Preserve: Mary Lois Hunter ~ 52 Ancestors #19

This week's theme is Preserve. I have so many items that have been saved and handed down to me as the family historian, so it was hard (but fun) to choose one item to share.

My second great-grandparents, James Hunter and Mary (Freeland) Hunter, had ten children. Their ninth child (my great great aunt) died at age 22.

Pennsylvania, U..S., Death Certificates, 1906-1970, courtesy Ancestry.com

Her death certificate reports that she died on April 14, 1911, at Allegheny General Hospital, of "General Peritonitis following operation for appendicitis & floating kidney." Interestingly, her oldest brother, H.L. Hunter, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was the informant. Her parents both died in 1902.

What is the preserved item here? I have a copy of her original will, written about three weeks before her death.

(3" x 4" envelope)
                     Copy
Will of
Mary Lois Hunter
  To be opened by the
Union Trust Officer of Pitts.
in the presence of at
least three (3) members
of the family

(5" x 8" notepaper)
Will
  It is my wish that my sister
Helen Hunter Follansbee shall be the
sole heir of all my rights, tittles [sic]
and interests without exception.
  That she shall have all personal
belongings as toilet articles, diamond
sunburst, gold watch chain and all
other jewelry, also pictures, books,
ornaments, and my rightful share
of my father's, James Hunter's estate.
                     Mary Lois Hunter
March 23, 1911

Mary's sister Helen was just two years older than her; they must have been extremely close. I blogged about Helen Hunter Follansbee here.

Mary is buried in the rather good-sized Hunter family plot at Pittsburgh's Uniondale Cemetery. See her FindAGrave memorial (which includes links to the memorials of her parents and all nine siblings).

I descend from Mary Lois Hunter's parents as follows:

James Hunter  =  Mary Freeland

 |

Percy Earle Hunter

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Helen Lysle Hunter

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My mother

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Me

This week's theme is Preserve.