Bequeathed

Mr Research® has been especially industrious this week.  He found, online, the Last Will And Testaments of some of our key relatives.  They were written (copied) in long-hand into ledger books and kept in Morrison county, I assume.  (Part of the fun of doing genealogy with Larry is that I often don't know his sources till much later ☺) He emailed screen captures of Paul Hesch, our great grandfather, who died in 1900; his wife Mary Otremba Hesch, who died in 1917; and Paul's brother Anton Hesch, who died in 1911, in Agram township.   Yes, we have a rough copy of Paul's will here on HH, and some info about Anton's probate hearing, but these are the official records.  Funny, I always thought wills were kept in envelopes in lawyers' safes, and read dramatically to the potential heirs in an elegant library somewhere, like on Perry Mason...but no, I guess not.

Anyway, Larry said he found more family wills, so we'll see those soon.  In the meantime, here's the book copy of Paul's dictated original:

Paul Hesch's Will, dictated on his death bed
in August 1900.

 Great uncle Anton's Will (left) and probate, settled in January, 1912.

The Will and probate of Mary (Otremba) Hesch,
who died in 1917.

I don't understand the probate process, but wait, lets check the internet:

"Probate is the court-supervised process of gathering a deceased person's assets and distributing them to creditors and inheritors".
Ok, Anton's Will and Mary's Will were probated, but not Paul's?

The whole legal-death system was still being built in 1900, so that's probably it ☺

YAY, LARRY!