Meet Ida May Fuller, Recipient of 1st Social Security Check - 75 years ago today

Seventy-five years ago, the government cut 65-year-old Ida May Fuller a check. It was numbered 00-000-001 — the first Social Security payout.

Fuller, of Ludlow, Vermont, didn't realize it at the time, but her check helped launch the granddaddy of all entitlement programs. And it secured Fuller, who never married and had no children, a place in American history.

Today, even as its future lies in financial uncertainty, many consider Social Security one of government's biggest successes. But in its infancy it was hardly a sure thing, and not well understood by many, including Fuller.

"It wasn't that I expected anything, mind you, but I knew I'd been paying for something called Social Security and I wanted to ask the people in Rutland about it," she's quoted as saying in a Social Security Administration document.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/meet-ida-fuller-recipient-1st-social-security-check-28598786