Chapter 16: Differently Motivated

We all do things for reasons others may never understand

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Release Date: October 8, 2024

The secret money-for-dismissal offer Harland Tibbetts had presented to Aimee and her legal team in October of 1930 was, in many ways, the only option Mary Martha had left.

It’s highly probable the courts would have decided in favor of Aimee and required Mary Martha to provide her with a birth certificate, thus recognizing their blood relationship. In doing so, they would have granted Aimee and her descendants legal rights to the generational wealth created and passed down through Mary Martha’s Parker family, but also the Thorndike, Purnell and Bourne families.

The issue of generational wealth was already weighing heavily on Mary Martha’s mind. Just a week before the offer had been made, her brother, James, had passed away, and eight months before that, their last remaining Parker cousin, Anna Lowell, had died. Their deaths meant Mary Martha was the only surviving member of her generation – the third generation away from James Parker the Elder.

And, with no legitimate heirs of her own, the generational wealth Mary Martha had inherited, protected and sacrificed for would eventually pass to distant relatives or be given to charitable causes.

The “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” curse would have been fulfilled.

In years to come, members of Mary Martha’s legal team would suggest that what would come to be called the “1931 Mishou Agreement” was crafted to allow their client to financially provide for Aimee without having to publicly acknowledge their relationship, much in the way she had generously provided for Aimee throughout her entire life.

Others, however, would see the agreement in a different light:

“The real purpose of the agreement was the concealment of Aimee's relationship to Mrs. Taylor.  By requiring that Aimee renounce all rights in certain estates and trust funds, Mrs. Taylor did not intend to deprive her of those benefits, but she did intend to foreclose her from any and all possibilities that might lead to the disclosure of the relationship of mother and daughter.

“The extent of Mrs. Taylor's concern in this all-important objective to her is plainly disclosed in … the renunciation covenant, wherein Aimee, after having renounced all rights under certain wills specifically identified in the six preceding subsections of that article, further renounced all right and claim under any other will or in or against any other estate ‘to the extent that any such right or claim might be predicated upon any relationship between the parties of the first and second parts,’ that is, Mrs. Taylor and Aimee as mother and daughter.

“Furthermore, the in terrorem clause of the agreement is not to be passed by lightly in so far as it serves to disclose the dominant intention of the parties with reference to the real purpose of the agreement.

“Unless Aimee, following the making of the agreement, faithfully refrained from disclosing her relationship to Mrs. Taylor in any manner, she would lose the benefits of the trust that the mother had established under the agreement in return for her covenants of renunciation and nondisclosure of relationship.

“And, still further, to insure the maintenance of secrecy by Aimee, Mrs. Taylor required that the covenant of nondisclosure continue in full force and effect after her death ‘for the benefit of her heirs, next of kin, devisees, legatees, and personal representatives’. ¹

In other words, the agreement wasn’t about Mary Martha’s maternal generosity or even protecting her generational wealth, it was about keeping her secret.

Everything always had been.

By January of 1931, Mary Martha was involved in yet another lawsuit, this one contesting the will of her brother, James.

James had passed away the previous October and left an estate valued at roughly $1.2 million, including $810,000 in real estate and $400,000 in personal property. In 2024 dollars, James’ estate would be worth an estimated $20.7 million.

In his will, James had given both Mary Martha and Susan Day Parker, his brother’s widow, outright gifts of $10,000. Among several other things, he’d also established annuities for Susan ($10,000 a year), and his brother’s adopted daughter, Grace P. Shearer ($1,200 a year), and made arrangements for Grace to receive $30,000, but only if she survived both Susan and Mary Martha.

Not surprisingly, Mary Martha took exception to sharing what she saw as generational wealth with folks unrelated by blood, and pointed to the wills of both her grandfather, James Parker the Elder, and her father, Richard Parker, as proof of their desire for family money to stay in the family.

Although the case was originally presented in probate court, over the course of the next nine months, it moved laboriously through the Suffolk County court system, eventually being decided by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts on September 8, 1931.²

Their decision affirmed the earlier decision made by the Probate court: James Parker had followed the rules set forth by his grandfather and father, and had every right to distribute his estate as he saw fit, even if that meant giving funds to individuals unrelated by blood.

Mary Martha had once again wasted the court’s time and resources and spent a considerable amount of her own money — generational money — on a case she could not win. Once more, she’d shown unbending willingness to cut off her nose to spite her face.

On December 14, 1931, more than a year after the private meeting at which Mary Martha's legal team had presented Aimee with a detailed financial agreement and covenants of renunciation, the two women and their attorneys came together again to formalize and sign that document.

Mary Martha would pay Aimee to keep her secret.

And, in return, Aimee would accept that she'd never know the details of her birth, who she was or where she belonged.

While Mary Martha's motivation is pretty clear, what motivated Aimee to sign the agreement is somewhat more challenging to understand.

Perhaps the fact that she’d already revealed the truth had given Aimee a sense of personal power and control that she’d long been missing. She may have accepted the punitive terms of the agreement, knowing that the formal acknowledgment from Mary Martha no longer held as much control over her as it once did.

Or maybe Aimee had simply redefined what "belonging" meant to her. For as long as she could remember, Aimee's deepest desire had been to know who she was and where she belonged, but those things had always been tied to the recognition of her place within the Parker family and Boston society. Having established her right to claim her place in both, Aimee may have come to understand that a sense of identity and belonging come from self-acceptance, not from external validation, especially not from a mother who had rejected her from birth.

And finally, it's possible that the legal battle, while emotionally taxing and physically draining, had provided Aimee with the closure she needed. By bringing everything into the light, she'd forced Mary Martha to confront the truth, even if only indirectly. Once that was done, Aimee may have understood that further litigation would only prolong the pain and prevent her from moving forward. In agreeing to the settlement, Aimee may have chosen to prioritize her future over a continued battle with her past.

Perhaps she'd found peace at last.

Copyright 2024 Lori Olson White

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What do you think motivated Aimee to sign the agreement? Have you ever been motivated to make a decision or take action that maybe doesn’t seem to make sense from the outside?

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Chapter End Notes

¹ Fiduciary Trust Company v Michou, 73 R.I. 190 (R.I. 1947). 54. A. 2d 421, Decided July 23, 1947. Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

² William v Taylor, 276 Mass, 349 (Mass, 1931) 177 N. E 553, decided September 8, 1931, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.