Ugh, family and jewelry....

[Anonymous]

I think OP said there was no will, so it went to the grandfather. What's unclear to me is whether he's the one who gave it to the aunt or if OP even knows. In any case, it's not necessarily the case that it was to be divided by all kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ignore the entire thing. The ring was not yours. It was not your mother's. People need to stop expecting dead people will have left things for them as if they're owed these things.

And very possibly the ring was not intended for the person now wearing the stones from the ring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything depends on the will. I was the executor of my parents' estates. When mom passed, technically her will left everything to me to divvy out as I saw fit.

What some people think the "family" agrees to do doesn't actually matter in many cases. It is up to the executor to make these kinds of decisions.

OP here - first, there was no will - everything went to her husband/my grandfather.

I told my mom last week at dinner. She was annoyed/disappointed. She said one of her brothers had already mentioned that there was something they needed to talk about whenever she was up for it.

So, she ended up talking to my aunt (I assumed that was how it would play out no matter who told my mom because there are 3 sisters and the third is developmentally disabled). Aunt continued to be defensive and vague about the entire issue and never really fessed up to the whole thing but admitted that (1) she acquired the ring around the time of the funeral and (b) neither parent gave the ring to her. She also claims that the ring has been in her safe and she didn't think much about it until her daughter got engaged. My mother suspects the ring was removed when the casket was closed and handed over to my aunt (that is the only thing that makes sense at this point).

My mother told her that she was very, very disappointed in how aunt chose to handle the situation. That she still feels there is more to the story about how my aunt acquired the ring that perhaps my aunt herself is not ready to resolve (aunt was the youngest and had a very, very hard time when their mother died - she has always acted a bit more entitled about the death, like it was more acute and painfuyl for her than anyone else). My mom added that, even if my aunt hadn't thought much about the ring since she acquired it, she should have come to everyone and explained the situtation before she gave her daughter the ring and removed the diamonds.

Anyway, her daughter is, as predicted, keeping the diamonds. My mother asked for the gold setting to handed over to my mother and that she and her brothers would decide what to do with it. I suspect there will be hard feelings/distrust towards aunt for a long time and I do not doubt that they will bubble over at some point in the future (the brothers/ my uncles are still bothered by it - in large part because the niece with the ring is young and never even knew her grandmother).

OP, new poster here but I've looked over the thread. See what I put into bold above from your update. This is very much like the situation my husband's family had; when his grandfather died, leaving three adult daughters, the youngest daughter was the one who took it hardest, was most emotional, "acted a bit more entitled" about things as you put it. Her father's death (though he was very elderly, it was expected, etc.) unleashed a lot of turmoil in her and made her lash out at both her sisters for a very long time after the death. The disposing of every single object from the late father's house became a reason for her to fight someone, so her sisters mostly acquiesced -- they don't care much about the objects anyway but the younger sister in her grief was inordinately attached to every item, however small. I could absolutely see her doing something like taking a ring she felt was hers by right as the most grieving of the siblings, in her own mind. Is it a good way to react? No. Is it human and fallible? Yes. And forgivable.

There may have been MUCH more going on in your aunt's mind when grandma died in 1992 than any of you remember or realize now, so many years later. When she obtained the ring, your aunt was still just days past her mother's death and probably was not thinking or reasoning clearly at all when she saw a chance to take the ring. She may only have known, in some split-second if a funeral director said, "Do you want the jewelry back before we close the casket today" or whatever, "I want it because it was mom's" and not have had any thought about repercussions or other people -- that probably hit her later which is why she put it away. Grief makes some people do things that aren't objectively right but that seem right in their heads at that moment, especially if there is a sudden choice to make, like take the ring or let it be buried. And especially if there are other old resentments or arguments with siblings, which can bubble up at stressful times like those.

I'm not saying what your aunt did was right. I'm saying that it was long ago, it happened very, very soon after a death that clearly rocked her world, and I hope everyone can let this go.

As for breaking up the ring, well, is it better to have the ring go back into storage because the style isn't one that any of the younger women (relatives or in-law) would actually wear? For me, it's better to be able to say that the stones are now being worn, looked at and admired every single day than to insist they stay in a setting that might get them tossed into a safe again and never seen for another generation. As for the wearer not having known grandma --what better way to talk with her abou the grandmother she didn't know than to talk about the ring with her, recount how grandma loved those sparkly diamonds, how grandpa gave it to her, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, you should tell her. Who are you protecting by not telling her after all? I can't imagine not mentioning this to my mother. But then it's up to her whether to do anything about it.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Obviously no one is going to rip he ring of the young girls finger, but I would be pretty pissed about it as well. If the will doesn't specify, all of the siblings get to decide what happens with the jewelry. When my dad's mom died, she had a ton of jewelry and 9 kids. They had the jewelry appraised and split it up according to who had sentimental attachment to which things and their worth. The siblings that got the more expensive pieces paid the others some money, or they got an expensive dresser or something. Letting your aunt claim the one expensive and sentimental thing seems very unfair.

Say the ring could be resold for $20,000. You know you can't get much for the diamonds at resale? Split it between all the kids(at least four daughters and one son), we are talking about potentially 4k. Less if you have more uncles than the one you mentioned. Is the $ really the big deal here? It was going to be buried anyway. Why the big big fuss now? Just forgive and forget!

[Anonymous]

It's not the money, pp. If the adult children agreed that their mother would be buried with her wedding ring and one betrayed their trust and took it for herself, that is the big deal.