Wills, Google and Suze Oman

            A 75-year old retired professional comes to do a Will.  Wills are usually the least expensive thing I do.  The client tells me what they want and I put it together.  That was not the case with this woman.  She wants to talk about Wills, in general.  She has been doing internet research.  Am I familiar with Suze Orman?  Yes, I am.  Do I agree with Suze Orman?  Not always.  What do I think of Trusts?  It depends on what your assets are and what you want to do with them.  It depends on your life situation.  For example, if you are a single woman and have one child to whom you want to leave everything, my advice is different than if you are leaving everything to nieces and nephews.  If you are in a terminal condition, right now, my advice is different.  The client bought along a set of Suze Orman CDs.  Do I want to listen to them?  Not unless she wants to pay me by the hour to listen and tells me exactly what she wants me to listen to, so I can take notes and tell her what I think the next time we talk.  She doesn’t want to do that.  I don’t blame her.

            She shows me a form will she pulled off the internet.  She asks if it is not the best will I have ever seen.  No, it’s not.  The first thing I see wrong with it, without reading it, is it is not self-proving which means a witness has to go to the courthouse to swear to it to get it admitted to probate.  “Listen,” I warn her, “If you do a Will wrong you don’t realize you did it wrong until you are dead, and then it’s too late to fix.”

            We get down to business.  She wants to leave something to her friend, Josephine, and something to her sister, Christina, with the rest to a charity.  Okay, if Josephine dies before she does, where does she want her share to go?  She never thought of that.  Definitely not to Josephine’s children.  She doesn’t like them.  She’ll have to get back to me.  Okay, same question for Christina, if Christina dies before you do, who gets her share?  She doesn’t know.  Once again, not to Christina’s children.  They are no good.  I ask how old Josephine and Christina are.  They are both her age.  I ask how much all her assets are worth, about a million dollars.  Okay, just think about this for a minute, what percentage are you leaving each beneficiary.  She doesn’t know.  Okay, if you leave a third, a third and a third, and everyone is 75 years old, how likely is it that Josephine and Christina are going to spend all this money before they die?  What?  Seventy-five-year-olds are not usually big on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Where does she think the money goes when they die?  She didn’t think of that. 

            She could leave a larger share to the charity or dole out annual payments to the individual beneficiaries leaving the remainder to the charity.  I am told that is too much money to give the charity.  

            Who does she want to be her personal representative?  What?  Her executor, who does she want it to be?  Oh, my friend, Ermessenda who lives in Ecuador.  Ermessenda cannot be your personal representative because she is not related to you and she lives in a foreign country.  She does not quality to be personal representative in Florida.  Client doesn’t like that.  Ermessenda is so smart.  I’m sure she is.  Plus, I explain to her, naming a person who is not a beneficiary is not a good idea.  They are not receiving any of the money and it’s a hard job.  That’s why she wants Ermessenda, because she is so smart.  She would be better at liquidating assets.  I understand, but she can’t do that from Ecuador.  I recommend you name Josephine or Christina or Josephine AND Christina together.  She says Josephine and Christina are both very kind, but not very smart.  How can she be certain it will be done correctly and everyone will get their money?  How can she be sure one of them will not steal the money?

            I tell her she can count on that because of the probate judges.  She does not trust judges.  I tell her that she can trust the probate judges in Broward County to make sure the correct beneficiary gets her money.  The Broward County probate judges work hard to make sure everything is done correctly.  She does not believe that from what she has read on the internet.  I tell her then she has been misinformed, because our judges are serious as a heart attack.  If someone steals money they can put them in jail.  She asks why they would care so much the money goes to the right people.  That’s a good question.  It could be because they take their jobs seriously and care about what they do.  If you are a looking for a nefarious reason I’d say it’s because they do not want to pick up a newspaper and read they let someone steal a million dollars out from under their noses.  They do not let it happen.  She tells me what I am telling her is not what she read on the internet.  I haven’t seen her since.

Hillmanns 60 1942 Baby John

THE HILLMANNS OF BROOKLYN

CHAPTER 60

1942

BABY JOHN IS BORN

In 1942 Marian happily awaited the birth of her baby. She went into labor on May 9th, the Saturday before Mother's Day. I wonder if she wanted a boy or a girl. Can you even imagine how excited Marian, Rose and Herman were anticipating the birth of this baby?

On May 9th, 1942 Baby John was born.

Here's Grandpa Herman with his first grandson. There are no pictures of Marian with her son, because she died. Don't get mad at me for writing the sad ending. I didn't write the ending, I am the story teller.

If the death of the healthy, beautiful, athletic, young Marian in childbirth hits you like a punch in the gut, imagine what it did to Herman, Rose and Will?  Remember the young Rose holding her beloved only daughter, Marian, in 1909?

I know you want to know what happened. I will do my best to explain it to you.

Marian told Will she was in labor.  He took her to Flushing Hospital. 

Marian was admitted and Will was told to go home, it would be a long time before Marian had her baby.

After being admitted, Marian was given a room, and a meal. It was reported she ate a sandwich.

Marian's labor persisted. She was taken to an operating room.

Marian was attended by the Hillmanns long-time family doctor. Once in the labor room, she was given general anesthesia (gas that puts you to sleep),   General anesthesia during labor and delivery was the standard of care in 1942, so mothers would not feel pain.

The gas put Marian to sleep, just like it was supposed to, it also made her nauseous and caused her to throw up her recently-eaten sandwich. Unfortunately, since she was in a drug-induced state of unconsciousness, the vomit did not escape, nor did she swallow it. She strangulated on her own vomit.

Chaos erupted in the operating room. The hospital had a machine, like a vacuum, that could be used in instances, just like this one. Someone ran out of the operating room to get that machine

But they couldn't find the machine because whomever used it last hadn't put it back where it belonged. It wasn't malice that killed our heroine, it was medical treatment mixed with stupidity, malpractice.

The family physician tried frantically to revive Marian, to no avail. The anesthesiologist reported after ten he minutes he told the family physician, "Doctor, I believe your patient is dead."

The family doctor reported that, using forceps, he reached inside his patient and pulled the baby out of the dead woman in one fast motion.

There is no record as to when, how or who notified Will, Herman or Rose.

The next day was Mother's Day. Think about that. Think about Mother's Day for Herman and Rose every remaining year of their lives.

Mother's Day and John's birthday still fall close together, and sometimes on the same day, to this day.

Hillmanns albums come out on Tuesday. Next week I'll tell you how Herman, Rose, Will and Baby John fared without Marian.   

Hillmanns 59 1941 Married

THE HILLMANNS OF BROOKLYN

CHAPTER 59

1941

Wedding, Jekyl Island and Lake George

In June of 1941 Marian married Will Lindquist. They honeymooned in Jekyl Island, Georgia and visited Lake George later in the Summer.

Marian and Will ice skating in 1941.

 It was Marian's second marriage, and Will's first.

 I don't know who the man is, but I am sure that's Mary Behrens who was in San Francisco with Marian in 1937 (Hillmanns 54). I wonder if Mary was also a New Yorker getting divorced in Reno in 1937? Or had Mary been a friend before that and accompanied Marian to Reno for the Summer for her divorce? Did Mary also teach school?

Mary Behrens from Album #54 in San Francisco in 1937 during the Divorce Trip.

Do you see the pattern?  In 1931 Herman and Rose took a trip alone to DC (#43). Marian followed with her 1935 honeymoon (#50). Marian saw her parents off on their trip to Savannah in 1936 (#51), so off she goes to Jekyll Island for Honeymoon #2.

Was this Marian's first trip in a plane?

The newlyweds

In 1941 Chattanooga Cho Cho was a hit song.

Cheerios came out, as CheeriOats

1941 births include Joan Baez, Neil Diamond, Dick Cheney, Ryan O’Neal, Helen Reddy, Beau Bridges, and Ann-Margret

Charles Lindbergh advocated for the United States to enter into a neutrality pact with Hitler.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt criticized Lindbergh by comparing him to the Copperheads of the Civil War period. In response, Lindbergh resigned his commission in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve

Marian and Will married in June of 1941.  That same month Albania declared war on the Soviet Union.  In July Japan called up One Million Men for military service.  No one knew it then, but Will's brother, Evert, would end up serving in that war that was coming.

In July of 1941 under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring orders S.S. General Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question".

August 18, 1941 Adolf Hitler orders a temporary halt to Nazi Germany's systematic euthanasia of the mentally ill and handicapped due to protests. However, graduates of the T-4 Euthanasia Program are then transferred to concentration camps, where they continue in their trade.

September 1941 The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word "Jew" inscribed, is extended to all Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas.

At a September 11, 1941 rally in Des Moines Charles Lindbergh, accuses "the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration" of leading the United States toward war. October 1941 saw the Disney release of the movie "Dumbo".

On December 2, 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

This is Will's mother, Martha. She spent ten days in the same cabin at Lake George every Summer.

This is Martha in Sweden in the early 1920s (during a visit) at a Swedish Summer Resort. It looks like Lake George doesn't it?

The newlyweds with Martha.

Here they are with Martha's friend, Inga. Almost all of Martha's friends were other Swedish immigrants.

Marian became pregnant in August of 1941.

Martha, on the right, is with her friend Ruth, also a Swedish immigrant.

While Marian spent the summer with the Lindquists, her parents, Rose and Herman, vacationed in Maine.

This is Rose and Herman's postcard to their daughter.  This is the only communication we have between them in all 60 albums. Don't they speak to each other just as you thought they would? Hillmanns albums come out on Tuesday. Join us next week when it's 1942 and Marian has her baby.