Heller v. Teale

• Decision Date: 27 June 1914
• Citation: 216 F. 387
• Parties: HELLER v. TEALE, Public Adm'r, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

216 F. 387

HELLER v. TEALE, Public Adm'r, et al.

United States District Court, E.D. New York.

June 27, 1914

William P. Maloney, of New York City, for plaintiff Heller.

Henry F. Cochrane, of Brooklyn, N.Y., for defendant Teale and another.

Rounds Schurman & Dwight, of New York City (Carl A. Hansmann, of New York City, of counsel), for defendants Vasseux and others.

M. E Finnigan, of Brooklyn, N.Y., for Eleanor A. Monahan.

John M Zurn, of Brooklyn, N.Y., for Lulu and Frank E. Bader.

Wilson R. Yard, of Pleasantville, N.Y., for Katherine F. Bader.

Coudert Brothers, of New York City, for Marie Yersin and another.

Thomas Carmody, Atty. Gen., and Joseph W. Keller, Deputy Atty. Gen for the People of the State of New York.

Ralph Underhill, guardian ad litem, of Brooklyn, N.Y., for Georgette Bader.

CHATFIELD District Judge.

This action arises from opposing claims to certain property left by one Eleonore F. Bader, who died in Brooklyn, December 27, 1908. Letters of administration were issued to Charles E. Teale, as public administrator of Kings county, upon the 29th day of December, 1908, and a general statement of the personal property left by the decedent has been reported to the court in this action by the said administrator. Mr. Teale was also appointed receiver of the realty and is in possession thereof.

It appears from the report and from the testimony that the personal estate of the decedent consisted of savings bank accounts established in the name of herself individually or jointly with her first husband; but it will not be necessary to consider at this time, specifically, the source from which, and the date at which, these various items were accumulated or earned.

The time of acquisition and the method of acquirement of the decedent's interest in the real estate also need not be considered until its course of devolution by statute is settled.

The first questions which must be disposed of have to do with the family history and the rights of the various parties to the suit, with respect generally to the personalty and real estate of which the decedent died possessed and seized.

At the time of her death, Mrs. Bader had been a widow since the death of her second husband, Ernest G. Bader, upon the 5th day of April, 1882. No children of this marriage survived Mrs. Bader's death, but the said Ernest G. Bader left a last will and testament, duly probated in Kings county upon the 24th of April, 1882, by which all of his property was left to his children by a previous marriage. Mrs. Bader was survived by two children of his deceased son (George D. Bader), viz., Frank E. and Georgette Bader (a minor who is represented by Ralph Underhill as guardian ad litem), Lulu Bader (widow of George D. and later wife of Charles A. Bader), a second son, George B. Bader and his wife, Katherine F. Bader (George B. Bader has since deceased), and a third son, Charles A. Bader. Charles A. Bader has also died since December 27, 1908, and left him surviving, his widow (said Lulu Bader) and a daughter, Eleanor A. (Bader) Monahan, who was born prior to said December 27, 1908. Lulu Bader has appeared in this action as administratrix, etc., of both George D. and Charles A. Bader, and Eleanor A. Monahan has therefore not been made a party to the action.

It is unnecessary to discuss at this time the individual shares or rights of the Bader claimants as against each other. They as a whole represent the claims of the devisees, next of kin, and heirs at law of Ernest G. Bader, deceased, to the extent that his children by the former marriage might be interested, as next of kin, devisees, or heirs at law in the estate left by his second wife. None of the real estate standing in the name of Mrs. Bader at her decease was purchased by Ernest G. Bader, deceased, nor by Mrs. Bader during his lifetime, and whatever real property Mrs. Bader had before her marriage with Ernest G. Bader had been retained by her as her separate estate, having been in her possession at the time of her marriage with Ernest G. Bader in the month of December, 1877.

Mrs. Bader executed papers under the name of Eleonore Bader and Eleonore F. Bader. She is described in the death certificate as Eleonore Belleville Bader, and in the administration papers relating to the estate of Ernest G. Bader as Eleonore B. Bader. In certain other instruments executed during Mr. Bader's lifetime, she was described as Eleonore K. Bader. It appears from the testimony in this case that Mrs. Bader's baptismal name was Francoise Eleonore Bonneville, and that she was born on the 10th of October, 1830, at Paris, France. The name Eleonore F. Bader is apparently a transposition of her maiden names, while the word 'Belleville,' used by the Bader family, would seem to be a mistake or inadvertent reference to the family name Bonneville, for which the initial 'B' in Mrs. Bader's name must have stood. The 'K' shown in some of the papers came from the name Kress. As to this name the facts and dates appear to be as follows: Francoise Eleonore Bonneville came to the United States when she was about 25 years of age, and married upon the 10th day of July, 1856, in Brooklyn, a German naturalized citizen of the United States by the name of Theodore Kress, who died upon the 7th of March, 1870, and was buried in a plot purchased by his widow in Brooklyn. Theodore Kress had boarded in Paris with the mother of Francoise Eleonore Bonneville, and came to the United States shortly before her coming to this country. During his lifetime certain real estate was purchased and title taken in their joint names, but with a provision that it was to be held to them and their heirs forever. They also made deposits in at least two savings banks in the joint name of both depositors, and at the time of Mr. Kress' death he left a will by which he devised all of his property of every nature to his widow, the probate papers showing that it was less than $10,000 in amount. No children were born of the marriage of Theodore Kress and Francoise Eleonore Bonneville.

From 1870 to 1877 Mrs. Kress continued her work as a dressmaker (which occupation she had previously followed); and her estate seems to have increased until and after the period during which she married, and lived as the wife of, Ernest G. Bader.

Theodore Kress was a child by the second wife of a resident and citizen of the German Empire, who had three sons by his first wife, viz., Edward, Ferdinand, and Charles, but all of whom were dead before the death of Eleonore F. Bader, upon December 27, 1908. Theodore Kress' father had also by his second wife four other children. One of these, a daughter Fannie, died prior to the death of Mrs. Bader. A second daughter, Frederica, married one Simonet. She died prior to the death of Mrs. Bader, leaving a son, Thomas (living in Paris), a daughter Elisabeth, married to one Fischer (living in Liverpool, England), and a daughter Marie, married to one Heller and living at Strasburg, Germany). These children were all living at the death of Mrs. Bader, and presumably are still living. Marie Heller is the plaintiff in the present action. A second son, Emile, married and died before the death of Mrs. Bader, leaving a daughter, Marie Kress, who has lived much of the time in the United States, and is the principal witness in this case, with respect to the relationship of the members of the Kress family. She is a citizen of the United States, and lives part of the time in France. Another daughter, Henriette, married one Yersin, and died before the death of Mrs. Bader, leaving three children, Paul, Marie, and Jeanne, all of whom were living at the time of the death of Mrs. Bader, and presumably are still living.

It further appears from the testimony that Francoise Eleonore Bonneville was the daughter of one Marguerite Bonneville, who died January 25, 1864, in Paris, and to whom a monument was erected by her daughter, Francoise Eleonore, while she was the widow of Theodore Kress. At that time a perpetual right to the lot in the cemetery was paid for and taken in the name of Mrs. Kress. A birth certificate of the daughter Francoise Eleonore was kept in her possession, but the particulars as to the parents have been torn therefrom. The original birth and baptismal record shows that she was the daughter of Marguerite Bonneville, barterer, but no father is mentioned. The death record of this Marguerite Bonneville states her to have been the widow of Jean Gilles Mury, and the testimony shows the marriage on October 15, 1815, of Marguerite Bonneville with Jean Gilles Murie, the birth of a child, Francoise, on the 22d of July, 1817, a child, Toussaint Augustin, on the 27th of December, 1818, and a child Rose, upon the 28th of April, 1820. Murie (or Mury) died upon the 17th of July, 1828, and the records of his estate show that the part not going to his widow went to a sister married to one Jeaux, residing in Normandy, and showing by exclusion or by the omission, and from the provisions of the French law at that time, that no living heirs of the body of Jean G. Murie were then in being. It is also shown that the records of deaths prior to 1830 in the city of Paris were destroyed by fire. There is therefore no evidence that the three children above referred to as the result of the union of Marguerite Bonneville and Jean G. Murie were living at the time of his death. On the contrary, the presumption is that they were known to have died prior to that date. His widow was living and continued to live in the same house in which she had been living with her husband, and where more than two years later the child Francoise Eleonore Bonneville was born, whose estate is now in process of litigation.

It is thus apparent upon the testimony that Francoise...