1947 – Mrs. Lillian Pratt’s bequest of $750,000 – A Surprise and Godsend!

In 1947 Mrs. Lillian Pratt of Fredericksburg, Virginia made a bequest of $750,000 dollars to the Home.  Although Mrs. Pratt had made annual donations to the Home for the previous ten years, during which her friend, Jessie Barlow, had resided here, her large bequest came as a complete surprise. Personal knowledge of the Home, impressed by the manner in which it was run, and a keen interest in the happiness of elderly people resulted in the trust.  And, although Lillian lived in Tacoma with her mother from 1893 to 1916, no evidence shows that she and Franke ever met.  In fact, it was apparently something of a chance decision.  She had given a collection of antique lace to the Volunteer Park Museum in Seattle some years before but, on a subsequent visit, discovered that her gift was not on display.  In pique, she changed her will and dropped the museum from her list of recipients.  The Franke Tobey Jones Home was the beneficiary.

Lillian Thomas was born in 1876, probably in Philadelphia.  Near the turn of the century, she moved with her mother to Tacoma, Washington.  She seems to have been a colorful character.  A striking young woman, she spurned the proposal of John Pratt, a highly successful young businessman from the east, in order to marry Fred Marvin, a Tacoma lumberman.  He soon sought a divorce, however claiming she denied him his conjugal rights.  When she discovered that he had fathered a child by another woman, she quickly acceded to the divorce.  By chance, as she was returning from Portland on the train after the divorce hearing, she found herself in the same compartment as her old flame, John Pratt, himself formerly married but recently divorced.  They married a year later.

Lillian was an inveterate collector of jewelry, fine furniture and art.  She had a great love of memorabilia of the Russian Royal Family, particularly for the extraordinarily ornate and expensive gold, jewel and enamel eggs made at Christmas each year for Tzar Nicholas II by the famed jeweler, Faberge.  Between 1933 and 1946, she had assembled a collection of around 475 Russian decorative arts objects, including about 170 by or attributed to Fabergé.

In 1931 she and John moved to Fredericksberg, Virginia where he had finally purchased the Home of Lillian’s dreams, Chatham Manor.  The estate was ideally suited to her collection of antique furniture and her other collections, including her Faberge eggs that she kept in her private sitting room.

When Lillian suddenly grew ill in 1947, her nurse confided in her best friend, Mary Wolseth, “She has everything, but she is a most unhappy woman.”  No amount of wealth or material possession had brought her joy.  She kept her Faberge egg collection in a glass case in her private sitting room and it is said that, after her death, men came with suitcases to pick them up and take them away in an armored car.  Her huge collection of jewels was sold to build a new building in memory of her dear mother.  The Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond, Virginia now houses her Faberge egg collection. John remained devoted to the end, carrying her ashes in a silver chalice on his knees all the way across the country to Tacoma to bury her, according to her wishes, alongside her mother.

Lillian’s bequest to Franke Tobey Jones Home, though a surprise, was a godsend.  The interest from the trust was added to the endowment fund, which was used to run the Home.  The additional income allowed the Home to acquire adjoining land, which brought the extent of the grounds to forty acres.  Lillian had made her bequest as a memorial to her mother, Susan Elton Thomas, and she had bequeathed it specifically as a 50-year income trust for the operations of the Home. It was specified in the Franke Tobey Jones Home – Susan Elton Thomas Memorial Trust that with these funds Franke Tobey Jones Home should be operated as much as possible as a Home and not as an institution, and that Franke Tobey Jones must maintain its charitable nature and tax-exempt status.

Upon John Pratt’s death in 1975, “Chatham Manor” and 30 acres surrounding were bequeathed to the National Park Service, which now uses the estate for its headquarters facility in the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park as well as a free museum open to the public.  John Pratt also willed a portion of the Chatham estate (an adjacent bluff overlooking the Rappahannock River) to the local community to be used as a park, which was named in his honor.