The previous post observed that Peter D’s and Sarah’s deaths received significantly different treatment in terms of their newspaper coverage: Peter’s death was announced in one Nebraska paper, Sarah’s in six. This post takes up another noteworthy difference in relation to their deaths: the time between the person’s death and the settlement of the estate.
As we discovered earlier (here and here), twenty-two years elapsed between Peter D’s death in 1897 and the settlement of his estate in 1919. As documented in the legal notice to the right, Sarah’s estate was taken care of much more quickly. The body of the notice, which was published in the 15 March 1922 New Teller, reads:
In the County Cour of York County, Nebraska
In the Matter of the Estate of Sarah Buller, Deceased.
All persons interested will take notice that on the 3rd day of March, 1922, Abraham P. Buller, son of deceased, one of the next of kin of Sarah Buller, deceased, late of York County, Nebraska, filed a petition in this Court, praying the court to appoint Peter P. Buller, administrator of the estate of said deceased.
That I have by proper order appointed the 29th day of March, 1922, at ten o’clock A. M., as the time, and the County Judge’s office in the court house at York, Nebraska, as the place, for the hearing of said petition, when any person interested may appear and show cause, if any there be, why the prayer of said petition should not be granted.
Dated this 3rd day of March, 1922.
HARRY G. HOPKINS, County Judge
W. W. Wyckoff, Attorney
To recap, Sarah passed away on 15 February and was buried on 21 February. Her son Abraham initiated the estate settlement proceedings ten days later, on 3 March. The difference between the settlement of Peter D’s and Sarah’s estates could not be more stark.
Several details deserve special notice. First, there is no mention of Sarah dying intestate, so it appears that she had a will detailing her wishes. Second, as with Peter D’s estate, Abraham, the youngest son, filed the petition to start the process; however, in this case he asked the court to appoint Peter P, the oldest son who lived in the Henderson area, administrator of the estate.
The next notice appeared in the 5 April issue of the New Teller. Presumably the 29 March hearing went as planned, and Judge Hopkins set the time frame for creditors to make any claims against the estate. The specified time was three months, which in the case of Sarah’s estate began on 3 May 1922 and ended just before the next scheduled hearing, on 4 August 1922.
As far as I have been able to discover, the outcome of the 4 August hearing was not reported in any of the local newspapers. This may signify that everything went smoothly and that there were no claims made against Sarah’s estate. However, this is only a guess. It is entirely possible that claims were made against the estate and that the administrator, Peter P, issued payment for all legitimate claims.
The next, and final, legal notice related to Sarah’s estate did not appear for quite some time. Finally, over a year after the initial filing, the 14 March 2023 issue of the New Teller published a notice of the final settlement of the estate.
All persons interested in the estate of Sarah Buller, deceased, are hereby notified that Peter P. Buller as administrator of said estate, filed his final account, and a petition praying for an examination and allowance of said account, and for a distribution of said estate, and that he be discharged. I will hear said matter at the County Court Room in York, Nebraska, on the 21st day of March, A. D. 1922, at ten o’clock A. M., when cause, if any, may be shown why said account be not examined, adjusted, allowed, and distribution made.
Because there seem to be no further legal notices about the estate, it is reasonable to assume that Peter P’s final accounting and request to be discharged from his duties were accepted. Thus, a little more than a year after Sarah’s death, any outstanding debts had been paid and her property and possessions had been distributed to their rightful heirs. As noted before, the difference between Peter D’s and Sarah’s estates is striking. I wonder to what extent this may arise from the different situations: when Peter D passed away, he was survived by his spouse; when Sarah died, she was survived only by her children. Perhaps there was no hurry to settle an estate when it was effectively controlled by a surviving spouse and no reason to delay settlement when there was no surviving spouse.
Although the notice of final settlement signals the completion of the legal process, it is not the last record we have of Sarah’s estate. Local papers also reported the sale of Sarah’s Henderson property.
The first four entries in the extract to the right record the sale of the lot and house by Sarah’s children. Peter P represented himself and six of his siblings (Katharina, David, Cornelius, Sarah, Abraham, and Mary); the remaining three siblings transferred their interests individually. Note that the Peter P transfer took place on 19 May 1922, which was only three months after Sarah passed away and well before her estate was officially settled. The letters “W. D.” in the notice stand for warranty deed, which means that the children had a clear title (or would have, after the settlement of the estate) to the property being sold.
Why are Johann, Henry, and J. P. Buller’s interests listed individually? Each of the three resided outside of Nebraska, and two of them (Johann and Henry) had been unable to attend the funeral. As a result, their transfer of ownership had to be handled separately and later than the main transfer (note the dates in June 1922 for the three individual entries). Each of the children received $200 for his or her share of the Henderson property, whose selling price was $2,000 total.
The buyer of the property also merits attention: Peter S. Dick. This individual was presumably the son of Peter and Sarah Buller Dick, that is, the Sarah who was the daughter of Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller. Sarah Siebert Buller had originally purchased the lot from Peter Dick, whom I suggested earlier (see here) could have been her son-in-law. Now the property was being sold to Peter S. Dick, who may well have been the son of the original owner. To recap as clearly as possible (the multiple Peter Dicks and Sarah Bullers is confusing), it seems that Sarah Siebert Buller purchased the Henderson property from her son-in-law Peter Dick, who was married to Sarah’s daughter Sarah, in 1902; twenty years later, after Sarah Siebert Buller’s death, her children sold the property to Peter S. Dick, the son of Peter and Sarah Buller Dick (and thus grandson of Sarah Siebert Buller).
Curiously, according to entry 5 in the extract above, Peter S. Dick sold that property shortly thereafter, on 16 September 1922, for $1,800, that is, for $200 less than he had paid for it. Why? Perhaps Peter S. Dick, who then lived in Minnesota, hoped to move back to Henderson, or maybe what he thought would be a good investment turned out to be a bad idea. We really do not know. Nor is it clear why his mother Sarah (Buller) Dick received $25 on 31 January 1923 when Peter S. Dick and his wife sold the property to Abraham Kornelson in September 1922.
One final note: all of these transactions, from May 1922 through January 1923, were reported in the 3 February 1923 issue of the York Daily News-Times, that is, around the time that Peter P was finalizing Sarah’s estate. Were the sales of the Henderson property part of that finalization process? One would think that they were at least reported in Peter P’s final accounting. So it was that Sarah’s Henderson home passed on to new owners. But what of the Hamilton County farm? That will be the subject of our next post, as we return to the Peter D and Sarah’s Farm series.
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