Dust to dust…

Discover 12 of the strangest Last Will requests ever

Image: Melinda Gimpel

Thinking about one’s own demise is not a pleasant task for most of us. Still, it’s wise to make preparations in case the worst happens, to ensure your material possessions are handled according to your wishes. The same goes for any plans you might have for your funeral. Last wills are fairly common, but as it happens, in some cases, people go beyond the usual, leading to the 12 extraordinary examples that follow.

Image: Vitaliy Shevchenko

The first name on the list belongs to one of the greatest magicians of all time—Harry Houdini, who died in 1926 from a ruptured appendix.

Houdini’s library of books on magic and the occult was offered to the American Society for Psychical Research on the condition that J. Malcolm Bird, the society’s research officer and editor of its journal, resign. Bird refused, and the collection instead went to the Library of Congress.

Houdini also left his wife a secret code—ten random words they had agreed upon—that he would use to contact her from the afterlife.

Image: Kenny Eliason

When news billionaire William Randolph Hearst died in 1951, he included a clause in his will addressing rumors that he had children out of wedlock. Anyone claiming to be his illegitimate child, the will stated, would receive "the sum of one dollar." He added, "I hereby declare that any such asserted claim... would be utterly false."

No one ever came forward.

Image: Paweł Bulwan

When hatmaker S. Sanborn died in 1871, he stipulated in his will that two drums be made from his skin and given to a friend, on the condition that every June 17 at dawn, the friend would play "Yankee Doodle" at Bunker Hill to commemorate the anniversary of the famous Revolutionary War battle.

The rest of his body was to be composted into fertilizer to nourish an American elm tree, to be planted along a rural roadside.

Image: Libby Penner

John Bowman, a wealthy tanner from Vermont, believed he would be reincarnated along with his deceased wife and two daughters. To prepare for their return, his will established a $50,000 trust fund to maintain his mansion and mausoleum.

The will required that dinner be served every night, just in case the Bowmans were hungry upon returning from the dead. This ritual continued from his death in 1891 until 1950, when the trust fund was finally depleted.

Image: Chewy

Eleanor E. Ritchey, heiress to the Quaker State Refining Corporation, left her $4.5 million fortune to her 150 dogs when she died in Florida in 1968. The will was contested, and by 1973, the dogs were awarded $9 million.

By the time the estate was finally settled, its value had grown to $14 million—but only 73 of the original 150 dogs were still alive. When the last dog died in 1984, the remaining estate passed to the Auburn University Research Foundation to fund research into animal diseases.

Image: Sérgio Alves Santos

Janis Joplin, the legendary singer known for her soulful voice and hard-living lifestyle, died of a drug overdose in 1970. Her will included a $2,500 provision to fund an all-night, posthumous party for 200 guests at her favorite pub in San Anselmo, California—"so my friends can get blasted after I'm gone."

Image: Quino Al

Portuguese aristocrat Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara made headlines when he randomly selected 70 names from the Lisbon phone directory and named them as beneficiaries in his will.

Understandably, many of the recipients initially thought it was a scam—most had never even heard of him before learning they had inherited part of his estate.

Image: Sophie Shankey

Billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley left the majority of her estimated $8 billion estate in charitable trusts for "purposes related to the care of dogs." She specifically set aside a $12 million trust fund for her Maltese dog, Trouble, and disinherited two of her grandchildren "for reasons known to them."

The disinherited grandchildren contested the will, claiming that Helmsley lacked mental capacity when she made it. The dispute was settled with half of Trouble’s trust—$6 million—being awarded to the grandchildren.

Image: Jay Kettle-Williams

Billionaire Wellington Burt ensured that his fortune would remain inaccessible to his heirs for nearly a century. He died in 1919 and included a "spite clause" in his will, which stipulated that his wealth would be distributed only 21 years after the death of his last surviving grandchild. That grandchild died in 1989, meaning the 21-year countdown ended in 2010.

Image: Carlos Quintero

Comedian Jack Benny’s widow, Mary Livingstone, wrote in a magazine shortly after his death in 1974: "Every day since Jack died, the florist has delivered one long-stemmed red rose to my home. I learned Jack had actually included a provision in his will for the flowers—one red rose to be delivered to me every day for the rest of my life."

Image: Nick Stephenson

People leave all kinds of things in their wills, and dates are no exception. In 1891, about three years before his death, novelist Robert Louis Stevenson learned that the 12-year-old daughter of the U.S. Commissioner to Samoa, where he was living at the time, was unhappy because her birthday fell on Christmas Day.

Stevenson left his birthday, November 13th, to little Annie to adopt as her own, provided she took care of it with "moderation and humanity… the said birthday not being so young as it once was."

Image: Totte Annerbrink

Mark Gruenwald, a comic book writer best known for his work on Captain America, requested that when he died in 1996, his ashes be mixed into the ink used to print the first trade paperback anthology of Squadron Supreme, another of his landmark creations.

Ten bizarre inventions from the past that never caught on

Ten crazy inventions history forgot (luckily)

Ever wonder what happened to all those "revolutionary" gadgets that promised to change our lives? Some ideas were just too weird, too early, or too wonderfully impractical to survive. Let's take a nostalgic trip through the patent office's hall of shame.

Back when fresh air was considered a cure-all, London parents who lived in apartments faced a dilemma: how to give their babies outdoor time without a yard? The solution was a wire cage that hung outside the window, suspending Junior several stories above the street. Parents would just pop the baby in the cage and go about their day.

Shockingly, this didn't catch on. Perhaps it was the image of infants dangling precariously over busy sidewalks.

Imagine a giant goldfish bowl on your head, lined with cork, with only a thin slit to see through. That was the Isolator, designed to help people concentrate by blocking out all distractions. The inventor, Hugo Gernsback, thought sensory deprivation was the key to productivity. An attached oxygen tank let you breathe while you worked.

The problem? Looking like a deep-sea diver at your desk isn't exactly conducive to office camaraderie. Plus, trying to type while essentially wearing a fish tank proved impractical.

This battery-powered cone featured a small motor that rotated the ice cream for you, so you could just stick out your tongue and let technology do the rest. It was supposed to prevent drips and ensure even licking coverage.

The invention raised an important question: had we become so lazy that rotating our wrist was now an insurmountable challenge? Apparently, the answer was no. The motorized cone disappeared faster than ice cream on a summer day.

This amphibious bicycle promised to let you pedal across lakes and rivers just as easily as riding down Main Street. It featured a boat-like hull and paddle wheels instead of regular tires. The inventor envisioned commuters cycling across waterways, avoiding bridge traffic entirely.

Unfortunately, the Cyclomer was heavy, slow on both land and water, and required the leg strength of an Olympic athlete to move at anything faster than a crawl.

Dr. John Brinkley convinced thousands of men that transplanting goat testicles into humans would restore youth and vigor. For the bargain price of $750 (about $12,000 today), you could have surgery in his Kansas clinic and supposedly regain the vitality of your younger days.

Unsurprisingly, the procedure didn't work—goat glands don't function in human bodies. Brinkley eventually lost his medical license, but not before making millions.

When cars first became common, someone invented a net-like contraption that attached to the front bumper to scoop up pedestrians before running them over. The idea was that the person would land safely in the net instead of under the wheels. It looked like an industrial-sized butterfly net.

The fatal flaw? Getting hit by a car and caught in a net is still getting hit by a car. Plus, the contraption made vehicles longer and harder to maneuver, probably causing more accidents than it prevented.

Picture this: you're stuck in bed recovering from illness, and what you really need is a full-size piano suspended over your body. That's what one inventor thought, anyway. The piano hung horizontally above the patient, who could supposedly play while lying flat on their back.

Beyond the obvious safety concerns of dangling a heavy musical instrument over sick people, there was the question of who actually wants to play piano while confined to bed.

In an era when dimples were considered irresistibly charming, someone invented a face-shaping device that promised to create them artificially. The contraption used springs and knobs to press into your cheeks for 15 minutes daily until dimples supposedly formed permanently.

It didn't work, of course—dimples are genetic, caused by variations in facial muscle structure. But that didn't stop people from trying.

L. Ron Hubbard claimed this modified lie detector could measure the electrical characteristics of your thoughts and help achieve spiritual enlightenment. Users held two tin cans connected to a meter while being asked questions. A needle supposedly revealed deep psychological truths.

Scientifically, it was just a simple ohmmeter measuring skin resistance—the same principle behind mood rings. But it cost considerably more and came with significantly more baggage.

Why carry a portable radio when you could wear one on your head? This invention looked like a regular pint-sized baseball cap but contained a tiny AM radio with an antenna poking out the top. Earphones ran down to your ears, letting you listen to broadcasts while keeping your hands free.

The problem was that you looked absolutely ridiculous, like an alien trying to blend in at a baseball game. The reception was terrible, the batteries died quickly, and the whole contraption was uncomfortable.