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Anne Starr has been dead for twelve years, and now a neglected bank account of hers turns up out of the blue.
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LOST BANK BOOK
Notice is hereby given that application has been made to the Hadley Falls Trust Company for Payment of the amount of deposit represented by Pass Book No. 26872, issued by said Bank to Anna M. Starr, it being claimed that the said Pass Book has been lost, stolen or destroyed.
Anna M. Starr Estate
By Alma G. Stokey, Adm. C.T.A.
Hadley Falls Trust Co.,
By J. D. Minor, Asst. Treas.
Holyoke, Mass., July 15, 1940
July 16-22-29
Notice is hereby given that application has been made to the Hadley Falls Trust Company for Payment of the amount of deposit represented by Pass Book No. 26872, issued by said Bank to Anna M. Starr, it being claimed that the said Pass Book has been lost, stolen or destroyed.
Anna M. Starr Estate
By Alma G. Stokey, Adm. C.T.A.
Hadley Falls Trust Co.,
By J. D. Minor, Asst. Treas.
Holyoke, Mass., July 15, 1940
July 16-22-29
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By Alma G. Stokey, Adm. C.T.A.
Adm CTA stands for Administrator Cum Testamento Annexo, i.e. Administrator With the Will Annexed, which matches the what the probate court said in 1928:
1928-05-16 NEWSPAPER ITEM MENTIONING ALMA
Alma G. Stokey of South Hadley, administrator with the will annexed.
This is a fun story, I think.
Once upon a time there was a bank called the Hadley Falls Trust Company. I can't find any municipal-type entity named Hadley Falls, Massachusetts. There is a Hadley Falls Dam, and there is a neighborhood of South Hadley called South Hadley Falls, but no Hadley Falls, Massachusetts. But there was a Hadley Falls Trust Company,.
Alma's friend Anne Starr opened an account at Hadley Falls Trust. Maybe Anne was living in South Hadley Falls. I imagine that she later moved to another part of South Hadley, and never bothered to close her account in the Hadley Falls Trust Company. I imagine there being some very small amount of money there - say, $2.47 - and that she completely forgot about it. This was before the days of computers, and I imagine that no monthly statements were sent out. That's what pass books were for, and pass books weren't very big. There's no knowing what box or drawer Anne Starr's Hadley Falls Trust Company pass book disappeared into - assuming that there was indeed a pass book.
Time passed. In 1928, Anne died, rather unexpectedly. Alma was the administrator of the will, presumably because Anne's family, all in Florida, were too far away to deal with the estate. Alma had no idea of existence of the account in the Hadley Falls Trust Company. When Anne's things were gone through, no Hadley Falls pass book turned up. The estate was settled without the $2.47.
More time passed. The stock market crashed in 1929, but apparently Hadley Falls Trust Company managed to struggle along until 1940, when it was bought out by the Wilmington Trust Company. Then, because of the sale, the books were checked, and the auditors found Anne Starr's bank account, dormant for 20 years or more. The $2.47 must be accounted for! How much time did it take them to determine that Anne Starr was dead and that Alma Stokey was the person they needed to contact?
It must have been strange for Alma to get the letter about this. But Alma was careful about money, so she dutifully followed through on it. I assume that the inheritor of the $2.47 would be Anne's two sisters in Florida, but were they still alive by this point? Anne was 60 when she died, so at this time the sisters were probably in their mid-seventies. Their names were Caroline Lewis and Frances Stebbins. Someday maybe I'll look harder for them.
A note about sourcing: I couldn't find much of anything about the Hadley Falls Trust company. All I found was:
https://findingaids.hagley.org/repositories/3/archival_objects/495955
...which has records for the Hadley Falls Trust Company from 1940 to 1943, under the name of Wilmington Trust. So I assume, but I don't know, that Wilmington Trust bought out Hadley Falls Trust in 1940, and that they moved all the remaining Hadley Falls Trust accounts into Wilmington Trust in 1943.
Adm CTA stands for Administrator Cum Testamento Annexo, i.e. Administrator With the Will Annexed, which matches the what the probate court said in 1928:
1928-05-16 NEWSPAPER ITEM MENTIONING ALMA
Alma G. Stokey of South Hadley, administrator with the will annexed.
This is a fun story, I think.
Once upon a time there was a bank called the Hadley Falls Trust Company. I can't find any municipal-type entity named Hadley Falls, Massachusetts. There is a Hadley Falls Dam, and there is a neighborhood of South Hadley called South Hadley Falls, but no Hadley Falls, Massachusetts. But there was a Hadley Falls Trust Company,.
Alma's friend Anne Starr opened an account at Hadley Falls Trust. Maybe Anne was living in South Hadley Falls. I imagine that she later moved to another part of South Hadley, and never bothered to close her account in the Hadley Falls Trust Company. I imagine there being some very small amount of money there - say, $2.47 - and that she completely forgot about it. This was before the days of computers, and I imagine that no monthly statements were sent out. That's what pass books were for, and pass books weren't very big. There's no knowing what box or drawer Anne Starr's Hadley Falls Trust Company pass book disappeared into - assuming that there was indeed a pass book.
Time passed. In 1928, Anne died, rather unexpectedly. Alma was the administrator of the will, presumably because Anne's family, all in Florida, were too far away to deal with the estate. Alma had no idea of existence of the account in the Hadley Falls Trust Company. When Anne's things were gone through, no Hadley Falls pass book turned up. The estate was settled without the $2.47.
More time passed. The stock market crashed in 1929, but apparently Hadley Falls Trust Company managed to struggle along until 1940, when it was bought out by the Wilmington Trust Company. Then, because of the sale, the books were checked, and the auditors found Anne Starr's bank account, dormant for 20 years or more. The $2.47 must be accounted for! How much time did it take them to determine that Anne Starr was dead and that Alma Stokey was the person they needed to contact?
It must have been strange for Alma to get the letter about this. But Alma was careful about money, so she dutifully followed through on it. I assume that the inheritor of the $2.47 would be Anne's two sisters in Florida, but were they still alive by this point? Anne was 60 when she died, so at this time the sisters were probably in their mid-seventies. Their names were Caroline Lewis and Frances Stebbins. Someday maybe I'll look harder for them.
A note about sourcing: I couldn't find much of anything about the Hadley Falls Trust company. All I found was:
https://findingaids.hagley.org/repositories/3/archival_objects/495955
...which has records for the Hadley Falls Trust Company from 1940 to 1943, under the name of Wilmington Trust. So I assume, but I don't know, that Wilmington Trust bought out Hadley Falls Trust in 1940, and that they moved all the remaining Hadley Falls Trust accounts into Wilmington Trust in 1943.
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LINKS TO OTHER RELEVANT PAGES IN THIS WEBSITE
DOCUMENT LISTS FOR PEOPLE:
- ALMA: DOCUMENTS ----- Related
- NON-FAMILY: ANNE STARR ----- Related
ADDITIONAL RELATED PAGES IN THIS WEBSITE:
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