Contesting Mrs. Childs' Will

CONTESTING MRS. CHILDS' WILL

Who Left Her Property Out of the Family

$10,000 IS IN DISPUTE

A Brother, Nephew and Two Adopted Children Contest Will on Ground of Undue Influence

The admission of the will of Mrs. Lucy A. H. Childs, of Augusta, to probate is being hotly contested in the probate court yesterday.

The will is contested by O. A. Ainsworth, a nephew, John Hubbard, a brother, Carlos W. Childs and Mary White, adopted children. The ground of the contest is incompetency to make a will and undue influence on the part of the Garrod family.

Mrs. Childs' purported will was mad April 20, 1894, and she left property amounting to about $10,000 divided as follows: Frederic Garrod, one twelfth; Mary Garrod, his wife, one-sixth; Lucy E. Garrod, their daughter, one twelfth; Sophronia Osborne, of Sante Fe, New Mexico, a daughter of a former congregational pastor, one twelfth; George H. Smith, of Great Bend, Kansas, in trust for his seven children, one-sixth; J. S. Childs, of Augusta, a nephew, one twelfth; the Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior of Illinois, one twelfth; the Home Missionary society of Michigan, one-sixth; Johanna Grainger, one twelfth.

Andrew Campbell is named as executor under the will. The contestants are represented by A. J. Sawyer & Son and the executor by Frank Jones.

The reason given why the adopted children are cut off under the will of Mrs. Childs is that her husband, J. Webster Childs provided for them at his death leaving Carlos W. Childs the east one-half of the southeast quarter of section 10 and the west one-half of the southwest quarter of section 11, of Augusta, and Mary A. White the southwest one-quarter of the northeast one-quarter of section 23 of Augusta and $3,000. The homestead of 240 acres was left to Mrs. Childs for life and at her death one-sixth of it was to go to each of the adopted children.

The case has brought the presence of a good many witnesses and parties into the probate court.