Schooler

In this action the plaintiff seeks to establish her right to ten one thousand dollar bonds of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, now in the possession of the defendant as executor of the last will of Joseph Richardson Houghton, deceased. These bonds first came into possession of the defendant in October, 1920, when he was appointed guardian of Joseph Houghton, who had been on the 25th of October, 1920, declared an incompetent. They were at that time in a safe deposit box in the vaults of the Union Trust building in an envelope, on the outside of which was indorsed the following: “Mrs. Nellie E. Schooler, #3859-21st Street, San Francisco, Cal.,” and upon the back of the same envelope in the same handwriting, but in pencil, was the following: “10 bonds Pac. Telephone & Tel. Company. Interest payable Jan. 2nd and July 2nd— 5 per cent, per annum.”

Guy R. Kennedy, an attorney at law, who drew the will of the decedent, testified that between the first day of August, 1918, and the fifteenth day of April, 1919, he had a conversation with Mr. Houghton in Chico in which the latter said that he had an envelope on which there was the name of Mrs. Schooler written together with her…