Charles Vance Miller
We kind of wish we knew more about Charles Vance Miller. He seems like a hoot. This Canadian attorney’s will stipulated that in the decade following his death (which occurred in 1926), whichever Toronto woman produced the most offspring would acquire a large sum of money from his estate.
Four different women – each with nine children during that time span whoa – won the contest, receiving about $125,000 each. Nowadays that many kids for that amount wouldn’t be worth it, but in 1936, that was equivalent to one million, eight-hundred thousand in USD today. That’s enough to cover everything, including college.
Benjamin Franklin
One of the founding fathers of the United States of America was also a father to a few children, and in his will, he left a portrait frame, and a specific request, to his daughter Sarah. The request was that she “not engage the expensive, vain, and useless pastime of wearing jewels.” Ben was never one to mince words.
But why give his daughter such an odd request? The portrait frame he left her contained over four hundred diamonds – no doubt he wanted to avoid her plundering the frame. According to the history we know, Sarah Franklin Bache ignored his request and tore the frame to shreds for the diamonds.
Patricia O'Neill
Patricia O'Neill had plenty of dosh to spread around, being the daughter of the Countess of Kenmore. Did she leave it to her family? Her friends? Did she have her ashes mixed into a portrait of herself, or stipulate that her family had to enter her perfectly-preserved body into a triathlon? None of these, unfortunately.
Instead, she simply left the entirety of her forty million pound fortune, the equivalent of more than fifty-three million dollars, to her pet Chimp Kalu. Unfortunately for Kalu, O'Neill's financial state tanked thanks to bad investments and management, meaning there isn't much left for him once she passes – O'Neill has to exist on gifts from friends.
Thomas Shewbridge
As a Californian prune rancher, Thomas Shewbridge wasn't all that well known during his life, and that's okay. His will, of all things, brought him into the public eye when he left twenty-nine thousand stock shares in the local electric company to his two dogs, Mac and George.
For the most part, this didn't really mean that much, but since they were major shareholders, it did mean that the dogs had to be present for the board of directors' meetings. The two dogs also inherited an estate worth almost $250,000. The dogs weren't very interested in the meetings, but that's not because they're dogs. It's just because shareholder meetings are boring.
T.M. Zink
Lawyer T.M. Zink might have the strangest request on this entire list. When he died, he left a trust fund of fifty thousand dollars to create a library, but not just any library. He wanted a library totally devoid of women. No books, or art, made by women (easy), no decorations by women (might be tough), and no female employees (impossible).
Zink's own daughter contested the will and was actually successful. The womanless library was never founded, no matter what Zink's reasoning was. Was he a misogynist? Or did he just want a library that actually had books worth reading? We may never know.