Kuck Family History: Death and Probate

 

Above is a picture of John Kuck seated on the left holding his grandson (my great grandfather) Victor. Standing behind the table is my great great grandfather George and wife Elizabeth Cogswell Kuck. This is the last picture I have of John while he was living taken in probably 1897. Victor would have been 2 years old, George 28, Elizabeth 23 and John himself was 60. I think he looks pretty good for sixty years old.

Unfortunately his last few years weren't the best. According to records, a gas light in his home malfunctioned and overwhelmed him with gas around 1914 when he was around 78 years old. During the next two years he was pretty much an invalid and on 1 Nov 1916, a month shy of his 80th birthday, he passed away. He was buried 3 days later between his first two wives Mary and Elizabeth at the end of a string of five children who had died back in the diphtheria epidemic.

For the better part of a quarter century, the story ended there, at least for me. However, I started diving into the world of probate records of various Iowa ancestors and thought John's might be interesting to read if one existed. So I filled out an application and waited for it to be processed and mailed back to me. This time was different. I received a personal phone call from someone dealing with the request asking me if I wanted "all" the records and by the way she said all, it sounded like more than the normal couple pages. I quickly learned that there were 96 pages in this case! Intrigued, I accepted the copying, mailing and processing charges and a couple weeks later received a thick packet in the mail. In it, I learned a lot about the years after John's death.

To tell that, I must start two years before his death but after being overcome by gas. As an invalid, my 2nd great grandfather George, son of John's first wife, evidently created a fake Trust Deed giving him guardianship over all of John's assets. Apparently, this was discovered a year after John's death because John's son Paul from John's second wife Elizabeth filed a lawsuit against George in 1917. I don't have the court records themselves but the probate records say it was mutually settled out of court with John Kuck's estate being divided into six shares. Henry and George from his first wife each got a share. Berth, Clara and Paul from his second wife each got a share. John's third wife also got a share. Everyone signed in agreement and in 1919, an order was made to liquidate John Kuck's estate.

What is not mentioned, is what George did to the estate in the year after John's death before half-brother Paul sued him? I do know that some of what he sold was later accounted for by a significant amount deducted from his share when it came to the final settlement checks but nothing was ever specified specifically. I assume there used to be an accounting for those things in the court records I have never located.

As mentioned previously, it took some effort to just track down all the various land holdings John had accumulated, not to mention selling those worth more than the back taxes on them. In the end, it took three years to sell everything and come up with final totals. The deducted what George has already obtained from the estate and went to issue checks but there was a slight problem. John Kuck's third wife Elizabeth, had died two years prior and nobody knew whom or how many of her heirs there were to issue her 1/6th share. Never the less, the courts issued the other 5/6th shares to the five children of John and held onto the 1/6th share for any heirs to now deceased third wife Elizabeth. According to Census records revealed 72 years after they were taken by law, she indeed had four children, three of whom were alive in the 1910 Census but I know not if they received their share or if it was lost to father time.

When I started my genealogy journey, John Kuck's name had been lost to time as well. My grandparents didn't know his name or where he was buried. Eventually I would learn both of those things and was able to visit the family plot seen above. Since the decades since, the white marble monolith has been almost completely covered with moss to the point it is unreadable. It is on my bucket list of things to do someday to go up there with some cleaning supplies and spend an afternoon cleaning it so it is legible again. 

I do know from my first visit and the pictures I took then shown below, that as the court ordered, before any shares were paid out, he was given a headstone and his name, place of birth, birthdate and death date were duly inscribed onto the monolith as finally agreed upon by all the family members.