Mass. Cleaning Woman Wins $294M Jackpot

导读：
一夜暴富的幸运发生在了美国马萨诸塞州一名女清洁工的身上。当地时间7月9日，67岁的吉拉尔丁·威廉姆斯领走了2.94亿美元的彩票大奖，她在国家彩票总部召开的新闻发布会上说，扣除应交税款，她的实际所得是1.176亿美元。这是美国历史上排名第二的单注最高奖金，这一金额仅次于2002年圣诞节期间开出的3.149亿美元奖金。

威廉姆斯已经为这些奖金做好了计划，一部分分给她的三个孩子，一部分捐给福利机构，还有一些钱将用来旅游，不过她现在还没决定去那里。

这位67岁的老妇人曾在纳萨诸塞-洛厄尔大学当管理员，退休后她当起了清洁工。本来她还想将手头的清洁工作完成，但她后来接到通知不得不中止工作，到波士顿去见财务顾问。

July 10, 2004

BRAINTREE, Mass.(布雷茵特里,美国马萨诸塞州东部一城镇) -- Geraldine Williams, a 67-year-old cleaning woman, can afford to hire her own help now -- she stepped forward Friday to claim $294 million, the second-largest undivided lottery jackpot in U.S. history.

Williams recalled staring at the television, clutching her ticket and muttering, "Oh, God! Oh, God! Let it be! Let it be!" as the winning numbers in the multi-state Mega Millions drawing(多个州共同发行的“超级百万”彩票) were announced last week.

She will take her winnings in a lump sum of $117.6 million after taxes -- that ought to buy a lot of Ajax and Lemon Pledge(Ajax 和 Lemon Pledge是两个保险箱的牌子) -- and said she plans to give money to her three children and to charity, and travel, though she has not decided where.

Williams cleaned homes after retiring as a custodian at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, where she worked for 15 years. She said she fully intended to keep an appointment to clean someone's home this week until she was told she had to meet with financial advisers in Boston.

A grandmother of eight who moved to the former mill city of Lowell more than 40 years ago, Williams said she planned to continue living in the area.

"She's had a rough life, just working hard all her life, and (she's) so genuine, just as you saw her on TV today, she's no different than like that at home and she hasn't been any different all week," her son Dick Williams said.

Williams said she told her children about her good fortune as soon as she knew, but hid it from everyone else(也没有向其它人隐瞒实情), keeping the winning ticket at a bank.

"It's horrible," she said. "I don't like lying, I don't like sneaking around."

The largest single-ticket lottery jackpot winner ever in North America was Jack Whitaker of Scott Depot, W.Va., who won a Powerball jackpot of $314.9 million on Christmas Day 2002.

Other states participating in the Mega Millions game are Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Virginia and Washington.