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Show BJ. Wills Rose I A Week to Girl tie Couldn't Win Leaves a Letter to Brother Giving Directions in Love Case. RICHMOND, VA - Like many , other soldiers, Valentine Browne j lawless left a will when he went to war in 1944. There were the usual clauses providing for distribution of ; Personal property. There also was a clause that directed that the cash residue of the estate be turned over ; to h:s brother, Edward Kirwan Lawless, for a special purpose. But the purpose was not denned in the ! will. : Valentine left a letter to his i brother to be opened only tn case of his death. The 36-year-old army air forces sergeant was killed in a plane crash at Linz, Austria, in October, 1944. I The letter revealed that Valentine j a number of years had been in love : with a girl whom he had no hope of i winning. j "I will continue to love her for the duration of my life," it said. Shows Devotion. In death, the letter continued, he planned to express his devotion to ; the girl. The cash residue of the soldier's estate $3,600 was to be used to fulfill this wish. Every week a florist was to send the girl one rose "a perfect rose." The color did not matter. But the identity of the sender never was to 1 be revealed. "My idea," Valentine wrote to his brother, "is to furnish the girl with the pleasure of receiving a rose, not to have her think of me because I sent it to her." Valentine's request became known when his sister, Margaret Lawless, contended that her brother's broth-er's last request was "not practical" practi-cal" and asked the Virginia supreme su-preme court of appeals to set it aside. Legal Squabble. The sister and other heirs , j claimed that failure of the will to ': specify the "special purposes" had I the effect of leaving the $3,600 in trust with Edward Lawless for the benefit of other heirs. Edward contended, however, that carrying out the instructions in his brother's letter was a matter of "conscience." Previously, a lower court in Norfolk, Nor-folk, where the will was made out, ruled that the soldier's funds had been left to Edward "individually and with no trust attached." But Valentine's sister and other ! heirs appealed the decision to the ; higher court in an effort to stop de-livery de-livery of the dead soldier's "perfect rose" to the girl who married another an-other man and reportedly is living , in the tidewater section of Virginia. |
