(This story was originally written and recorded for Retrocast #32 released on March 12, 2025.)
Back in 1789, Ben Franklin famously wrote that there are two certainties in life: death and taxes. While he wasn’t the first to pen those words, all of us are mortal and will someday succumb to the hands of time.
So, when 73-year-old Louisa Philler Gaw Johnson of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania passed away on February 21, 1924, it wasn’t a newsworthy event. Five tiny lines in the death section of the February 23rd edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer was all that she got. It read:
“Johnson—Louisa Philler. Feb 21, widow of Lawrence Johnson and daughter of the late Henry L. Gaw. Services at residence, N. E. cor. 22nd and Spruce sts., Sat., 11:30 A. M. Int. private.”
However, just days later, when her will was filed with the Register of Wills on February 29, 1924, her passing grabbed headlines across the United States. It wasn’t her death that captured the public’s attention—it was one of the stipulations in her will.
While the exact value of her estate was never disclosed, reports estimated her wealth at “more than $200,000”—equivalent to over $3.6 million today. In other words, she was quite well-off. The 1900 census shows that Louisa lived with her husband, Lawrence, a farmer, and their only child, Millicent. But they weren’t alone. Their household also included seven servants: a butler, a coachman, a groom, a maid, a cook, a chambermaid, and a laundress.
It’s unlikely that their fortune came from farming alone. When 56-year-old Lawrence passed away on August 22, 1905, there was a brief two-sentence mention of his burial, also in the Philadelphia Inquirer. There was no mention of him being a farmer there. Instead, he was described as having been a “shipping commission merchant.”
With Lawrence Johnson having passed away 18 years before Louisa, one would assume she left the couple’s fortune to their daughter Millicent. But that wasn’t possible—Millicent had died at age 34 on June 4, 1919, just one day after giving birth to her daughter Nancy.
Instead, Mrs. Johnson created four separate trust funds: one for her son-in-law, Rufus King Lenig, and one for each of his three daughters — her granddaughters—Millicent, Louisa, and Nancy.
What made headlines was the unusual condition attached to Lenig’s trust. He would receive $100,000 (over $1.8 million today) only if he agreed never to remarry. If he did, his entire inheritance would instead go to his daughters—who, notably, faced no such restrictions and would all later marry.
There was one additional stipulation: Lenig was required to pay Louisa’s brother-in-law, Alfred C. Johnson, $150 per month (about $2,700 today). But Lenig didn’t have to pay him for long since Alfred Johnson died four years later.
This leaves one final question: Did Rufus King Lenig ever remarry? According to Ancestry records, he passed away on January 25, 1945, at the age of 70—having remained single for the remainder of his life.
