Accidental Accident ?

By Rowlen Delaware Vanderstone III

When the news article in the local Woodward Gazette said it was an Accidental Accident was strange. To call it an Accidental Accident was a contradiction in terms. Certainly, an oddity that my Great Aunts death was an Accidental Accident, or was it? How can an accident be accidental? You might trip over a bunched-up rug and fall. That is an accident, one that was waiting to happen when you fail to keep you floor rugs flat and tidy. When you trip over a fallen tree, now that is just plain downright stupid for not noticing a fallen tree in your path. Unless it is a moonless night, and you are farsighted and don’t have a flashlight to see where you are going. That is poor judgement to be out on a moonless night on a dark path without a flashlight and your glasses. Walking under a ladder with a painter above juggling an open can of paint, well the chances are 50/50 chance you are going to bump that ladder and get a full can of paint dropped on your head or the painter is going to get a cramp in his fingers and drop the can. But neither of these examples I just mentioned are Accidental Accidents. Accept getting hit by a fallen object from space no bigger than a grapefruit while standing out in the middle of the Sahara Desert on a starless night in the middle of a sandstorm. The odds of that would truly be an Accidental Accident.
What the paper reported was that my Great Aunt Mable Maples had died in a car accident when she drove her convertible car with the top down off the road and hit a tree at high speed. Now given the fact that such accidents do happen for one reason or another. Such as a faulty steering mechanism while at the same time your breaks fail. Or you are drunk and senseless, or a very careless driver with a lead foot. What this Gazette didn’t account for was that my Great Aunt Mable Maples who was an out-of-towner never drove a car in her life. Never had a driver’s license and never owned a car. The small town coroner slash local MD described her injuries as fatal, broken back and neck as she impacted the tree at a high speed her body thrown clear of the car and up unto tree where she was found wedge in an upper fork of the tree branches. That she fell asleep at the wheel after wherever she was going. Maybe even got lost on her way. An Accidental Accident except for one other minor detail. My Great Aunt Mable Maples was legally blind since birth and wore corrective lenses, Coke Bottle thick. Was this really an Accidental Accident or was it, and why did my Great Aunt Mable Maples find herself up a tree, 245 miles from home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rowlen Delaware Vanderstone III
• Release date: Aug 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005770716

Rowlen Delaware Vanderstone III

I am a Award winning Poet, Writer, Artist, Sculptor, Pop Sociologist, an Inductee into the National Deans List, a member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. I have been active in Community Service: Past Board Member of the Vine Neighborhood Association (3 terms), Membership Chair, Fund Raising Committee, Board secretary and interim Board Treasurer. Past member of the Recipient Rights Committee, County Mental Health Board. KVCC Public Museum Volunteer for 20 years. Involved in Community Theater for 50 years off and on most recent with the Kalamazoo Civic Theater since 1985. I have been apart of a Disaster Relief team for Hurricane Andrew in Florida helping feed 5000 people a day. I have be a home missionary worker with a local church administrating a shelter program for the homeless, Minister of the food Ministry, cook, and procurement of emergency food pantry items 1991-1992, I am a graduate of Kalamazoo Valley Community College 1998, Studies at Western Michigan University, Studies at Lansing Community College 1975, Graduate of Davenport College of Business 1974. Graduated Portland High School at age 21 in 1970. I was born in 1951 premature Twin with developmental issues, Learnings disabilities, and hearing impaired.

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Accidental Accident?

By

Rowlen Delaware Vanderstone III

Copyright 08/17/2021

Smashword Edition

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Introduction

When the news article in the local Woodward Gazette said it was an Accidental Accident was strange. To call it an Accidental Accident was a contradiction in terms. Certainly, an oddity that my Great Aunts death was an Accidental Accident, or was it? How can an accident be accidental? You might trip over a bunched-up rug and fall. That is an accident, one that was waiting to happen when you fail to keep you floor rugs flat and tidy. When you trip over a fallen tree, now that is just plain downright stupid for not noticing a fallen tree in your path. Unless it is a moonless night, and you are farsighted and don’t have a flashlight to see where you are going. That is poor judgement to be out on a moonless night on a dark path without a flashlight and your glasses. Walking under a ladder with a painter above juggling an open can of paint, well the chances are 50/50 chance you are going to bump that ladder and get a full can of paint dropped on your head or the painter is going to get a cramp in his fingers and drop the can. But neither of these examples I just mentioned are Accidental Accidents. Accept getting hit by a fallen object from space no bigger than a grapefruit while standing out in the middle of the Sahara Desert on a starless night in the middle of a sandstorm. The odds of that would truly be an Accidental Accident.

What the paper reported was that my Great Aunt Mable Maples had died in a car accident when she drove her convertible car with the top down off the road and hit a tree at high speed. Now given the fact that such accidents do happen for one reason or another. Such as a faulty steering mechanism while at the same time your breaks fail. Or you are drunk and senseless, or a very careless driver with a lead foot. What this Gazette didn’t account for was that my Great Aunt Mable Maples who was an out-of-towner never drove a car in her life. Never had a driver’s license and never owned a car. The smalltown coroner slash local MD described her injuries as fatal, broken back and neck as she impacted the tree at a high speed her body thrown clear of the car and up unto tree where she was found wedge in an upper fork of the tree branches. That she fell asleep at the wheel after wherever she was going. Maybe even got lost on her way. An Accidental Accident except for one other minor detail. My Great Aunt Mable Maples was legally blind since birth and wore corrective lenses, Coke Bottle thick. Was this really an Accidental Accident or was it, and why did my Great Aunt Mable Maples find herself up a tree, 245 miles from home.

Chapter 1

Accidental Accident

When the news article in the local Woodward Gazette said it was an Accidental Accident was strange. To call it an Accidental Accident was a contradiction in terms. Certainly, an oddity that my Great Aunts death was an Accidental Accident, or was it? How can an accident be accidental? You might trip over a bunched-up rug and fall. That is an accident, one that was waiting to happen when you fail to keep you floor rugs flat and tidy. When you trip over a fallen tree, now that is just plain downright stupid for not noticing a fallen tree in your path. Unless it is a moonless night, and you are farsighted and don’t have a flashlight to see where you are going. That is poor judgement to be out on a moonless night on a dark path without a flashlight and your glasses. Walking under a ladder with a painter above juggling an open can of paint, well the chances are 50/50 chance you are going to bump that ladder and get a full can of paint dropped on your head or the painter is going to get a cramp in his fingers and drop the can. But neither of these examples I just mentioned are Accidental Accidents. Accept getting hit by a fallen object from space no bigger than a grapefruit while standing out in the middle of the Sahara Desert on a starless night in the middle of a sandstorm. The odds of that would truly be an Accidental Accident.

What the paper reported was that my Great Aunt Mable Maples had died in a car accident when she drove her convertible car with the top down off the road and hit a tree at high speed. Now given the fact that such accidents do happen for one reason or another. Such as a faulty steering mechanism while at the same time your breaks fail. Or you are drunk and senseless, or a very careless driver with a lead foot. What this Gazette didn’t account for was that my Great Aunt Mable Maples who was an out-of-towner never drove a car in her life. Never had a driver’s license and never owned a car. The smalltown coroner slash local MD described her injuries as fatal, broken back and neck as she impacted the tree at a high speed her body thrown clear of the car and up unto tree where she was found wedge in an upper fork of the tree branches. That she fell asleep at the wheel after traveling to wherever she was going. Maybe even got lost on her way. An Accidental Accident except for one other minor detail. My Great Aunt Mable Maples was legally blind since birth and wore corrective lenses, Coke Bottle thick. Was this really an Accidental Accident or was it, and why did my Great Aunt Mable Maples find herself up a tree, 245 miles from home.

I can understand that a local small town coroner slash MD didn’t realize she was legally blind. The accident occurred on a deserted back rural road, and the accident was not discovered for two days. By that time the local flock of crows had pecked her eyes out as tasty treats as they are wanting to do being carnivorous birds. To add to this mystery, they found in my Great Aunts purse a driver’s license recently issued with her true home address. Why would a DMV issue a license to a legally blind person, and where did she get a brand-new convertible to drive 245 miles from home and end up on a deserted road. Or how did she drive a brand-new convertible 245 miles from home being legally blind since birth without her Coke Bottle glasses. The local sheriff after my parents had a talk with him and showed my Great Aunts medical records. Rewrote his report to reflect that there was the possibility that my aunt was not driving the car, that there had been another driver hired by my Great Aunt Mable Maples and that driver could have been injured wondered off into the woods or left the scene having caused the accident. His altered report did not explain how my Great Aunt Mable Maples had gotten a driver’s license in the first place, or why she was 245 miles from her ancestral home, a home she had lived in since her birth. Nor could he explain why my Great Aunt Mable Maples would leave that home with another in a car registered to her, and who would sell a blind person a car. Her personal affect did not have her Coke Bottle glasses, nor did the sheriff say they found any at the scene. Even this new driver’s license did not indicate she wore glasses and was restricted to wear them. He said my parents would have to find those answers back in my Great Aunt’s hometown of Maplesville.

***

Maplesville if you have not already figured it out was named after Great Aunt Mable Maples or rather her great, great Grandfather’s father’s Grandfathers Father, Joseph Maples who was one of the first families to settle in the Oklahoma more than 140 years ago in 1889 when the federal government opened up public domain land. Joseph Maple led a group of 14 families to claim more than 1500 acres of land to settle. In the decades since Maplesville grew in leaps and bounds shrinking during the great depression and rebounding after World War II to its present size of 38,000 people. Oklahoma enters the union as the 46th state in 1907. Joseph Maple became Maplesville first Mayor after the town was incorporated 26 years later at the age of 46. He was a successful Cattle merchant, Saloon and Hotel owner, and at one time a sheriff of Maplesville. His son invested in stocks, bought up abandon land after the great depression and when the economy was booming again developed that land as rental property, leased land out for farming, and his son, continued the legacy of the Maples as shewed and honest businessmen, and benefactors of Maplesville economic growth. Aunt Mable’s Grandfather divested much of his land holdings and invested that in stocks, and in the late 40’s in new emerging technology and Pharmaceuticals stocks. To which Aunt Mable’s father inherited a sizeable fortune, then Aunt Mable her parents only child inherited that fortune as a trust fund to take care of her and the estate of 90 acres, 2/3 of which was still virgin forest, and the remaining well-groomed estate land where a sizeable mansion set in the center. The Land and the trust were all that Aunt Mable had left of her family’s legacy since 1889. My mother was Aunt Mabel’s only Niece on her mother’s side of the family, and Aunt Mable was the only Maple left in Maplesville. My parents knew of no other direct Maple kin alive. I learned that mother was Aunt Mable’s only living kin, outside of myself who would inherit the Maples land, estate and Trust fund. I am David Milligan, only 14 and I didn’t expect to inherit until well after I was in my 50’s given my mother still had plans to live well past her 80’s. I was so wrong, as Aunt Mable Maples Last Will and Testament revealed.

My parents made arrangements for Aunt Mable’s body to returned to Maplesville, where she was interred in the family private mausoleum in Maplesville cemetery. Per her wishes she wanted a private funeral with immediate family only and given Mother was her only family living, it was just the three of us to attend. It was a very brief funeral and a closed casket given the nature of her accidental accident injuries. Two days later her family lawyer we learned had passed away a few months earlier and younger lawyer had taken over his small law office and was now taken over Aunt Mable’s affairs. When her father had passed away, out living Aunt Mable’s mother by 5 years. He had set up two trust funds for her. One was a caretaker’s trust fund that would assure the estate would be provided for in the means of property taxes, maintenances, payment of utilities, and the wages for a housekeeper and companion for his adult blind daughter. The second trust fund was the principal of his family fortune and investments which would keep his daughter from fear of want in anything she needed. The largess of the principal trust would ensure that she could maintain the charities she supported and would have the means to pass on her estate and family fortune to her only surviving family member her Niece Stella Milligan, her nephew in law, and their son David. When the day came that the Last Will and Testament was read by the new lawyer, my mother Stella Milligan was shocked to learn that the principal trust was to go to a Mrs. Betty North the housekeeper and companion. What was shocking was that Mrs. Betty North had only recently replaced the long-time housekeeper and companion for my Great Aunt. Where was that long-time housekeeper and why didn’t Aunt Mable inform my mother that there had been a change in staff at the mansion?

My mother was a trustee of both trusts and wondered why these sudden changes in lawyers and staff at the Mansion. What didn’t surprise my mother but certainly stunned me was that I inherited the mansion and the caretakers trust fund attached to it. Mother explained that it had been Aunt Mable desire to give it to me and that my mother would inherit the principal trust fund and family fortune. Which eventually would go to me down the road. Of course, being a minor, mother would continue to be the trustee of the Caretaker trust fund until I turned 18, and the trust fund would continue to support the estates finances as it was a rather large trust to begin with. Mother and Father argued with the attorney that there was something fishing going here, that there were these sudden changes in staff and Aunt Mable’s wishes seemed to have changed in the last few months. Mother said as the principal trustee of both trusts, she should have been informed of any staff changes, or kept abreast of any changes in her aunt’s legal affairs as well including changes in her aunts last Will and Testament. She was her aunt’s legal guardian as well and had serious objections to these sudden changes in her legal affairs and staff. The new lawyer was adamant that as for her last Will and Testament he was not the author of those changes but inherited her as a client when her personal family lawyer passed, and he took over his office and clients who wished to keep him on as