Daughters Win Court Fight to Place Father’s Wealth Under Guardianship : He Saved and Saved--and Now, at 103, He’s Accumulated a Family Feud

PITTSBURGH, Pa. —  Robert Wilke parlayed $500 and frugality into a quarter-million-dollar estate, but after eight decades of tending his finances’ growth, his harvest is heartache. At age 103, his yield is unhappiness.

A family feud has grown up over who should handle his money and how his estate should be divided. As a result, the courts have declared him incompetent and placed him and his personal wealth under guardianships.

Advocates for the elderly say proposed reforms in Pennsylvania’s guardianship law might have spared him anguish and indignities in old age, including three medical examinations and the loss of many of his rights.

Two Sides Line Up

On the one side are Wilke and his two sons, Robert, 60, and William, 54. On the other side are his two daughters, Frances McAleer, 62, and Sylvia Eaborn, 50, who successfully petitioned a judge to declare him incompetent and to appoint guardians to make his personal and financial decisions.

It was in the midst of the incompetency hearings in April that Wilke’s wife of 63 years, Amelia, died at age 89, and his mourning for her mixes with bitterness toward his daughters, to whom he no longer speaks.

“Both daughters wanted to take everything over that I worked all my life for,” Wilke contends, even though an audit found no impropriety when McAleer was handling his day-to-day finances.

“I can’t even spend my money after saving it,” complains Wilke, who started work at age 15 for a $1.50 a week. “When you think you got money, you ain’t got nothin’.”

Worked 57 Years

He never earned more than $4,200 a year in 57 years of work as a machinist and maintenance engineer. He retired at age 72.

He started saving when he was 29 by putting $500 from his share of the family house, sold upon his father’s death, into five banks.

Shopping for bargains and rarely traveling, Wilke saved and saved. His will provided that each of his children would receive one-fourth of the accumulated wealth.

After he and his wife entered a nursing home, he asked his elder daughter in late 1986 to help with his bill-paying and other accounts and gave her legal authority under a power of attorney.

Still, he continued to monitor his finances, and at one point their figures conflicted. Father accused daughter of being unable to explain how $20,000 was spent.

Sons Made Executors

Last October, Wilke transferred his power of attorney to his sons. He also changed his will to make the sons executors instead of the daughters.

“I cried the whole day,” McAleer testified. “My heart was broken that my father would do this to me without telling me.”

McAleer and her sister filed the incompetency petition 2 1/2 weeks later, and an Orphans Court judge declared Wilke incompetent on June 1, naming the Pittsburgh National Bank as his financial guardian and a lawyer as his personal guardian.

The incompetency petition upset Wilke so much that he rewrote his will in March. Now, the daughters are to receive 10% each, the sons 40% each.

The daughters declined to be interviewed, but their lawyer, Geoffrey P. Wozman, said they apparently “wanted protection” after McAleer was accused.

“I don’t think they particularly thought the sons were going to take his money. They didn’t think the sons were the proper people to take care of it. They didn’t think they were either. No matter who controls the money, someone is going to complain they’re not doing something right,” Wozman said.

Rationality Challenged

Explaining why the guardianship was sought, the lawyer said the old man was not “rational in terms of financial affairs.”

A psychiatrist testifying for the daughters said Wilke was incompetent “due to the infirmities of old age.” Another psychiatrist testified for the sons that while Wilke needed help managing his finances, he found no evidence of incompetency. A third psychiatrist, appointed by the court, examined Wilke seven weeks after he was declared incompetent and concluded that he is “suffering from some mild cognitive impairment.”

When the guardianship was declared, Wilke lost the right to vote, to make decisions about his own health care and to travel without approval from his guardian.

Against his wishes, he was initially ordered back into a nursing home. Later, the judge allowed him to continue to live with son, William, in suburban Green Tree, where he had moved after his wife’s death. The elder Wilke is permitted to keep his monthly $537 Social Security check and his $210 pension check for expenses and for spending money.

Sees Flaws in Law

“I think the Wilke case provides an example of flaws in our current state law,” said Dr. Linda M. Rhodes, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Aging.

Among proposed legal changes now before the Legislature is a provision to authorize limited guardianships for people who are only “partially incapacitated,” as two doctors found Wilke to be.

A number of states already allow such guardianships, which tailor assistance to specific areas, such as managing a person’s income and assets, while leaving most rights intact.

Current Pennsylvania law does not recognize partial incompetence and allows only for a blanket guardianship, under which virtually all decision-making is turned over to someone else.

“Here’s an individual who could use some assistance in financial planning but certainly he can make choices we all make every day,” Rhodes said of Wilke.

Endorsed Bill

At a Department of Aging hearing last month, Wilke himself testified in favor of the reform bill, which would also eliminate “infirmities of old age” as a reason for a finding of incompetency. An individual’s faculties, not birth date, should be the deciding factor, department officials have argued.

Meanwhile, Wilke is challenging the incompetency finding. A hearing is set before an Orphans Court panel Sept. 12.

As he sits in a rocking chair, watching the news or the Pirates ballgames, the white-haired man ponders what he will do if he is declared competent and gets control of his money again.

He will pay off some bills, he says, and visit his son, Robert, who lives in Tallahassee, Fla. William says his father also believes that he should pay him and his wife, Margaret, for his care and shelter, no more than $1,000.

But reconciliation with his daughters is not in the cards.

“They’re looking out for themselves, not me,” he said. “It hurt me a lot. I just can’t forget.”