“I remember Mr. Hammond very well and the circumstances attending his illness,” said Miss Burke to-day. “He was seriously ill and for a long time it was a question as to his recovery. We made every effort to save him and felt a keen personal delight when we knew we had won. He had always, up to the time of his death, remembered all of us, sending us presents and flowers at the holidays and in many ways showing his deep gratitude.
“We were notified by his secretary immediately after his death, but until to-day we had no idea that he had remembered us in his will. I had charge of his case two months and then had to take another patient. Miss Van Horn was with him five months during his convalescence.”
In the little apartment at 14 Green Tree street there was a sound of laughing and dancing feet. Answering the ring of a visitor Miss Phillips opened the door with such a smiling countenance as to obliterate any memory of downcast skies.
“I have just heard of Mr. Hammond’s great kindness,” she said. “Just think of $500; why it’s a nest egg for a fortune! He has always done so many nice things for us girls ever since we cared for him, but to think of his remembering us in his will! I was with him several months and we grew to be great friends after the crisis of his illness was past.
“He often came to Chicago, and frequently would call us up on arriving and arrange for us all to go to the theater, or to dinner. He was by far the most grateful patient any of us has ever had.”
An effort to obtain approximately one-half of the bequest of about $2,000,000, left to Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt for the promotion of the cause of woman suffrage, by the late Baroness de Bazus, who was Mrs. Frank Leslie, was begun in the Supreme Court yesterday by two step-grandchildren of the Baroness. They ask $400,000 each and allege that $200,000 is due to each of two other step-grandchildren.
The plaintiffs in the two actions, which are brought through James H. Westcott, of No. 40 Wall street, are Mrs. Lonetta Leslie Hollander and Mrs. Florence Leslie Weissbrod. Both are grandchildren of Frank Leslie by his first wife, Mrs. Sarah Ann Welham Leslie. They allege that by an agreement made between the Baroness and Frank Leslie December 1, 1879, she promised, in return for receiving his entire estate, to distribute by her will two-thirds of it among the children of his first wife or their heirs. This agreement, they allege, she entirely disregarded in the document which left the large residuary estate to Mrs. Catt.