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Saturday, May 7, 2011

Daddy Warbucks Finally Pays It Forward


VH1 used to have a show called ‘Best Week Ever.’ It was basically like ‘I Love the 80’s’ except they had people recap the week’s events. I’m not sure who’s having the best week ever this week but if I had to wager a guess it might be Christina Cameron and her 11 family members.

You see, Cameron and her relatives are the descendants of multi-millionaire Wellington Burt and they just came into Burt’s whole fortune. Burt was the Warren Buffet of his time and cut his relatives out of his will at the time but stated that his descendants would receive his money after his last grandchild had long been dead.


From the Wall Street Journal:
Wellington R. Burt was a rich timber baron from Saginaw, Mich. He died in 1919 with a multimillion-dollar fortune -- one of America's largest at the time.

Yet rather than risk messing up his kids lives with a huge inheritance, he created an unusual will.

He stated that his fortune would be distributed to the family -- but only 21 years after his grandchildren's death.

His children and grandchildren weren't entirely deprived. Burt gave his "favorite son" $30,000 a year but the rest of his children got allowances roughly equal to those he gave his cook and chauffeur, according to the Saginaw News.

"I'm pretty sure he didn't like his family back then," said Christina Cameron, an heir and a great-great-great grandchild of Burt's.

Now that it's 21 years since the death of the last grandchild, the fortune is finally being turned over to Cameron and 11 others, including three great-grandchildren, seven great-great grandchildren and another great-great-great grandchild. The fortune is valued at more than $100 million. (She'll get a little more than $2.6 million, since those further up the family tree get more under a master agreement).

Just imagine scraping through the first 20-30 years of your life to find out you’re about to be set for the rest of your life. This is seriously the type of stuff I sit around and fantasize about all day. Sadly though, my lineage is filled with only oil field workers, farmers, drunks and preachers. I shall stay in my current state for life. At least I have BYB Headquarters.

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