Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1912 [PAGE 475]

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1911]

PROCEEDINGS OE THE BOARD OT TRUSTEES.

431

Meeting of the Executive Committee, July 8, 1911.

A meeting of the Executive Committee of the Board,of Trustees of the University of Illinois was held in the trustees'- room at the U n i versity, following the adjournment of the special meeting of the board on the afternoon of J u l y 8, 1911. All the members of the committee were present, namely, Mr. Abbott, Mr. Grout and Mr. H a t c h ; also Mrs. Evans and Mr. Moore, members of the board, and President James. President James presented the following matters for consideration: CHANGES IN ELECTRICAL LABORATORY. 1. A request from Dr. W. F. M. Goss, dean of the College of Engineering, that authority be given to make certain changes in the building occupied by the electrical laboratory, as set forth in blue prints submitted, at a total cost which shall not exceed three thousand five hundred ($3,500.00) dollars, the estimate made by the supervising architect. On the recommendation of President James, authority was given for these changes as requested, and it was voted that the cost should be charged to the special legislative appropriation of $90,000,00 per annum given for the maintenance and extension of the Engineering College and Experiment Station. CASE OF EARL C. VOODRY VS. THE TRUSTEES. 2. A letter from Judge O. A. Harker, University counsel, enclosing a copy of the opinion of the Supreme Court of Illinois in the case of Earl C. Voodry vs. The Trustees of the University of Illinois, with the recommendation that this opinion should.be received for record and be printed in the minutes of the board. This recommendation was approved. Earl C. Voodry, Plaintiff in Error, vs. Trustees of the University of Illinois et al, Defendants in Error. Mr. Justice Cooke delivered the opinion of the court: Plaintiff in error, Earl C. Voodry, filed his bill in the circuit court of McLean county to set aside the last will and testament of his mother, Anna J. Voodry, on the ground that she lacked testamentary capacity at the time she executed her will. The bill alleged the execution of the instrument, the death of Mrs. Voodry and the probate of the will. The answers of the defendants in error admitted all the allegations of the bill except those charging lack of testamentary capacity. An issue of fact was made up and two trials were had. On the first trial the jury disagreed, and on the second a verdict was returned finding the instrument to be the last will and testament of Anna J. Voodry, and a decree was entered accordingly.. The will in question was executed in Bloomington on Sept. 18, 1907. Mrs* Voodry owned some, real estate at Crown Point, Ind., and a little over $5,000.00 in personal property. She was a widow and plaintiff in error was her only child and only heir at law. By her will, after making various small bequests to relatives, she bequeathed the remainder of her household goods to plaintiff in error, and then devised the residue of her estate, real and personal, to Paul F. Beich, as trustee, to invest and manage the same and to pay the net income therefrom to plaintiff in error during his lifetime, and at his death the trust estate was devised to the trustees of the University of Illinois, to be held by them as a fund to be perpetually invested, the income