Willett v. Carroll

Le Grand, C. J., delivered the opinion of this court. The bill filed in this case asks, that a decree may be passed compelling the appellants to pay annually to the appellee, (the complainant.) during her natural life, a sum sufficient to furnish her with shelter, food and raiment, or that such a decree may be passed as the nature of her case demands. The claim of the appellee is founded on the language of the will of a certain Teresa A. Coomes. By that will Sarah Maria Willett, one of the defendants, had, as well as other property devised to her, a farm of the name of “Greene's Inheritance.” The same will, after giving two slaves, and one-bed and furniture to the complainant, Mary Carroll, proceeds-as follows: “Item. — I do hereby will and direct, that the said Mary Carroll shall have a home, during her natural life, on the farm hereinbefore bequeathed unto Sally Maria Willett.” The answer of the defendants admits the due execution of the will, but insists that, by a “true and proper construction of it, the complainant is only entitled to sufficient room and shelter on the farm called Greene's Inheritance, devised in said will,” and that the defendants are “ not hound to furnish her with any thing more.” The Circuit court, on an examination of the whole will, was of the opinion, that the testratrix designed to devise the real estate charged “with the board and maintenance of her cousiny Mary Carroll,” the complainant, and we are of the same opinion.

There was no evidence taken in the case, and therefore, ⁴⁶⁷ independently of the allegations of the bill, we are left entirely in the dark as to the relations which had subsisted between the testatrix and the complainant. But this darkness can be dispelled, in all probability, by testimony to be taken before the auditor, and it may then be made to appear, as stated in the bill, that up to the time of the death of the testatrix, and of the intermarriage of the defendant, Sally Maria, with the defendant, Thomas H. Willett, the complainant and the defendant Sally Maria, lived on the farm in the enjoyment and use of the mansion house and the product of the farm, and during the life of the testatrix, she, the complainant, and the defendant Sally Maria, were all three equally supported and maintained by the product of the farm. The principal question in the cause, is, the construction of the clause in the will in reference to the “home” to be given to the complainant. In the case of Tolson vs. Tolson, 10 G. & J., 159 , and 8 Gill, 376 , the following words were the subject of judicial interpretation: “I request my seven sons, above named, to take care of their brother John Tolson and his family,” and it was decided, that whilst the term “family” was too indefinite to designate the persons intended by the testator, and therefore, as to those contemplated by that term, the devise failed, yet, that in reference to “John” the devise did not fail, and that the proper and necessary means of securing the executidn of the testator’s intention to provide a maintenance for him, was, to consider the amount necessary for that purpose a charge on the