It was not unusual for Mr. Wallace to hand over casually a million-dollar check to a beneficiary.

Please make million-dollar checks out to "Matthew Baldwin."

At the time, Ms. Jones and Mr. Hirschfeld, an 81-year-old parking-garage developer, posed for photographs next to an outsized image of a million-dollar check.

"If you put a puck over there I'll be able to stop it, but if you put a million-dollar check I won't be able to do it," he said.

The state agreed and on October 29, 1910, William Averell Harriman presented a deed for the land and a million-dollar check to the Commission.

"People are writing million-dollar checks in their flipflops."

Erin returned to the house three weeks after she took her million-dollar check.

Rachel tore up her million-dollar check while PJ did not learn within the show that her check had been worth only one dollar.

"What's the million-dollar check for?"

What they had in common was an almost unworldly generosity (Wally would hand over million-dollar checks to virtual strangers over lunch) and a gift for loving not wisely but too well.