Winning numbers picked are birth dates of Millie Wiedemer’s two
daughters and grandson
Morgan Hill – As each new number came up, Millie Wiedemer was a little more amazed, her pulse a little faster, her breathing a bit more shallow, and when she realized the Mega Number was 4, she was almost sure she had won the Super Lotto Plus $7 million jackpot.
“I was so excited, but I wasn’t sure if 10 was one of the numbers, and I called down to my husband and asked him if he was watching the numbers, but he said no, he’d been watching Lawrence Welk,” she said.
The number 10 was one of the seven winning numbers, and for just the second time in California Lottery history, a Morgan Hill resident has won a jackpot worth several million dollars.
Jamie Ferreira was 56 when he won $4.9 million on March 29, 1989 with a ticket he bought at the Madrone Market, according to Cathy Doyle Johnston, California Lottery spokesperson. The money was one-third of a $14 million jackpot.
Wiedemer, 71, will get the new carpeting she’s been wanting in her 30-year-old two story home and a sunroom; she and her husband, Charlie, might take a trip to Italy next year with friends. And she wants to get a new car for her husband, who’s a former IBM programmer.
She’ll probably have plenty left from the $7 million she won Saturday night to put some away for the future.
Wiedemer, who played Super Lotto Plus using the birthdates of her two daughters and her grandson, is also a retired IBMer. Charlie now works for Lockheed Martin. He’ll be retiring soon, she added.
Her winning numbers were 6, 10, 11, 27 and 28, with 4 as the Mega Number.
“I was checking the numbers on TV, I heard the first two, and I said ‘uh-oh’ and decided I needed to get a tablet to write them down; then the next number was 28, and I said, ‘Oh my God.’ I wasn’t sure I won, but it was looking pretty good.”
John JH Kim, owner of the Simple Beverages & Cigar, where Wiedemer bought her ticket Saturday, said she comes into the store at the corner of Monterey Road and East Third Street every Wednesday and Saturday to buy tickets. He said when she called him Saturday night to verify her numbers, he thought she was just kidding. Then when her husband called to verify, Kim said he began to believe.
“I read him the numbers, and he said, we have everything,” Kim said. “Then I talked to her again, and she told me they had all the numbers and would see me in the morning at 10:30. When I saw the paper from the state saying the ticket was sold in Morgan Hill, I guess I finally believed it.”
Kim will receive .5 percent of the jackpot, or $35,000; he says he will use it to fix up his parking lot.
“It’s a great Christmas present,” he said.
After talking to Kim, Wiedemer said she called her daughters to share the good news, and one of them showed up at the house with flowers and champagne.
She and her husband spent the evening calling family and friends, she said.
Kim hasn’t seen the last of Wiedemer, she said.
“I’m still gonna buy tickets,” she said. “You never know.”
Perhaps her attitude had something to do with her luck.
“Every time I bought a ticket, I was very positive,” she said. “I always believed it could happen. I’ve tried with the birthday numbers before, but I guess this time was just the right time. People have been so kind about it, too. A friend of mine said, ‘It’s nice when good things happen to good people.”
Lottery agent Gerard Evans came from the San Francisco office with lottery agent Jean Tristant to check out Kim’s videotape of Wiedemer buying her winning ticket.
“The video helps in several circumstances,” he said. “It can be a tool to help us detect fraud, it can help someone who lost their ticket collect their winnings if we can narrow down the time they purchased it.”
According to the California Lottery Web site, the largest jackpot was a MegaMillions $315 million won with one ticket on Nov. 15, 2005. Since it began in 1985, the California Lottery has generated $46 billion in sales and awarded $23 billion in prizes, Johnston said.
Of the ticket sales, 52 percent goes to prizes, 34 percent goes to education and the remaining 14 percent is used for administrative fees such as wages for the approximately 600 employees and game costs.
The number of tickets sold each week varies, Johnston said, with the larger jackpots typically bringing more sales.
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106 ext. 202 or at md****@*************es.com.
