Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: SUNDAY, March 1, 1992 TAG: 9203010177 SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short
The state's high court said Friday the 105-year-old woman's bequest of $600,000 will go to the Westmoreland County Rescue Squad.
Martha Virginia Sanford's handwritten will directs that her money go to "the Rescue Squad, Hague, Westmoreland County, Va." It has been the subject of dispute since her death in 1990.
Volunteers at the Westmoreland Rescue Squad, the only rescue unit in the eastern half of the county when she wrote the will in 1979, argued that the money was theirs and theirs alone.
But volunteers at the Montross Rescue Squad, formed a year before her death to serve the central part of the county, said they should get a cut of the cash.
But the Supreme Court justices said "the language of the will clearly establishes" that Sanford didn't intend the money be split.