailwinds, for signs that today’s pharmacy giants can still compound for the patient.
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AJ spent 10 years writing about financial markets at The Motley Fool. His coverage centers on technology stocks and the broader macroeconomic trends, from interest rates to geopolitics, that shape where markets are headed next. AJ is drawn to the stories where big-picture economics and individual companies collide.
