Raentsch v. Armstrong

PULLEN, P. J. This is an appeal from a judgment admitting a will to probate, it being the claim of appellants that the admitted instrument had been revoked by a later [315]will, which could not be found after the death of the testator.

Karl R. Raentsch, the deceased, was the son of appellant Karl L. A. Raentsch, and of Carrie Armstrong Raentsch, who died when he was quite young. He then went to live with his maternal grandmother and aunt Ida Armstrong. In 1918 his father married Margaret W. Raentsch, also one of the appellants herein, and the boy, then about 9 years old, went to live with them, and shortly thereafter his stepmother formally adopted him. He was the beneficiary of a considerable estate left in trust for him by his deceased mother. It was necessary that a guardian be appointed of his estate, and his father acted in that capacity until the boy was about 15 years old, when the father resigned and the stepmother was substituted. In 1931, young Raentsch married Mary E. Daniels, but they were divorced in 1934, and she remarried in 1936.

In April, 1937, Karl Raentsch, Jr., made an unsuccessful attempt to take his own life by inhaling carbon monoxide gas. Following the attempted suicide he spent about a month in a sanitarium and then went to the home of his stepmother, Margaret W. Raentsch. He remained with her about a month, and in May or June of 1937 went to Arizona to visit a former college friend and room mate, Paul M. Brophy. He died there on August 14, 1937.

Shortly after his death, Messrs. White & Harber, of Sacramento, who had been the attorneys for the deceased, received from Paul Brophy, a document, which was later admitted as the last will and testament of Karl R. Raentsch, deceased.

At an appointed time there were gathered in the office of these attorneys, Ida M. Armstrong and Agnes Armstrong Harrison, his aunts, Margaret W. Raentsch, his stepmother, and a Mrs. Morris Carden, and to them the will was then read.

What happened at that time, as testified to by Margaret W. Raentsch, is that before the reading had continued very far she realized there was a later will and so stated to those assembled. When asked in what way the later will differed from the will then being read she replied there were some variations, one was that in the later will Mrs. Harrison was mentioned as sharing equally with her sister Ida Armstrong, [316]