A Crooked Lawyer, a Suspicious New Will, and Angry Children: the Ernest Kupke Estate Lawsuit
Johann Streu/John Story: 1834-1918
Ernest Kupke: 1840-1903
While researching my second-great-granduncle Johann Streu, I
came across news articles about a lawsuit that named him as a defendant. To my
surprise, Johann was being sued by his wife Johanna’s niece and nephew. They
claimed Johann was involved in a scheme to defraud them of the inheritance they
were due following the death of their father, Ernst or Ernest Kupke. Ernst was
Johann’s brother-in-law and neighbor. What had happened to cause such mistrust
and animosity? It sounded as if this branch of the family tree had been broken,
perhaps beyond repair.
I collected as many newspaper articles about the lawsuit as
I could find on Newspapers.com. The suit was apparently well-known in Nebraska,
with articles detailing each ruling published in several newspapers. The case
appeared, in various forms, before at least three different judges. I was able
to piece together the basic storyline from all these articles.
So who was Ernest Kupke? He was born in July of 1840 in
Silesia, Prussia. His parents were Carl and Johanna Setzer Kupke. Ernest and
his family immigrated to the United States in 1863 when he was 23 years old.
His sister married Johann Streu/John Stroy, and the 1870 census finds Ernst
living next door to the Stroys in Wisconsin.
The next year Ernst married Johanna Caroline Tischer or
Fischer, another Prussian immigrant. They had two children, John Christ Kupke,
born in 1874, and Johanna Kupke, born in 1873. Shortly thereafter, Ernst and
Johanna must have separated and divorced, for by the 1880 census, Johanna had
remarried to a man named William Hoerner or Koerner, and she and her two
children were living with Koerner and his children from an earlier marriage.
Johanna Tischer must have married him quite quickly, for the couple already had
three-year-old twins and a 7-month-old son named Gotlieb by 1880.
John and Johanna Kupke Stroy had already moved their family
to Cass County, Nebraska around 1875. Ernest followed them, bringing his mother
to live with him. He appears on the 1880 census in Cass County, marital status
“D” for divorced, just two pages away in the census forms from the Stroy
family.
Ernest’s ex-wife and new husband moved their family to
Kentucky. Census records list Ernest’s children as Koerner’s children, so they
incorrectly appear with the surname Koerner rather than Kupke.
I surmise that Ernest fell out of contact with his children
over the years, for whatever reason. They seem to have built lives in Kentucky,
and don’t seem to have traveled to Nebraska to visit him. His daughter married
a man named Robert Sayre in the 1890s, and by the 1900 census, she was the
mother of two sons and was living in Paducah. Her brother, John Christ, was 26
and living with his stepfather and mother in Clarks River, Kentucky, working as
a house carpenter.
Ernest fell into poor health in 1903, dying July 27, 1903.
His children didn’t know about his death until they received a visit from a slick
Nebraska attorney, Carey S. Polk, who spun them a tale about their father’s
will, which was written in German and incomprehensible to them. He told them
Ernest’s estate was to be split among several heirs and their share was to be
$3,300. He proposed that he help them out by buying out their rights in the
estate for $700 more—so they would have $4000 to split. He must have been very
persuasive, for the naïve pair signed the agreement. Polk scampered back to
Nebraska where he tried to parlay his partial interest into a full interest,
alleging that the will was improper and unenforceable—Ernest had an earlier
will that left everything to his children, and that would come back into effect
if the new will were tossed out. The total value of the estate was $22,000, so
he had paid $4000 to get hold of four times as much money—a sweet deal for him.
Luckily for John Christ and Johanna, someone let them know
the true value of what they had signed away, so in November 1903 they filed suit
in Nebraska asking for the agreement with the slick attorney be set aside, and
that they be declared sole heirs to their father’s estate. A newspaper article
at the time stated; “They tender repayment of the $4000 with interest and seek
to recover the value of the estate, asserting that the papers were signed in
ignorance of their rights in the matter.”
So who was benefitting under the new will? John Christ and
Johanna have a long list of defendants, including Carey Polk of course, and H.
R. Neitzel, J. E. Baumgartner, Herman Schmidt, Agnes Schmidt, my ancestor
Johann Stroy and his wife Johannah, and the Bank of Murdock.
So what were these people alleged to have done? According to
an article in the Lincoln Star, the new will “is alleged to have been made
while he was in a dying condition and it is charged in the action that others
held the dying man’s hand and guided it to affix his signature to the document,
which had been written in German.”
This sounds like something straight out of a crime show—a forged
will with a forced signature. So who was holding the pen when poor Ernest was
dying?
Another, longer article in the Plattsmouth Journal in
October 1903 provides more details of exactly what crooked Mr. Polk was up to.
“The petition filed by these children and heirs at law tells
a tale that is, to say the least, most outrageous. The will was written in the
German language by [Kupke’s] spiritual adviser, Rev. Baumgartner, of the
Lutheran faith, and contained a bequest of $5000 to the Lutheran church. Among
other bequests, $3000 to the two children of Kupke’s who reside in Kentucky.
The will was propounded for probate…After filing the petition for probate, C.
S. Polk hied himself to Kentucky with a translation of the will and requested
the Kupke children to join with their Uncle Stroy in a fight to have the $5000
bequest to the church defeated, representing to the heirs in Kentucky that the
will was valid and binding on them, and if they would join their uncle in
defeating the Lutheran church out of the $5000, Stroy and Mr. Polk would pay
them the amount allowed them under the will ($3000) and their pro rata share of
the $5000 so snatched from the wicked church.”
The article goes on to state that Polk was well aware that
the two people who witnessed the new will were beneficiaries of the will, which
is forbidden due to the obvious conflict of interest. That made the new will “incompetent,
illegal and could not be admitted to probate under the law of Nebraska”.
While the total value of the estate may not sound like much
to us today, according to Google, 1903’s $22,000 would be the equivalent of
$718,000 in 2022. It’s easy to understand why John and Johanna were ready to
sue to get what they were properly owed. It is also easy to understand why the
church was so eager to get that $5000—that would be $163,000 in today’s money.
So how complicit was Johann/John Story in this attempted
swindle? I suspect he was the other witness to the will who was also a
beneficiary, along with the Rev. Baumgartner, although none of the news
articles identify him directly. It would make sense that John’s wife Johannah
would have been caring for her brother Ernest during his final days, so they
would have been close to hand.
Also, not only was Rev. Baumgartner the Stroys’ minister, he
was also their daughter’s father-in-law. Johann’s daughter Mary was married to
Conrad Baumgartner, Rev. J. E. Baumgartner’s son. It sounds like the
Baumgartners and the Stroys conspired to keep Ernest’s money in their family
rather than see it go to his estranged children. Hardly the actions of true
Christians!
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| Cass County Nebraska farmland similar to the Kupke land... |
The courts eventually sided with John Christ Kupke and his
sister Johanna Kupke Sayre. They seem to have inherited the full estate,
although the slightly shady lawyer Polk was awarded $2500 out of the estate for
attorney’s fees for his “work” as the administrator of the estate. I’m sure
that didn’t sit well with the Kupke children, nor did it sit well with one of
the local newspapers, which published a scathing criticism of the fee award,
suggesting it was a political payoff.
Shockingly, the German Lutheran Synod persisted in trying to
acquire their bequest from the invalid will. They filed suit to ask that the
order throwing out the new will be vacated, and that they get their day in
court to argue that the new will was valid. They claimed that, “Material
witnesses living, who were present and witnessed the execution of the will,
were never called, and the hearing was, from a legal standpoint, a miscarriage.”
The Synod was granted a hearing to present their case to the
court. I can find no records in the newspapers of the result of that hearing.
It appears that the Kupke children received at least a portion of their father’s
estate. John Christ Kupke moved to Nebraska, and took up farming, presumably on
his father’s land. His sister and her family remained in Kentucky. John Christ appears
on the 1910 census as a single man. A year later, he seems to have married and
his first child was born December 3, 1911. His wife was Louise Holare, and was
eleven years younger than John, who was 37. They had three daughters.
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| John Christ Kupke headstone at Lutheran Cemetery. Findagrave. |
I wonder if John Christ Kupke made his peace with the Stroys.
Johannah Stroy and her children might have been his only relatives in Nebraska
after all. I’m not sure whether they deserved his forgiveness or not, but I
hope they tried to mend the broken branch in the family tree eventually.
Sources:
Plainview News, Plainview Nebraska. “Sue to Recover Estate”.
13 Nov 1903.
Lincoln Star, Lincoln Nebraska. “Brief in Will Contest”. 8
Nov 1904
Omaha Daily Bee, Omaha Nebraska. “Kentucky Heirs Get
Property.” 12 Apr 1904
Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “Get Rich Quick”.
29 Oct 1903.
Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “Court Orders
Resitution.” 14 Apr 1904.
Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “Get Rich Quick
Scheme”. 4 Aug 1904
Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “An Imposition
on the Court.” 28 Apr 1904.
Louisville Courier, Louisville Nebraska. “Increases Bond of
Administrator.” 5 Mar 1904.
Elmwood Daily Leader Echo, Elmwood Nebraska. “Kupke Case in
the Supreme Court.” 18 Nov 1904.
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