Holloway v. Commissioner

BONE, Circuit Judge.

Decedent, in 1932, obtained work near Lost Hills, California as night watchman for an oil company. He was then 63 years *673of age. lie lived in a small galvanized iron shack in which he built a bed of rough lumber and to which he piped water, constructing a stove of an oil drum using gasoline for fuel. Following an injury in 1933, his wife, then 57, joined him. Current expenses exhausted his entire $100 per month salary and they had no other funds.

Decedent soon became attracted by a nearby area showing outcroppings of gypsum and he obtained a lease of this on a royalty basis.…