Aunt Barbara's Will

I just read Aunt Barbara’s will, and it turns out that she names a couple lawyers as the executors of her estate, which means they have to deal with all this stuff instead of my dad. That makes things so much easier! She wants her entire estate (all her possessions) to go to “the President and Fellows of Harvard College, a Massachusetts educational, charitable corporation, to establish the Barbara Lynn Wiget Endowed Research Fund at Harvard Medical School.

When I read this to my dad, he said that maybe she had paranoid schizophrenia. I thought she was just manic depressive, but it’s possible. I found in her files at least one article on schizophrenia that someone had sent her with a letter. However, I also found papers—including the autopsy report—about the boyfriend of hers who suicided in 1983. I have a theory that he was the one who had paranoid schizophrenia, but I could be wrong.

In her will, she specifies what she wants done with her body: she wants it cremated (that’s already been done, since her body was found almost a week after she died) and the ashes buried in her niche at Mt. Auburn Cemetery (which we passed on the way from the funeral home). Interesting, she also says that the ashes of Richard (the suicidal boyfriend) are at her condo in a brass urn, and she wants her executor (the lawyers) to “cast the remains” into the Atlantic Ocean.

Here is an excerpt from the will:

ARTICLE FOURTH: I give, bequeath all of my household furniture and furnishings, clothing, personal effects, jewelry, and vehicles, and all other articles of tangible personal property of whatever name or nature owned by me, not otherwise disposed of by this will and not including bank accounts, securities, cash or other intangible personal property, in accordance with any written instructions which I may leave. Any articles of tangible personal property not disposed of by my said written instructions shall be sold and the proceeds thereof disposed according to the provisions of Article Fifth.

ARTICLE FIFTH: I give, devise, bequeath and appoint all the rest, residue and remainder of my estate, both real, personal and mixed, of whatever kind or nature and wherever situated (hereafter called my “residuary estate”) of which I die seized aor possessed or over or to which I may have or own at the time of my death any power of disposition, control or appointment, to the President and Fellows of Harvard College, a Massachusetts educational, charitable corporation, to establish the Barbara Lynn Wiget Endowed Research Fund at Harvard Medical School.

I further direct that the income only from this fund be utilized by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine to support research pertaining to the understanding of severe psychiatric disorders with special emphasis on the treatment of paranoid schizophrenia.

It’s such a relief to have found and read this will—that makes things so simple. The lawyers have to do all that stuff.