Updegraph v. Gerling

The appellant herein, Margaret E. Updegraph, is the widow of Waldo B. Updegraph, deceased; appeals from an order determining heirship, by which the trial court determined that the bulk of the decedent’s estate was his separate property and defined the boundaries of the “home property” in which she had been devised a life estate; and also appeals from an order terminating the payment of a widow’s allowance.

With two exceptions, which were covered by stipulation, the trial court found that each of the items in the decedent’s estate was his separate property; that three of these items were owned and acquired by the decedent prior to his marriage to appellant; that one of these items consisted of a bank account in which the proceeds from his separate property had been deposited including, among other things, police pension payments the right to which had vested in him prior to said marriage; that the remainder of these items, specifically describing each thereof, constituted the proceeds of property owned by the decedent prior to said marriage, designating the separate property source thereof and tracing the proceeds of such source to the item in question; that any services rendered…