Published on Harrison Estate Law
By Kate Marchewka on December 20th, 2022
News Flash: Millionaires can be eccentric.
Such was Charles Vance Millar, who loved a practical joke, and didn’t let death stop him from enjoying them. Clauses included leaving a vacation home in Jamaica to three men who hated each other as long as they lived there together. But the most well known clause was the one that began what came to be known as The Great Stork Derby.
After a few other bequests, the remainder of his estate was to be changed into cash and given to the Toronto woman who had the most children in the ten years after his death. Just like that, the women of Toronto were off and running.
The 5 front runners had 56 children all together, although only 32 were eligible to be counted under the clauses of the Will. In the end, four women, Annie Katherine Smith, Kathleen Ellen Nagle, Lucy Alice Timleck, and Isabel Mary Maclean, tied for first place, with each of them giving birth to nine babies. The fortune, at this point worth $568,106, was split and each family claimed $110,000, or over $2 million in today’s money.
Kate Marchewka, Harrison Estate Law
