Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD had long shared Ed Hale as a client-patient. They liked and admired him, but saw him as a victim of the ill effects of extreme wealth, especially in circumstances like Ed’s where there were three species of offspring—his, hers and theirs.
Both Ed and his wife Lora had been married before and had a child from a first marriage which had ended in divorce. Those divorces were at a time when Ed and Lora were young and not wealthy. Then Ed struck it rich by virtue of a high-tech patent he secured as a result of a biological insight that came to him while working as a veterinarian. It revolutionized the pet food industry and made Ed ultra-wealthy.
Ed had been generous with all three children, in retrospect too generous, for none of the three worked for a living despite having been given every educational opportunity. Early gifts by Ed to UTMA accounts for them had grown to make them quite wealthy while still under thirty, and unrestrained in their use of that wealth. Ed had adopted Lora’s child by her first marriage and treated all three equally financially since he came into their lives.
Lora had taken ill two years ago and died two months ago. She and Ed had been close, especially in the later years of their marriage. Ed was now missing her terribly. He called Ben for an appointment.
“Ben, I need to talk with you about my estate plan. I would like to meet with you and Sam together about it. Would you check with him and pick a time that suits you both. I can do it most any time.”
Ben replied, “I know we could do it Friday at four.” (That was when he and Sam met most every Friday at Ben’s office to share a dram or two of The Macallan and decompress after their work week, plan a Saturday morning pond fishing outing in season, and it was now March and prime time for bream).
Ed arrived at 3:50, carrying a brown bag containing a fifth of a 30-year-old vintage of The Macallan. Sam arrived right on time. Joanne, Ben’s long-time assistant he and Sam and many clients called PIC (for Person in Charge) had a container of fresh ice and clean glasses of several shapes and sizes waiting on a tray on the table in the library-conference room. She left for a hair appointment, locking the office door behind her.
Sam poured three fingers from the bottle Ed had brought into three short crystal glasses and lifted his, “Here’s to Lora.”
“Amen,” Ben replied. Ed’s eyes moistened and he pulled a red bandanna from a back pocket of his khakis. Each man sipped, and three minutes of silence ensued. Then Ed said,
“Boys, I need your help. Each of the kids has approached me with essentially the same proposition. They know I will treat them equally financially at my death, but each has asked for an option to acquire The Place at my death. They each ask that I not tell the others of their ask.”
The Place was Ed’s 10,000-acre quail plantation lying astride the Georgia-Florida line below Thomasville.
The three old friends spent the next hour debating and sipping. Then Ed’s manager of The Place dropped Ben and Sam off at his abode and drove Ed home. On Monday Ben prepared the changes to Ed’s estate plan and on Friday afternoon the three reassembled at Ben’s office, Ed signed the revised documents and they enjoyed three fingers each from the bottle Ed had brought the week before.
Ed died two years later. The day after his burial beneath a live oak at The Place this letter from Ed but bearing the return address of Ben’s office arrived at the home of each child of Ed and Lora.
“Dear Children:
I know you each want to know of my plan for the disposition of The Place so I am sending you this preview. I have left The Place in fractional interests to public charities but subject to a request that they auction it among you. The auction will require a minimum opening bid 15% in excess of its appraised fair market value. If that and other conditions mandated by IRS requirements are not met the auction will not occur. I wish you and yours every good fortune.
Love, Your father,
Ed Hale”
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