Regular readers of this blog will know that the last name in this will was supposed to have been Trautvetter. Apparently the clerk was not familiar with the families the testator mentioned in this 1902 document. It could also have been that the elderly Barbara Haase simply didn’t say the names in a way that was easy to understand.
The $250 bequest was not small change in 1902 and apparently Barbara Haase had someone in mind when she made it. The gift appears in a list of several similar gifts in the will the Warsaw, Illinois, resident signed in 1902. In fact there was another individual with the same last name who was also given a bequest.
Part of the Will of Barbara Haas, signed 2 April 1902, filed 5 June 1903 with the Hancock County, Illinois, Probate Court, Probate Case File box 308.
The executor in his report from December of 1905 indicated that Kate “Trauthfeter” could not be located. Seems a little strange that a gift of this size would be to someone that the executor could not locate.
And yet that’s exactly what Herman Haase claimed in his report filed three years after Barbara Haase’s will was admitted to probate by a Hancock County, Illinois, court.
Executor Report From Herman Haase, acknowledged 18 December 1905, Hancock County, Illinois Circuit Clerk, Probate Case files, Estate of Barbara Haase.
The answer to this is relatively simple–and was contained in a later report of the executor.
But as we will see in an upcoming post, it’s a little strange that it took Herman so long to figure it out.
Stay tuned.
