Spencer Heath Archive

Item 3079

Pencil account by Spencer MacCallum of events surrounding Heath’s daughter, Beatrice O’Connell’s having taken Heath, during his final illness, to a lawyer to cancel his will, and how Heath came to reinstate it.

April 15, 1962

 

 

Sunday, April 15, 1962

I am writing this on the plane flying West to get Popdaddy’s belongings including his papers and files which had to be left behind when we came East so suddenly 18 days ago and to attend to whatever may need attending to and generally wind up affairs for him there for the indefinite time that he may be in the East.

      I wish I had kept a diary through the last six weeks. In any case, I think it important for my own record to write an account of the events of the last couple of weeks surrounding and leading up to Popdaddy’s revoking the revocation of his will last Friday.

     One of Popdaddy’s most recurrent themes of talk with me over the last 13 days before he revoked his revocation had been wonderment how he could have done such a thing as to sign a document destroying the effect of his will. Wonderment and profound anguish of mind that he had done so and despair that he could undo the “mess” he had made of his affairs.

      I went up to New York on Friday, the sixth, to talk with Mr. Elmo P. Brown, Popdaddy’s long-time adviser and friend at the U. S. Trust Company, about how to meet Popdaddy’s running expenses of all kinds if he should become unable to write checks. Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Irvan had both said on several occasions that they thought Popdaddy had considerably improved in his whole condition and Aunt Beatrice especially had reiterated the belief that Popdaddy would soon be able to take up the matter of writing up a new will with a lawyer of his own if he wished. His eyesight was showing marked improvement over what it had seemed to be in California. But I doubted he would be able to depend on writing his own checks for very long and that we should be prepared for the contingency. Aunt Beatrice agreed with this and had already talked about it with Mr. Brown in Winchester. Mr. Brown said that happily the amendment Popdaddy had made in December to his Trust provided for this very kind of thing, permitting the Trust Company to pay money from his Trust to his use. We need only send Popdaddy’s bills to the Trust Company, initialed by him or by whomever he might be staying with, and they would pay the bills — provided they looked normal.

      I stayed in New York on Tuesday with correspondence about Popdaddy’s and my ideas with the Foundation for Economic Education, at Irvington, N.Y., and Wednesday morning went to Baltimore by bus to talk with Mr. Landon, of Pinkard & Company, realtors, who had contacted Popdaddy about an offer to buy his Elkridge land, and got Mr. Landon’s advice about the “Fred situation” at Elkridge that had been a great worry on Popdaddy’s mind since last fall. I also talked with Ada about the same matter and reviewed arrangements for Ada’s continuing to fill orders and ship out books for the Science of Society Foundation. I helped her ship an order for ten books to the CCI Bookshelf in Los Angeles and told her about billing for nine more that I had delivered t Mr. Galambos before leaving California.

      Thursday morning, I went on the bus down to Winchester, arriving there at 3:15 p.m. I went to Aunt Beatrice’s house and found no one home except Popdaddy, who was in his bathroom. He was quiet and only told me about some bad dreams that he had had in the morning. I didn’t talk with him very long, and I don’t remember that we talked of anything else — beyond my urging him to get well and strong and not to worry about any possibility of bed-wetting — which he was worrying about and which was part of the theme of his recounting the dreams of the morning — because we were all family and accepted that and, besides, beds were made for man and not man for beds. Oh yes, he was also concerned that he had signed a contract to teach a course for Mr. Galambos and might be in some trouble for defaulting on that. I reminded him that we had canceled the course before the contract had arrived for his signature. He remembered this clearly now and accepted it, asking me to tell Aunt Beatrice lest she worry because he had talked with her about it in the morning and she was preparing a letter to Mr. Galambos about it. (I did tell her later.)

      I went downstairs to read an article in American Anthropologist then. Lucie came in and talked about her new 1960 Volkswagon she had bought and said she had meant to meet me at the bus station and take me for a ride in it. She asked me if I didn’t plan to put Popdaddy’s rubber-working materials that I had been sorting in the basement and had left spread out, in order so it wouldn’t look messy. So I went down and did that. I had brought these tools and materials from Elkridge hoping that I could work with Popdaddy’s help and learn his rubber technology by building one of his urinal apparatuses from scratch. This would be good therapy for Popdaddy I thought, diverting his attention from his troubles, and if successful would reassure him that he would have a source for obtaining new urinals even though he could no longer make them. But in the time I had been in Winchester, Popdaddy had been too agitated to give it his attention. One of his major worries in this period was the impossibility, as he thought, of undoing the act of revoking his will which left no funds for me to use to carry out his life dream of developing further his ideas (also he thought for a number of days that the copyright for CMA had been lost also through that act and it would be impossible to let Mr. Galambos republish it. We repeatedly told him that the copyright was the property of the Science of Society Foundation and was not affected by his will. This was a point he still was worried about after I got back, and I remember now it was another point we talked about in his bathroom. He seemed to accept it when I explained it again this time, and I think that was the last I heard his worry on that point.)

      When I finished putting the rubber-working materials in order, it was nearly cocktail time — a nice tradition in the O’Connell house. But I didn’t feel in a cocktail mood and went up instead to my room and worked until supper analyzing an important theoretical article in American Anthropologist (on the concepts of structure and role in social analysis. I thought I was getting onto an important new way of looking at “structure” as a concept).

      I don’t remember what passed at supper that night or after supper. Oh yes — Popdaddy was somewhat antagonistic toward me, as Lucie said he had been very much during the cocktail hour before supper when I wasn’t there. He said he had given me a great deal of money over the years and now he hadn’t any and I was turning against him. I was a little sharp with him at the table after supper and was sorry for it. I told him I had done a great deal for him and with him and now as a result was 30 without having finished my education and without any job experience.[1] When I was out of the dining room then, he told

Lucie, I think, although Aunt Beatrice was also there, that I had said to him that I’d given him the best ten years of my life and now was demanding of him that he send me on a free trip to California. The idea was that of a luxury holiday trip which would exhaust his resources. No mention of California had been made. Lucie told me she might have forgot to give him his sedative pill in the morning and that that might account for his behavior. I felt at loose ends and tired and went to bed early, but worked out the idea I had conceived about social structure in some detail in writing before going to sleep. It’s an important fundamental idea that I think will form the basis of a paper, the best creative piece of work I think this year, and it rises directly out of Popdaddy’s basic premise that has become the basis of my own thinking, that reality is process and not stasis.

      Friday morning I don’t recall what happened early. I was out later in the morning, however, and went over to Mr. Peter McKee’s office to get his reply to a letter I had written him from New York. I was feeling some lassitude and was doing this perfunctorily, also to tell him I was leaving to Elkridge (I’d forgot to get the papers Aunt Beatrice had asked to find out how the Foundation could arrange with Mr. Galambos for republication of CMA — this was to reassure Popdaddy.) the next day and then California.

      The letter had asked him what effect it might have if Popdaddy mutilated the revocation paper as Mr. Hogg had said he could do when he mailed the paper back to Popdaddy. He now said he agreed with Mr. Hogg that it might have the effect of republishing the will. The question seemed academic to me now since Popdaddy had felt so sure that nothing in the world he could do, including destroying the paper of revocation (which he’d thought for several days would be illegal in spite of Mr. Hogg’s opinion) would get his affairs out of the mess he had got them in.

      I went back to the house now and found Lucie and Popdaddy standing together just inside the door to his room. Popdaddy was quiet and his eyes had none of the fear look in them. He appeared to be in a completely clear state. On impulse then, after greeting him, I said [the following quotes are inexact except where underscored], “Popdaddy, I’ve just been to a lawyer and asked him, and he said that if you really wanted to and you marked out your revocation paper the way Mr. Hogg suggested, putting an X through it and marking ‘Revoked’ across it and signing it with the date, it would bring your will back into effect.”

      “A lawyer said that?”

     “Yes. Peter McKee. I’ve just been to his office and asked him. He said it would work.”

     “Where is the paper? I’ll sign it.”

      “Aunt Beatrice is keeping it safe for you. If you really want to do this, I’ll ask her for it and she’ll give it to you.”

      We had all come out of the room together and were standing in front of Aunt Beatrice’s door. I knocked twice and then opened the door to look in.

      “What do you mean walking into my room?”

Aunt Beatrice was near the window by her dressing table. I said I was sorry, that I’d knocked but not loudly and maybe she hadn’t heard. I said,

      “Popdaddy is thinking of revoking the revocation paper, and I told him you had it to keep it safe for him.”

      She picked up the paper which was by her hand on the table and brought it toward me, and said,

      “And shall I tell him where the copy is?”

      “Yes,” half turning to Popdaddy, “Mr. McKee has it. I took it to show to him the other day and he hasn’t returned it yet.” [That had been before Lucie, Aunt B and I had had a conference in Mr. McKee’s office the week before.]

_____________________________________________________________

[Continued May 3 in flight St. Louis — New York City]

      Rejoining Popdaddy just outside her door, I said,

      “Here’s the revocation paper, P.D., that you can mark through if that’s what you really want to do.”

      Popdaddy didn’t answer, as though the remark had been unnecessary (I had emphasized the last four words to make a question of it), and took the paper and started to turn back to his room. Aunt Beatrice was coming toward her door now, and I asked,

      “Aunt Beatrice, won’t you come in with us?”

      “What for?”

      “I think you should be with us and know what goes on.”

      “That’s your business. I haven’t anything to do with it.”

      She closed her door. I called to Lucie who was in her room and asked her to come in, and then followed Popdaddy into his room. Aunt Beatrice then came out of her room and crossed the hall and went into the bathroom and closed the door. In Popdaddy’s room, Lucie still hadn’t come, so I called her again, going out in the hallway to do.

      “Lucie, won’t you please come in?” She joined us then. Popdaddy had put the paper, which was together with the letter from Mr. Hogg and Mr. Hogg’s bill for services, on his closed suitcase which was on a stand at the bottom of his bed, making a kind of a table.

      Now I remember Popdaddy first asked about Mr. Hogg’s letter, which I had at some point said was in agreement with what I found out from my lawyer, and I read him the pertinent paragraph. Lucie hadn’t yet come in, and I had to call her a third time. He had then taken the Hogg letter and looked at it himself, reading through at least the first paragraph, and was laying out the three papers when Lucie came in, sorting them out. When Lucie came in, he had the revocation paper in his hand and was studying it. He said,

      “This isn’t the original will, this is the revocation.”

      He spread it out on the suitcase and smoothed it with his hand as if getting it ready to write on, and said,

      “Where is the pen?”

      I took a pen from my pocket but withheld it for a moment and said deliberately,

      “Popdaddy, are you sure this is what you really want to do?”

      He didn’t say anything, waiting for me to give him the pen. Lucie said to me,

      “Give Papa the pen,” as if I were being a little disrespectful to Popdaddy by withholding it. I gave it to him then, and he took it and wrote “Revoked” across the paper of revocation and signed his name just under the original signature.

      When he had signed his name, Lucie said, “It’s done now. Then he put the date in the lower left corner and seemed to know the date without asking it, although one of us may have said what it was. I don’t remember now exactly what the words were that we said during this period. He drew the X through the paper either after he had signed it or else the last thing of all, after he had written the date. Lucie went out of the room when he had finished, and Popdaddy picked up the paper and looked at it carefully, taking a step toward the window, and said,

      “It’s done, if it will do any good.” Then I said,

      “I’m sure it will. But Popdaddy, if you want to really do it up well, you could put across the bottom of it, in your own handwriting, something to the effect that “By this act I hereby republish my will of December 12, 1961.”

      Popdaddy looked at me quickly with a little surprise and said,

      “Did the lawyer tell you that too?”

      “Yes, he did . .”

      Then he pulled out the chair from the glass-topped dressing table against the wall and sat down to it and put the paper on the glass and wrote across the bottom,

      “It is my intention to reinstate my will of December 12, 1961.”

      Looking over his shoulder as he wrote. I felt some alarm that he had rephrased the sentence instead of using the words Mr. McKee had used when talking with me that morning, but thought, “Well that’s characteristic of P.D. — he does things his own way and there’s no predicting.” Popdaddy said when he’d finished,

      “How’s that?”

      “Fine,” I said, “except that you might want to dot the ‘i’

in ‘reinstate’.” He dotted the ‘i’ and I don’t remember what else we said. But I went into Lucie’s room and said to her,

      “Lucie, you might go in to Popdaddy and offer to keep the paper safely for him.” She went in to Popdaddy’s room, and they came out together, Popdaddy a little behind Lucie.

      No — I’ve forgotten the sequence again. Before I left Popdaddy, he looked at the other paper again, especially Mr. Hogg’s bill, which I think he asked for explicitly. He said,

      “I suppose we have to pay him for his services.” He analyzed the bill and discussed the fact of $25 being for the trip down to Winchester, and said, “How can we pay this?” I said, “Why don’t you write him a check right now?”

     “Where is my checkbook.”

      “I think Lucie has it along with some of the other things she’s keeping for you. I’ll go get it.”

      It was then that I went in and asked her for his checkbook, explaining he wanted to write a check for Mr. Hogg’s bill. She got it for me, and I went back to P.D. It was a new book of checks with only one stub filled out on it. This was to Mr. Hogg for what looked like $25, but I couldn’t make out for sure whether it was 25 or 75. I gave it to Popdaddy without calling attention to the stub on the top, but Popdaddy read it and didn’t understand what it had been made out to Mr. Hogg for or how much the amount was for sure. He didn’t remember writing such a check. He asked me if I knew anything about it, but I didn’t. We talked about it for several minutes, and I suggested he settle it by making out a new check; then he’d know it had been paid and an adjustment could be made if it was wrong. But he didn’t feel good about doing this. I was afraid he’d start worrying about it, so I left and then suggested to Lucie that she go in and offer to keep the revocation paper for him. I think she must have brought it to her room. In any case, Popdaddy shortly after that went into Aunt Beatrice’s room and asked her,

      “Where is that paper I signed?”

She said,

      “I don’t know anything about it. Ask them; they can tell you.”

      Popdaddy went into Lucie’s room then and I think she showed him where she had put the paper for safekeeping for him.

      For most of the rest of the afternoon, I was with Popdaddy sitting on his bed. He was getting very much worried again about many things, mainly that he had got his affairs in such a mess and he couldn’t seem to get them straightened out and what he’d done in revoking the revocation probably wouldn’t have any effect.