Buyers Repaying Earlier Kindness With $1-a-Month Lease : Farmer, 66, Won’t Lose Home After All

A Florida couple who read about the plight of an illiterate farmer facing eviction said Friday that they have agreed to buy his land and let him live on it for the rest of his life.

Oscar Lorick, 66, and his wife, Virginia, 59, will be able to stay on the 79-acre farm the rest of his life under an agreement announced Friday by Alvin McDougald, an attorney for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

Linda and Melvin Dixon of Miami will purchase the farm from the Cook Banking Co. of Cochran for $75,000 and lease it to the Loricks for $1 a month, McDougald said. Lorick owed $112,000 on the property, and his farm equipment already had been sold at auction.

Linda Dixon, who lived in Cochran until she was 5, said she learned that the Loricks were losing their home from a newspaper story last Saturday. The farmer’s name sounded familiar, she said, and her mother later confirmed that Lorick had helped their family years before. When she came to Cochran and met Lorick, she learned that they are second cousins, Linda Dixon said.

Remembered for Kindness

“He was always so kind and never turned anyone down,” said Dixon, whose husband is a Miami businessman. “When we lived here (Mother) had mentioned to me that he had helped her and had helped many other people.”

Lorick, once regarded as the most successful black farmer in Bleckley County, told reporters that he was grateful to the Dixons for bailing him out. He blamed his financial problems on his inability to read or write. He said he was cheated.

Lorick’s trouble received nationwide publicity when about 100 supporters, some wearing camouflage and carrying military assault rifles, occupied the farm Nov. 15 and vowed to use force if necessary to block Lorick’s eviction. Lorick and his wife said they were willing to die defending the farm.

Sheriff Edward Coley visited the farm unarmed and talked with Lorick. The bank eventually agreed to postpone the scheduled eviction.

Donations Pouring In

Since then the farmer has received thousands of dollars in donations from around the country and two movie offers that could earn him enough money to buy back his farm, McDougald said.

Although the Loricks’ immediate problem has been resolved, McDougald said the NAACP still plans to sue the bank on grounds that proper foreclosure procedures were not followed and that payments to Lorick’s account were not properly credited.