Banta v. Willets

The Surrogate.

This case is an extraordinary one. A servant girl’s will is offered for probate by her employers’ family. The will is contested by Mary Banta, decedent’s niece and her only next of kin and heir at law.

The decedent was a servant of Isaac W. Willets, of North Hempstead, and had been in his service, as a domestic, for nearly twenty-nine years. She came from Ireland about thirty-three years ago, and for the first three years found a home with her sister, a Mrs. Pendergast, the mother of contestant) Mary Banta; and while she was making her home at her sister’s the contestant was…