Falk v. First Wisconsin Trust Co.

The question is whether the testator intended that in any event, the identity of his “surviving children” was to be determined at his death, or that, if his wife survived him, their identity was to be determined at her death. In other terms, if the wife survived and the property be held in trust during her life, did that fact postpone vesting of the interest or only enjoyment? Neither the will nor the 1943 decree contained any modifier of “surviving” or “surviving children” which expressly supplied the answer.

*250In our search for an answer by implication, we must look first at the 1943 decree.…