Story v. Hargrave

This appeal presents the question whether a contract to make a will leaving specific property to the appellants in exchange for personal services, anticipatorily breached by the testatrix, should be enforced in equity.

Ilevia Vellines was born in 1904. She was unmarried and lived alone on her 59-acre farm in Isle of Wight County. Her nearest relatives were second cousins. She could neither read nor write, but was, in 1980, mentally alert, fully competent to make her own decisions, and physically capable of caring for herself. She had a trailer parked next to her house and had a succession of…