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Last Words Most dictionaries define a will as a legal document that specifies the disposition of property after death. But a will can be much more than that. With the right words, it can be a bold exclamation point rather than a simple period to a person's life. A will is a sure way to have the "final words" in life. In addition to defining distribution of property, a will can offer advice and loving sentiments or record for posterity those admonishments a person always wanted to say in life but never did. And anyone can create a will; social status and financial accomplishments have no bearing on it. Leaving a will isn't a modern concept. People were writing wills more than 20 centuries ago. The philosopher Aristotle left a will when he died in 322 B.C. In it he named an executor, made provisions for his daughter's care, dictated burial instructions for himself, and freed his female slaves. Some people have tried to change the world via their wills. For example, when George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, he hoped to change the English language by leaving a sizable portion of his estate to the British Alphabet Movement. Shaw shared the organization's belief that a new alphabet, consisting of 40 characters, would make English a better language and make spelling easier, too. But his effort was in vain. The British court ruled Shaw couldn't influence the language through his will. The money was directed instead to other charities he had named in his will. Because wills so often deal with the transfer of property and money, they typically are seen as documents of benevolence, but that's not always the case. Wives, especially, often have been targeted in less than loving ways. Some men have tried to dictate their wives' behavior, while others have been extraordinarily demeaning to them. U.S. founding father and patriot Patrick Henry, for instance, left little doubt as to how he expected his widow to behave. If she remarried, he declared in his will, she would forfeit her right to his possessions.
Francis Reginal, at one time Lord of Australia, left his wife a measly single shilling - and an insult: The coin was "for tram fair [sic] to some place to drown herself." In the early 1700s, the Earl of Stafford left to "the worst of women," his wife, Claude Charlotte de Grammont, "five-and-forty brass halfpence, which will buy her a pullet for her supper." Wives haven't been the only ones insulted through a will. One wealthy Englishman in the late 1800s left money to all of his servants, save one, his steward. As he explained in his will: "Having been in my service ... 20 years I have too high an opinion of his shrewdness to suppose he has not [already] sufficiently enriched himself." When a child offends a parent, a will can give the parent a chance to even things out. Before she died in 1977, Joan Crawford disinherited her daughter, Christina, and son, Christopher, "for reasons which are well-known to them." Christina later got even by writing a scathing tell-all biography, Mommie Dearest. In it she wrote of the shock and pain of being disinherited: "It wasn't the money. It was the insult." Benjamin Franklin's son William stood against him in the American Revolution. Franklin remembered his son in his will, all right. "To my son ... I give and devise all the lands I hold or have a right to, in the province of Nova Scotia" - where Franklin had no property - and "all my books and papers, which he has in his possession, and all debts standing against him on my account books ... that no payment ... be required of him. The part he acted against me in the late war ... will account for my leaving him no more of an estate than he endeavoured to deprive me of." On the flip side, some people are amply generous with money, property, and praise in their wills. Unlike the harsh treatment he delivered to his son, Franklin generously willed to his daughter a jewel-encrusted painting of the King of France, "set with 408 diamonds" - though Franklin exhorted her not to turn the diamonds into "ornaments either for herself or [her] daughters." Gouveneur Morris, an American Revolution-era statesman, left his wife a sizable inheritance, which he directed to be "doubled if she remarried." And Louis Pasteur wrote eloquently to his wife in his will: "This is my testament. I leave to my wife all that the law permits a man to leave. May my children never be able to stray away from the track of duty and to keep always for their mother the tenderness she deserves." When Samuel Johnson, perhaps the most quoted English poet after Shakespeare, died in 1784, he left a lot of words - literally - to his friends and associates. To Dr. William Scott, executor of his will, he left his copy of the Dictionnaire de Commerce. "To the Rev. Mr. Strahan, vicar of Islington ... all my Latin Bibles and my Greek Bible by Wechelius." And to numerous other people he left each "a book at their selection, to keep as a token of remembrance." It was a way to dispense of his library and at the same time leave something for all of his friends. The intangible as well as tangible can be willed to others. One woman left her sunny disposition, sense of fairness, and beautiful neck to her daughters. (How her heirs were to collect their inheritance wasn't stipulated.) People have left their estates to dogs, cats, birds, and even snakes. More than one person has named God in a will. A woman in North Carolina did, but when the sheriff tried to serve the summons, he reported to the court, "After due and diligent search, God cannot be found in Cherokee County." Wills range in length from a few words to text that fills volumes. For brevity in a will it's hard to beat a German fellow's three-word declaration: "All to wife." Conversely, P.T. Barnum, famous for saying, "There's a sucker born every minute," left a will that was printed as a 53-page pamphlet. Usually it's the property someone leaves that is sought by others, but not always. "Shoeless" Joe Jackson's will ran about 250 words long and included nothing extraordinary - when he died in 1951, he left all of his property to his wife. But the will itself became the center of a legal dispute in 1995 when two charities battled for ownership of the document. Both charities had been named in his wife's estate, and both claimed ownership of the original will. Why? Because Jackson was a central figure in the 1919 World Series scandal, barred from baseball for conspiring with other Chicago White Sox players to lose the series to the Cincinnati Reds. Jackson also was reputed to be barely literate, so his autograph, which appeared on his will, was valuable. A will is not the best place to leave burial instructions because it is often only located long after the deceased is buried. Many, nevertheless, have tried. Actor and comedian Jackie Gleason was called the "Great One" in life, and he didn't abandon that distinction in death. He left instructions for his executors to spend as much as they wanted on "funeral expenses, the acquisition of a burial site, [and] the erection of a suitable ... monument over my grave." At the other extreme, 17th century Italian poet, diplomat, and critic Alessandro Tassoni wanted no fuss made over his burial. "My wish as regards expense no more shall be incurred than will pay for a sack to stuff my remains into and a porter to carry it," he directed. If a person doesn't leave a will, the state writes one. But the state's version will deal only with the distribution of money, property, and personal possessions. It probably won't reflect the person's true wishes. Not only that, it will have neither statements of praise or criticism, nor expressions of love or anger. And it would be a shame to miss the opportunity to have the final words in life. |
