In re Proving the Last Will & Testament of Rapp
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
Appeal by the contestant, Minnie Merkle, from a decree of the Surrogate’s Court of the county of Richmond,’ entered in the office of the clerk of said court on the 28th day of January, 1920, which admitted to probate a paper dated March 4, 1919, propounded as the will of Carl Rapp, who died in the Staten Island Hospital on March 6, 1919.
1Opinion of the Court
Putnam, J.:
The deceased had been a German saloonkeeper. It can be deduced from the testimony that although he had been in this country forty-three years, he did not understand English and could not read an English newspaper.
Two daughters, Mrs. Margaret F. Reilly, the proponent, and Mrs. Minnie Merkle, the contestant, were the only *89children. An estrangement between them began about the time of the mother’s death in 1915.
About 1917, Rapp, who had lived with Mrs. Reilly, came back to work as a janitor in a German boarding house in Staten Island.
On Sunday evening, March second, Rapp was stricken…
2Cases cited5 opinions
- Lewis v. . LewisNew York Court of Appeals · 1854
- In Re the Probate of a Paper Propounded as the Last Will & Testament of TurellNew York Court of Appeals · 1901
- In re the Probate of a Paper Propounded as the Last Will & Testament of HermannNew York Surrogate's Court · 1914
- In Re Proving the Will of CoganNew York Court of Appeals · 1919
- In re Proving the Last Will & Testament of CoganAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York · 1918