One Dollar Apiece: A Seattle Will Cuts Off Two Daughters
Caroline Lemon’s estate went mostly to her daughter-in-law, while Amanda Alden and Jane Gooden were left single-dollar bequests.
In the will of Caroline Lemon, who died in this city in August, 1894, which was filed for probate yesterday, her two daughters, Amanda M. Alden and Jane Gooden, are cut off with $1 each, and the remainder of the estate—consisting of a $1,750 promissory note against Merrill Dawson and a second mortgage on real estate—goes to Florence Lemon, the daughter-in-law of the deceased. Merrill Lemon is made the executor of the estate and he asks the court to admit the will to probate. In his petition, which accompanies the will, he states that one of the witnesses to the will, Gilbert A. Seaving, resides at Ballard, but the other witness, Edward Davies, cannot be located. He left Seattle more than one year ago, the petition states, and at that time told his friends that he would either go to Alaska or Australia.
“her two daughters, Amanda M. Alden and Jane Gooden, are cut off with $1 each”
A will that leaves two daughters one dollar each while the estate goes to a daughter-in-law is the kind of family-money story that still travels fast. It also reminds us that probate records have long been where private resentments and public gossip meet.
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