RABBIT HASH, Ky. — Whatever the reason, heartfelt as it must have been, Edna Flower took it with her when she died.

        When word came to this Boone County settlement that the elderly part-time resident left money to the Rabbit Hash Historical Society, they figured on a few hundred bucks.

        Nice change for an organization housed in a dilapidated log-and-mortar building, hard on the south bank of the Ohio River and slightly larger than your average kitchen.

        The estate was just settled. The society got $250,000. The rest went to various charities.

        “She was a character, very sweet, very unpretentious, very funny,” Betty Avril said Wednesday as she sat in her Rabbit Hash living room, recalling her friend and next-door neighbor. “And very private. She never showed she had money. Never.”

        What? How? And while we're at it, why?

        The good people of Rabbit Hash may never know.

        “My regret is that we didn't know her better,” Mrs. Avril said. “What she did is extraordinary. Amazing. Think about it.”

        The historical society's four-person board is doing just that, asking residents for suggestions on how to use this astounding windfall.

        “Maybe a library or something,” said apprentice stone carver Nate Ingram, who moved here from Louisville last summer. “I'd hate to see Rabbit Hash turn too commercial.”

        Locals say that's not likely.

        The board's bank account typically hovered around $1,000, rarely more. The society's exhibits consist mostly of donated family photos and historical artifacts.

        “Wish I'd have known her,” lifelong Rabbit Hash resident Gerald Etheridge, 44, said with a hearty laugh.

        Mrs. Flower lived for many years in Cincinnati's Oakley neighborhood. She married twice and had stepchildren, but none of her own. She was in her mid-80s when she died last year, having retired in 1970 after a 36-year career at Procter & Gamble.

        A P&G spokeswoman on Wednesday said personnel records did not make clear what Mrs. Flower did there.

        In 1973, she bought a small, modest green house on Lower River Road — next door to the Avrils, fellow Cincinnatians who retired “to enjoy the river and the magic of this place,” Mrs. Avril said.

        They had more common ground than just a property line. Mrs. Flower was for years a customer at Avril's Meats downtown, something neither realized until the nice lady in the big gardening hat showed up next-door.

        Like many city dwellers, she was entranced by rural life, though she never moved here permanently. Some years she visited just a few times. In recent years, when she no longer drove, the Avrils took her around for errands.

        “She'd come here for dinner,” Mrs. Avril recalled. “But she was private, and looking back, there's so much about her we don't know.”

        This much Rabbit Hash does know:

        She quietly appreciated its history, how locals not only nurtured its preservation, but celebrated it in quiet, everyday ways. The Old Timers Festival is probably the big day of the year.

        “Where would you start” to spend the money, said Marion Waltz of Union Township, Clermont County, stopping at the general store with his wife, Judy, for two sarsaparillas.

        The general store dates to 1831, having endured the Ohio River's occasional floods, including the Big Flood of '37. The store's large weathered sign heralds “Tobacco, Sundries, Potions and Notions.”

        “There's starting to be a buzz about her,” said general store worker Mary Ellen Pesek, whose 42nd birthday on Monday was big-doings. One local brought a cake to the store. Her boss made her earrings.

        The honorary mayor for several years was a dog, Goofy, of whom locals still talk with a measure of reverence.

        Everybody knows everybody.

        So they thought.

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