Estate Planning, Probate & Elder Law Attorneys

» Movement in the Cook County Probate Court

Attention Cook County probate practitioners: Judge James W. Kennedy of the Cook County Probate Court has retired, effective as of last Friday the 22nd of January. To replace him, Judge Mary Ellen Coghlan has moved over into deceased estates from guardianship, leaving the following judges for deceased estate matters:

Calendar #2: Judge Budzinski (Chief Judge of the Probate Division), Room 1803
Calendar #8: Judge Coleman, Room 1804
Calendar #7: Judge Coghlan, Room 1802
Calendar #11: Judge Malak, Room 1801

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» Her Fearful Symmetry, the Victorians, and Decapitation Provisions

The holiday break gave me a chance to finish Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, which I mentioned in my last post. There are a few references to probate and estate planning in the novel, but this is my favorite -- it's a quote given by one of the main characters (Robert) while he gives a tour of London's Highgate Cemetery (which plays a major role in the book).

"Before modern medical technology, people had a difficult time determining when someone was really dead. You might think that death would be pretty blatant, but there were a number of famous cases in which a dead body sat up and went on living, and many Victorians got the jim-jams just thinking about the possibility of being buried alive.

Being a practical people, they attempted to find solutions to the problem. The Victorians invented a system of bells with strings attached that went through the ground and into the coffin, so if you woke up underground you could pull on your bell till someone came to dig you up. There's no record of anyone being saved by one of these devices. People made all sorts of odd stipulations in their wills, such as asking to be decapitated as insurance against an undesired revival."

A Will with a decapitation provision? Excellent!

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