Joel Mead
Estate Dispute Unfolds Story
Contributed by: Kay


MEAD Joel

Milwaukee Journal January 28 1934

(There are drawings of Fred STANHILBER, Judge J. Allen SIMPSON, Mrs. Bernice M. SPOO, Joel MEAD, and Mrs. Fred STANHILBER included in this article)

TIME AND FATE TEAR DOWN WHAT OSHKOSH PIONEER BUILT WELL

ESTATE DISPUTE UNFOLDS STORY

Gaping Court Crowd Sits In On Drama Harking Back to Joel MEAD's Fortune Founding.

By Florence HIGGINS of the Journal Staff


OSHKOSH, WIS. - When old Joel MEAD (he was young Joel MEAD then, when with his ox team he broke the main street of Oshkosh) came from Montpelier, Vt., nearly 100 years ago and cut out a fortune from Wisconsin forests, he wrote the first lines of the most incredible story that is now being unfolded in county court here.

The lumbermen of those vigorous days in the 1850's did not plant again where once they had cut. Still from the barren acres left by the axes of Joel MEAD's men a second crop has sprung. Like fungus rankly covering a fallen log, a growth of hatred and tears and recrimination, of quarrels and sorrow and heartbreak, spreads in a tangled, matted growth over what is left of Joel MEAD's fortune, and his last daughter was not yet in her coffin before, in the rooms below where she lay, the will was read which is now being protested before a judge and a gaping courtroom.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT

Mrs. Bernice M. SPOO and Fred STANHILBER are of the third generation. They are the grandchildren of Joel MEAD. The contest is against the admission to probate of the will of Mrs. Mary MEAD HAPP, daughter of old Joel, and aunt of Bernice and Fred. The will, dated Oct. 24, 1933, leaves the money entirely to Fred. Mrs. SPOO charges that undue influence was exercised on the 85-year-old blind woman, and the charge is denied.

That is what is happening now in the tawdry Oshkosh courtroom, with its unbelievably green painted curtains and its huge depiction of a stag drinking from a stream. But it could not have happened if old Joel, coming to Wisconsin in 1848, had not decided that farming a frontier country was a thankless task, had not seen that giving a new, developing nation its materials with which to build offered far greater possibilities for enrichment.

In the yellowed newspaper cuttings of 40 years ago which, in the last 10 years of her life, Mrs. Mary MEAD HAPP loved to have read over to her (According to Mrs. Fred STANHILBER, the woman who was her nurse and who became the wife of her nephew, Fred) you see a quaint drawing of Joel MEAD. The eyes are far apart and deep set. Lines are rutted from the nose to the corner of the mouth. It is a strong, austere, yet somehow visionary face.

You can trace its teasing likeness, changed and softened and become pretty in the face of Mrs. Bernice SPOO, his granddaughter, as she takes the witness stand, cool, unhurried, gracious, at ease.

"All the MEADS," she says she told Fred SILHILBERS's wife, "would turn over in their graves if they knew Aunt Mary was to have a Catholic funeral. The MEADS have been Protestants ever since there were any MEADS!"

"They are probably all waiting for her to hold open the gates for them then!" she says Mrs. STANHILBER retorted.

Joel MEAD and Sylvanus RIPLEY were boys together back east, having been born in the same part of Vermont in the same year, 1818. They started west together, settling first in Illinois and coming, just 86 years ago, to Oshkosh.

A STRANGE PARTNERSHIP

MEAD and RIPLEY - to this day Oshkosh hardly thinks of them apart. Together they saw the same vision of the future that lay for them in the virgin forest and together for 50 years they maintained probably one of the strangest partnerships America has ever had.

There were no legal nor technical formalities; for half a century there was not one scrap of paper in the form of a contract to define their relationship. Their deep trust in each other took the place of all that.

No separate accounts were ever kept between them. All moneys received or paid out by either MEAD or RIPLEY were taken from or added to a general fund. They bought not only commercial necessities in common but they bought and used in common all goods, wares and merchandise needed for the two families, paying equally regardless of whether one family used more then the other. MEAD was married to RIPLEY's sister.

When their affairs had prospered so that they could afford to build homes, they built houses just alike - brick for brick, pillar for pillar, huge, rambling, impressive edifices - within a stone's throw of each other.

BORN IN MEAD HOUSE

In Joel MEAD's house on High st. his children's children were born.

He had a son, Frank, and two daughters, Julia and Mary. Next door in a high ceilinged, angular frame house lived the STANHILBER family. John SATNHILBER was the bookkeeper for RIPLEY and MEAD for 20 years. Later he entered the lumber business as a member of the firm STANHILBER, AMOS & Co. and married Julia. As a matter of course her son, Fred, could be born nowhere but in her father's house. It is that son, Fred, and his wife, who are now fighting to have admitted to probate the will of their Aunt Mary.

Frank, too, had a child, the daughter of his latter years, by his second wife, a woman much younger than himself. It is that daughter, Mrs. Berenice MEAD SPOO, who is now fighting against the admission of the will.

JOEL LEFT NO WILL

Mary, who was married to George F. HAPP, a lumberman of St. Joseph, Mich., had no children but returned every winter with her husband to her parents' home.

When Joel MEAD died at 80 in 1898 he must have felt that he had seen fulfilled the common dream of pioneers. He had built up a fortune and he had founded a family.

Joel MEAD died without a will.

"Your grandfather," says Charles WILLIAMS, cross examining Mrs. Berenice MEAD SPOO on the stand, "died without a will?"

"Yes."

"And he left three children, Frank MEAD, Mrs. Mary MEAD HAPP and Mrs. Julia STANHILBER?"

"That is correct."

"So that all inherited equally in his estate, did they not?"

Her chin comes up. "They should have."

"And they did not?"

"That," she says, "is a matter of opinion."

So Joel MEAD, dying, left a family and a fortune estimated at $300,000 to half a million dollars. Out of the pothooks of the court records, out of the memories of those who knew then, you piece the picture of the pioneer's children.

The son, Frank, died in an institution.

Frank MEAD died without a will.

Of Julia, the town tells, and swears it to be gospel truth, that at Christmas John STANHILBER was wont to present her with a $20 gold piece. On the following Christmas, she returned it to him as his Christmas present. The next year he gave it back to her for her Christmas gift. So it went on, with wear and tear on the gold piece the only liability, and the Christmas spirit satisfied.

A PIONEER VIRTUE.

"And quite right," approves Oshkosh. "The pioneers virtues - industry and frugality. They made money, and they didn't spend it. That's why they had it. Although their income commanded respect, they lived less pretentiously than people of much smaller income here."

The town agrees that Julia MEAD was a very kind hearted woman and given to quiet charities. It points to the home of old Joel which, as one of its heirs, in accordance with his wish, she gave to the Ladies Benevolent society. (The Twentieth Century club now occupies the building.) It remembers that she bought and gave to the city the old MILLER house at the foot of Merritt st. and that the land became a much desired addition to Menomonee park.

Of her husband, John, at his death, the newspaper comment was this: "Deceased was a man of strong domestic attachments...and was a most upright and highly respected citizen, the embodiment of honesty and fairness, and was honorable to the extent of self-sacrifice in every relation of life." John STANHOLBER died without a will.

Not social leaders of the city, not pace setters in the matter of expenditure, the children of Joel MEAD remained in the second generation the outstanding, "the first" family of Oshkosh, one resident says.

Whenever anyone gave Mary MEAD HAPP the conventional greeting, "How do you do?" her answer was, "I do as I please." The consensus seems to be that she did, at least in the years before her increasing age and blindness laid a burden on her.

After the death of both their husbands, Mrs. HAPP closed up her Michigan home and returned to live with her sister in Oshkosh. The two aging women lived together in the aging home of the STANHILBERS. They "kept to themselves pretty much," the town says. "And they looked after Fred."

Everyone in Oshkosh likes Fred STANHILBER. Everyone calls him by his first name, "Fred." Almost never does anyone name him "Mr. STANHILBER," though his father now has been dead for many years and the man himself is 53. "We kind of made of him and petted him," an old resident says. "He was always so good and so kind and so gentle, and never made any trouble or anything you just couldn't help liking him."

There is a story that a few months before his birth, his mother, Julia, was thrown from a horse. Fred suffers an impediment in speech. He cannot hear unless you talk directly into his ear. His passion for the fire and police departments of Oshkosh has become proverbial. In the days when he had a horse and buggy, he used to lead the procession to every fire. Some say he had a fireman's helmet himself and escorted the chief.

JULIA BREAKS TRADITION

Mrs. Berenice SPOO is his cousin, and older residents of the town say she is "a real nice girl, always ready to do things for people." She is 48, and has been married for 25 years to Irwin SPOO, a leading merchant of the town. They built one of the first fine homes on Riverside drive, which some persons call Oshkosh's gold coast.

She is popular with the younger social set, dresses smartly, and "always wants everything as nice as she can."

Fred's mother, Julia STANHILBER, died in 1923, leaving an estate of about $350,000.

And Julia STANHILBER left a will.

She created a trust fund from which Fred was to receive an income all the rest of his life, naming as trustees Albert T. HENNING, president of the City National bank, and Henry BARBER, senior member of a prominent law firm. The remainder of her fortune was divided into three parts, one to go to the city of Oshkosh, one for her sister, Mary MEAD HAPP, and one for the STANHILBER heirs.

My husband, Fred, should have shared in the estate of John STANHILBER, his father," says Mrs. STANHILBER, whom Fred married less than a year ago, "because his father died without a will. But his mother, Julia STANHILBER, took it all and willed it away from him."

"She gave the homestead to Fred for his life, and at his death it was to go to the city. We tried to get a fair share of his father's estate for Fred last spring, but we succeeded only in getting the homestead."

"I'm only worth $1,000," she says, bitterly humorous. "Fred's mother specifies his income should be increased that much if he married, If he had children, they're not to get the principal, but if not that goes to the city."

In the old STANHILBER residence, after the death of Julia, Joel, MEAD's daughter, Mary, and his grandson, Fred lived on. Darkness was closing around the old woman. Cataracts had destroyed her sight so that she could not see the new city of Oshkosh that was rising up. Frequently she reminisced to a neighbor, Frank KARNES, head of the teacher's college department of industrial education, about the town as she had known it in her youth. And as a rich old woman she went on living frugally as old Joel MEAD has taught her.

The walls of the house grew dingy and were not repapered. Carpet became shabby, but were not replaced. Employees quotes her, "Mrs. HAPP says she can't afford this or that." Furniture of the old horse-hair and plush type continues to serve.

"Did you tell her," Mrs. SPOO is asked, "that she needed more comforts?"

I told both Aunt Julia and Aunt Mary that many times, but their ideas of comfort and mine were very different. Both had lived what I would call a very meager life. I lived what they would call an extravagant one."

"Was your Aunt Mary an agreeable woman?"

"Usually she was. I felt that she always had a mind of her own."

Mrs. SPOO is asked why she did not take flowers to her Aunt Mary, and returns that on one occasion, when Mrs. Fred STANHILBER had filled the room with flowers, "Aunt Mary said, "I wish they'd take the stinking things out."

The old woman and her nephew, living alone, were served by a constantly changing procession of nurses and housekeepers. Then in 1926, from Los Angeles, Calif., came the divorced wife of C. J. STEINHILBER, a distant cousin of Fred's, as nurse and housekeeper. She was known to the town as Miss Edith STYNE.

And now a cloud begins to close down over the events in the old home where the years of Joel MEAD's last daughter were pressing on to 85. Just what happened there is being aired in lengthy and conflicting stories in the old courthouse. The clarity of past events gives way to the vagueness of those seen too near, as objects near at hand will blur when you turn opera glass on them.

For Mary MEAD HAPP died on Nov. 21, 1933. And she left a will...

Miss Edith STYNE, who came to the STANHILBER home as nurse and housekeeper, is described as "craft and cunning incarnate." Again she is pictures as a woman of education and culture, "a subscriber to the Book of the Month club," as perhaps rather sensitive to slights, but devoted to Fred. She is depicted as a woman of domineering personality, violent rages, sudden generosities.

Recently on the stand in court it was attempted to press an inquiry into her life before she came to Oshkosh, particularly into details of her divorce and various names by which she allegedly was known. She appealed to the court for protection and the matter was stricken from the record.

"A MYSTERY WOMAN"

She speaks of the dead woman as "A darling old person. I learned much from her." She calls the allegations heartbreaking and appeals, "Do I look like the sort of woman who would beat an old lady?"

People ask each other curiously, "What do you think of her?" and the answer frequently comes, "I don't know. She's a mystery, She's a conundrum." Some of them say they are afraid of her.

Whatever the truth of the matter, it is never denied that shortly after she came into the house rumors of ill-treatment of Mrs. Mary MEAD HAPP by her began. It was said that her friends were not permitted to see her; it was said that the door of the house, which had always stood open, was now locked and that those who came in Miss STYNE's absence were unable to gain admittance.

Miss STYNE, now Mrs. STANHILBER, jokes now about people seeing anything sinister in a locked door.

"POOR AFFLICTED BOY"

But the weird stories went on. Mrs. Henrietta JOHNSON, a former nurse, has testified from the witness stand that Fred struck Mrs. HAPP, causing her nose to bleed, that Miss STYNE struggled with her, bruising her; that quarrels were frequent (though she added, on cross examination, that "Mrs. HAPP enjoyed a good quarrel, she said it stirred up one's blood.")

Fred, she said, put salt in the blind woman's coffee, shook pepper in her hair, blew smoke in her face, and Mrs. HAPP merely shook her head, saying, "Poor Freddie, poor afflicted boy."

A year or so ago Miss STYNE was brought into criminal court on the charge of a nurse that she had assaulted her.

THERE WAS A CHANGE

The whole atmosphere of the house, it is evident, changed in the year after she came. A neighbor says it changed for the better, and cites her efforts to refurbish and improve the building and furnishings. Mrs. SPOO says it became a house of unpleasantness and discord, with "people yelling and swearing at each other, Fred, slamming doors and shouting, Miss STYNE glaring at me as though I were an imposter, and Aunt Mary acting always as though she were afraid of being overheard.

The story of Joel MEAD and his descendants, which had flowed along smoothly for so many years, now becomes a thing, in the telling, of rapids, whirlpools, hidden currents.

In the fall of 1932 proceedings were started by one of the trustees to have a guardian appointed for Fred. The hearing was to be held on Dec. 15, but before the scheduled date Fred was married to Miss STYNE and the guardianship proceedings were dismissed.

THE NET WIDENS

Judge Daniel E. McDONALD has testified that Fred told him, "You know, they tried to send me to an asylum." "Nobody has tried to do that, Fred," the judge reassured him.

"Yes, they have," he says Fred replied. "I know they did, and the sheriff served the papers on me, and that's the reason I got married."

During the same year Mrs. STANHILBER asked for a hearing in county court on alleged mismanagement of the estate by HENNIG. Oshkosh says that the allegations contained "enough dynamite to blow the top off this county," But Oshkosh never had a chance to know because the hearing was closed. After it, Mrs. STANHILBER says, the bonding company paid $30,000 to the STANHILBER estate. HENNING was removed as trustee, the money was given to the First Wisconsin Trust Co. and shortly afterward the bank of which he was president was closed for reorganization. When it re-opened he was not retained in his former post.

READ ON DEATH DAY

And then on Oct. 24, 1933, the old woman, Mary MEAD HAPP, made a will. She left her entire estate to Fred. In it, according to counsel for the First Trust Co., the executor was a provision to the effect that "I am not unmindful of the fact that I have a niece by the name of Berenice SPOO but I am making no provision for her in this, my last will and testament."

That is the will which Mrs. SPOO is contesting, giving among other reasons that Mary MEAD HAPP was not of sound mind and memory at the time of the making, that she was mentally incompetent to make a will and that execution of the will was procured by "fraud and undue influence."

That is the will which Mrs. SPOO says was brought downstairs in a tin box by Mrs. STANHILBER on the morning of Mrs. HAPP's death and was read before her coffin had been bought.

It is, however, the second will which Mrs. HAPP made. She drew one in 1924 which set up a $50,000 trust fund for Fred, provided for two Congregational churches, among some other remainder, said to be several hundred thousand dollars, to the city of Oshkosh to be used as a memorial to her.

STILL MORE TO COME

The torn fragments of that will have been introduced into court as evidence that she repudiated it. Counsel for the trust company, which is acting for the STANHILBER's, claims that she not only destroyed it but revoked it in writing in January 1933.

If the new will is not admitted and if the old will is proved to have been revoked, the situation will be the same, according to attorneys, as though Mrs. HAPP had died intestate. In that case, the estate would be divided equally between her heirs at law, Mrs. SPOO and Fred STANHILBER.

There have been much masses of testimony, so many witnesses, such great confusion! There are still such masses waiting to be heard when the trial resumed on Feb. 27.

Joel MEAD came to Wisconsin amassed a fortune, founded a family and died.

Lumbermen have a phrase for land which the valuable timber has been removed. They call it "cut-over land". But when there is no more that men can take from it, the land lives on, breeding it's own rich but futile growth - as Joel MEAD's money bred a plant which is reaching dark fruition now in the Oshkosh courthouse, with it's high backed varnished chairs.


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