Probate Discovery: Mrs. Mabel Vermilyea (1885-1938)

This is my 100th post since the Jonnes Genealogy Blog began four years ago!

For the second summer in a row, I took advantage of living in Minnesota to conduct genealogy research locally.

In 2021, Lucia and I drove to Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where we obtained the probate file for Mrs. Caroline S. King, aka “Lena” King, at the Itasca County Courthouse.^[1]Mrs. Lena King was born Caroline S. Miller (1860-1932) in Saginaw, Michigan, the daughter of a German father and Alsatian mother.  This was a research objective I mentioned awhile ago in a post about Lena’s husband Fred A. King (1857-1920).^[2]See the post here.  Fred & Lena King are my second great-grandparents (2GGs).  I wanted Lena’s file in order to find out what happened to the King houseboat cabin on Star Island in Cass Lake, Minnesota, the subject of much research on my part.^[3]See the article I published in Minnesota Genealogist, Autumn 2016 here.

The results of that trip are detailed here.

We went back to Grand Rapids this past summer in order to obtain the probate file for Lena King’s daughter – and my great-grandmother – Mrs. Mabel Vermilyea, born Mabel Alicia King (1885-1938).  She and her husband David M. Vermilyea (1882-1950) lived in Coleraine, Minnesota, seven miles east of Grand Rapids.  Mabel died of colon cancer on 7 October 1938 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.  She was only 53.  Like her mother, Mabel died intestate.

 

 

The file we obtained from Itasca County is slim and there is nothing in it regarding the King houseboat cabin on Star Island in Cass Lake, Minnesota.^[4]Itasca County, Minnesota, probate case file no. 12-584-3586, Mabel A. Vermilyea (1938), decree-of-descent file, decree dated 1 August 1951; Itasca County Probate Court, Grand Rapids, Minnesota.  The file is a little perplexing.  There are only three documents, none of which date from the time of Mabel’s decease.  This requires further digging.  I am not a probate expert, but I think there should be something like an estate file from 1938 or 1939 that records Mabel’s heirs.  In intestate cases like hers, all property should have gone to her widowed husband, David M. Vermilyea (1882-1950).  Probate was required, I believe, because Mabel had inherited one-third of her mother’s house in Grand Rapids, which was still likely in her name only, not her husbands.

Instead, the three documents were produced in 1951 – almost 15 years after Mabel’s decease – and relate precisely to the piece of real estate in Grand Rapids that was the former residence of her parents.

The three documents:

1. Petition for Determination of Descent
2. Decree of Descent
3. Affidavit of Publication

These are decree-of-descent documents, which in Minnesota are used to clarify real estate inheritance more than three years after the person died.^[5]Thank you, Kelly Serfling, Itasa County Court Administration, for the explanation!

The first document is a Petition for Determination of Descent submitted by Mabel’s daughter (and my grandmother), Mrs. Helen K. Bonn, regarding the Grand Rapids property in question.  Grandma submitted the petition on 21 June 1951 in Chippewa County, Minnesota, where she lived.

The key document is the Itasca County Decree of Descent judgment.  On 1 August 1951, Itasca County Probate Court decreed that the following real estate property in Grand Rapids, Minnesota passed to the heirs in the following proportions:

“To D. M. Vermilyea, husband, an undivided one-ninth interest and to Helen K. Bonn, David M. Vermilyea, Jr., King Vermilyea, Phyllis R. Sarff, John K. Vermilyea, Caroline A. Sisler each an undivided one-twenty-seventh interest in the West Seven acres of the NE quarter of the SW quarter of the NW quarter (NE1/4 of SW1/4 of NW1/4) of Section 16 , Township 55, North, of Range 25 West of the 4th PM.”^[6]1 August 1951 from Mabel A. Vermilyea probate file, decree-of-descent order (Source: Itasca County Probate Court).

This is the former residence of Mabel’s father Fred A. King, which was willed to his spouse Lena King after his death in 1920, and then at Lena’s death in 1932, to her three children equally.  As one of those children, Mabel owned one-third of the property.  Per this 1951 decree, the property passed to her husband and children, as follows:

• • Spouse, David =   1/9
  • Child, Helen =   1/27
  • Child, David Jr. =  1/27
  • Child, King =   1/27
  • Child, Phyllis =   1/27
  • Child, John =   1/27
  • Child, Caroline =  1/27
    • TOTAL  =   1/3  

The other two-thirds of the property was inherited by Mabel’s two brothers, Charles Miller King (1880-1947) and Earl Stevens King (1884-1950).  Both brothers were deceased by 1951.  Charles Miller King died on 18 January 1947 in Monongalia County, West Virginia; Earl S. King died on 14 January 1950 in Centralia, Washington.

Mabel’s widowed husband, David M.Vermilyea, was also deceased by 1951, so it seems odd that the decree provided a one-ninth interest for him when he was already dead.   David died of a heart attack in Houston, Texas in February 1950 while visiting his daughter Phyllis Sarff.^[7]Texas, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death no. 6807 (1950), David M. Vermilyea; database online, “Texas Death Certificates, 1903-1982,” … Continue reading  This was 16 months before Grandma Bonn filed her petition.  There must have been some reason for Grandma Bonn and her siblings to want to clarify ownership of the Grand Rapids property.  I suspect there is a connection between David’s decease in 1950 and the submission of these probate documents for Mabel in 1951.

Therefore, it is possible that the probate file for David M. Vermilyea may be more revealing.  I am ordering that file from Itasca County, and hopefully, it will answer some of these questions.  This episodic research project continues.