213 Wis. 299 | Wis. | 1933
The proceeding is in effect one to construe a will, although in form a petition to have title in real estate declared in petitioners free from the claim of appellant under a will to use thereof during life or until she remarries.
The will of William Buchanan devised the use of a farm to his son Alexander during his life; and upon his death to the issue of his body surviving him; and if none “to his widow, Sadie True Buchanan, for and during the period of her widowhood, and upon her remarriage or her death, whichever event shall occur first,” to the children of his son James. Alexander survived his father. After the testator’s death Alexander procured a divorce from Sadie True Buchanan from the bonds of matrimony and subsequently died without issue. Sadie is still living and has never remarried. She claims a life estate in the farm under the provisions of the will above stated, and the petitioners, who are children of James Buchanan, claim that as she never became the widow of Alexander, the entire estate is under said provisions now vested in them.
The appellant cites several cases wherein a testator made a devise or bequest to his wife either naming her first and
Much is also made in the briefs over the question whether the estate devised to the wife was vested or contingent, but this is of no import because the divorce defeats the estate in one case if it does in the other, and it makes no difference whether the divorce produced this result by divesting the estate after it vested in Sadie or by preventing it from ever vesting in her. The devisee has not now any estate in either case.
We think it plain that under the cardinal rules of construction that a will must be given effect according to the testator’s intent and that words therein must be given their ordinary meaning unless there is something in the will or in the circumstances to indicate otherwise, the terms of the instant devise of the use of the farm “to his (Alexander’s) widow diiring the period of her widowhood” compels af-firmance of the judgment. A divorcee does not upon the death of the man from whom she was divorced become his
By the Court. — The judgment of the county court is affirmed.