Dear Aaron,

After e-mailing my reply to your communications about
Margrit's estate, I took another look at the pertinent
documents. I wish to correct a mistake in my accounting,
in that I had failed to list a $400 (US) "security deposit"
return from the Detroit apartment complex from which
Margrit rented. I also failed to list a $1712.00 (US) 
tax refund from the US Internal Revenue Service. These
sums augment the US probate estate.

After Margrit's death, now just one year ago, my wife
and I spent about 4 weeks weeks in Detroit clearing out
Margrit's apartment and sorting through her papers.
We were able to identify only two assets in Canada,
Scotia Bank Account No. 71852 05789 24 $4752.07 (CDN), and
Registered Retirement Income Fund,
RIFF Contract 419734106, Concentra Financial, 
payable on death to Harold Atkinson, $7298.71 (CND)

The only other probate liquid assets were in the U.S.:
TIAA CREF Certificate OU12483-3 with Michigan State University,
with a value of $0.00 (zero), and
TIAA CREF Certificate IE31921-6, payable on death to 
Harold Atkinson, valued at $2452.14

Turning now to the Codicil ostensibly dated February 24, 2004,
and its reference to paragraph 3(d) of the will of January 9, 1995,
the provision for "bursaries of assistance in financial difficulties"
to be paid from "all the income and capital of my holdings with TIAA CREF
Michigan State University, the University of Windsor Pension Fund
and the Windsor Teacher Credit Union (account and RRSP's)"
I have ascertained affirmatively that both
the TIAA CREF Michigan State University fund 
and the University of Windsor Pension Fund are exhausted.
I have been unable to identify the Windsor Teacher Credit Union
(account and RRSP's) unless it be the assets of RIFF Contract
419734106 with Concentra Financial. However, the circumstance
that when Margrit made these assets payable on death to
Harold Atkinson she withdrew them from the probate estate,
is conclusive evidence that she did not intend the Concentra
Financial assets to fund the "bursaries of assistance in
financial difficulties" for which the Will otherwise provides 
funding only from non-existent assets. Under these circumstances
the question need not be reached, whether as might be inferred
from its language, Section 3(d) of the will should take precedence
over Section 3(b) and/or Section 3(c), i.e.  whether the funding of
the bursaries should take precedence over the payment of just debts,
funeral and testamentary expenses, and/or take precedence of the
restitution to the Meyer Family Trusts of "any and all" of the
holdings Margrit received from them during her life time.

An equally cogent reason why the question of respective
precedence of Sections 3(b) 3(c) and 3(d) need not be reached
is that the propriety of the execution of the Codicil is potentially
subject to such challenges that, especially in consideration
of the absence of funding, in my judgment, no attempt should
be made to probate the Codicil.

These challenges would arise from the circumstances: a) that the
the witnesses are not identifiable from the face of the document
inasmuch as their names are not spelled out and their signatures
are illegible. b) that the addresses listed are 63 miles apart,
and Margrit was in the habit of visiting each address
separately. The ostensible signature date of the Codicil was
Tuesday, February 24, 2004, a date when both witnesses, who
to the best of my knowledge were gainfully employed, would be
working. The sun sets at about 5:30 p.m. The addresses of
the signatories are the apices of a triangle whose sides are
70, 63 and 9 miles long respectively. Unless the witnesses 
took time off from work, their simultaneous signatures would
have required much driving in the dark.  c) that among Margrit's
papers, I found a letter from her attorney stating that the draft
Codicil was being mailed from Windsor, Ontario on February 16,
2004.  Especially in view of the tardy delivery of mail from Canada
to the U.S. the date on which Margrit would receive the draft
codicil could not be anticipated, nor the date on which it
would be executed. Thus it is reasonable to assume that
the draft codicil was mailed without entry of a date of
prospective execution, but that in the text there was a
space where Margrit would enter in her own hand writing,
the date of signature by her and by the witnesses. Remarkably
that entry is not in Margrit's handwriting, nor in that of the 
witnesses, but in in typewriter font, albeit distinct from the
font of the rest of the codicil, but indistinguishable, to
my inspection, from the typewriter font of the 1995 Will itself.
It seems to me not unreasonable to ask, at what stage of the
"execution" of the codicil that date, February 24, 2004,
was entered, by whom and with whose typewriter; nor does it
seem unreasonable to inquire about the relationship of the
typewritten date and the day on which each of the signatures
was placed on the document.