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herman russell second wife

Corporate Sponsorship & Thought Leadership, Column: Andrew Young’s love song for Atlanta, past, present and future, Atlanta Community Food Bank moving, selling Westside HQ. “What would that say about his legacy?” Joyce says. Rogers Russell was correct, but it’s doubtful that even he would have imagined how far his youngest child would go. But her lawyers are arguing that she is entitled to a fair share of H.J. In 1959, the same year as his mother’s death, Herman and Otelia Russell welcomed their first child, Donata. The probate case, concerning assets that Russell had outlined in his will, is still pending in Fulton County probate court. That is one of several unanswered questions the Russell children have. “We laughed, we talked about our kids, our careers,” Joyce says. In 1956, after a three-year courtship, Herman married Otelia Hackney, who’d grown up in Taliaferro County, midway between Atlanta and Augusta. Richard doted on his only daughter, and encouraged his sons to keep a close eye on any boy who dared to date Joyce. Russell is survived by his wife, Sylvia, sons H. Jerome and Michael Russell, daughter Donata Russell Major, two stepsons and eight grandchildren. When her friends suggested that Herman’s stammer should rule him out as a husband, Otelia was undeterred. But, as with her daughter’s attempts years later, Veray never heard back. “She could have found him.”. “Okay,” Joyce said. “You wonder who this person is. Johnny was born in Nacogdoches to Herman and Geraldine Russell on June 26, 1954. She was so thankful. It helped that she was taller than her brothers. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “Just to get to know who [Russell] was,” she says. But 35 years ago, the best option Joyce had was the mail. “It never healed correctly. But it wasn’t until 2015 that the three siblings would learn they had another sister, older than all of them. Their lawyers, including Ernest Greer of Greenberg Traurig, have been trying to make sure that any competitive financial information that could compromise their business interests or those of their business partners remain sealed by the court out of public view. What was she hoping for? In 2006, Otelia, his wife of 50 years died. The one person who can answer all the questions is not here to do that.”. And when a wound doesn’t heal correctly, it leaves a scar.”. “I don’t think this has affected my children,” Donata said. Luke Lantta, an attorney for Bryan Cave who is representing the Russell children, said, “Ms. He later added, “We are not challenging the fact that she was our father’s child.”. “Is Dad sick?” she asked. She didn’t bring it up, nor did he. Russell did die within that seven-year period and effectively $28 million passed to his three known children at no tax.”. She was not sure what to say, and recalls discarding draft after draft. It’s like I told my son, I feel like we—me and the Russells—are like the clean-ups; we’re just cleaning up some mess that our parents made. Herman Russell also was a key business leader who supported Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. She Married Frederick Craig in 1952 and they would have three children. Buffington had been aware of Todd’s existence, according to the court; he’d named her the beneficiary of two life insurance policies, and was even known to refer to her as “little bastard.” Buffington’s knowledge of Todd, and his deliberate omission of her in his will, was evidence of his intent, the court ruled. Joyce says she responded, “I paid my way through college, I raised my son, I’ve done well for myself, I have a good job, I’m well-educated, so I did earn it.”. At 11, he joined his father on job sites, where Rogers Russell was a master plasterer. In their only public comments on the matter, to the Atlanta Business Chronicle last September, the Russell siblings said they were curious to meet Joyce. Maria received her Master’s degree in urban studies from Georgia State and her Bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. I was was perturbed with my employer.,we were constructioning a low-income project on Nassau Street. After high school, she moved to Washington, D.C., for college, working at IHOP to help pay her tuition. At home, when their parents were at work—Veray as a schoolteacher, Richard as a youth counselor—Joyce would also cook for the boys. After Veray Darby told Joyce about her biological father, Joyce spoke with no one about it, except for a cousin. The following narrative emerged: In early 1958, Herman’s mother and Veray’s aunt were each ill and being treated at Grady Hospital. Spend some time. On the morning of January 9, 2017, Joyce sued the Estate of Herman Russell in Fulton Superior Court, seeking to be declared an heir and asking the court to effectively award her a share of Russell’s nonprobate assets equal to what he gave his three other children. There’s education, sitting on the board.” (Jerome Russell is president and executive director of the Herman J. Russell Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which in 2016 reported $4.9 million in net assets.). Herman Russell – known city- , state- and nationwide for his formidable business knowledge and acumen – has received many plaudits since his passing on Nov. 15. Nine months after Atlanta business icon Herman J. Russell died in November 2014, his three children received a letter from lawyers representing Joycelyn Alston of New York. Born into poverty, the youngest of eight children, he was an entrepreneurial prodigy. Learn about them. Joyce had a choice: She could resume her life, or press on. Joyce had imagined being introduced to the extended family, to assimilating, to having a seat at the table, figuratively and otherwise. Herman J. Russell was born on December 23, 1930 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA as Herman Jerome Russell. The Georgia Supreme Court has weighed in—at least partially. The fact that we were not aware of her, we were open to getting to know her.”. “If he had been aware of her, she’d at least have a trust fund and be guaranteed an education. On a second trip to Atlanta, Joyce brought 32-year-old Antonio, to whom she’d recently broken the news. No disrespect, Joyce, she recalls one of them saying, but you didn’t earn it. In April 2016, the results came back, showing with 99.98 percent certainty that Joyce is Herman Russell’s daughter. It’d be a shame if the Georgia courts hold that a biological child of a man who is wealthy has no rights simply because the father had enough money to do estate planning outside of probate.”. As it turned out, Russell had transferred most of his fortune during his lifetime, through a series of complex transactions, to his three children, as Frankel explained at a hearing last July before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Eric Dunaway. After her shift at the beauty parlor one day, Veray, then 28 and single, went to visit her aunt at Grady. His father followed soon after. Veray, a year older than Herman, was raised just a few blocks from the Rogers Russell house on Martin Street. Russell later married Sylvia Anderson, the president of AT&T. At 16, with money he’d saved from the shoeshine stand and from helping his father, Herman paid $125 in cash for a vacant lot in Summerhill. There were no specific dollar amounts left to friends or family members, no special bequests of sentimental items. He would have celebrated his 91st birthday February 10. In the summer of 2015, Joyce’s lawyers reached out to attorneys for the Russell siblings, informing them that their client claimed to be a child of Herman Russell. View the profiles of people named Russell Hermann. Young Herman mixed sand and cement to make mortar. Yeah. Richard Darby eventually proposed to Veray, marrying her in 1959, and the young couple settled down in Washington before ultimately moving to the Bronx. For her attorneys, the first priority was examining the plausibility of Joyce’s claim. To Joyce, her parents’ life together had—up until that day in 1983 when her mother visited her—seemed as conventional as any other couple’s in their working-class neighborhood. But as the conversations—between the family members, as well as between the lawyers—turned to money, the good feelings were dissipating. Washington was both new and familiar to Joyce; she’d been born there, and two of her mother’s sisters still lived there. Rogers Russell’s thrift was borne out by his estate, which contained $12,000 in savings, an astounding amount then for a blue-collar worker with eight children. To Russell’s relief, the man agreed. (In 1991, Richard Darby died of an aneurysm.) Here was a way to make things right. Joycelyn Alston actually is slightly older than Donata, who is 59. Alston is from the New York City area, where she has worked in the insurance industry. I’m not getting any benefit out of this. “I’m disappointed but not surprised that the judge took the safe way out,” Frankel said. She settled finally on something brief—her name, her mother’s maiden name (Campbell), her aunts’ names, where the Campbell girls had grown up in Summerhill. For Joyce, the negotiations over the DNA test—who would pay, that the results must remain confidential, that her mother would also have to submit a sample—left her feeling marginalized, further distanced from the siblings she had yet to meet. We live now in an age of websites that can populate your family tree going back generations. A staunch segregationist, he was denounced by the Senate for financial irregularities, which were revealed during a bitter divorce from his second wife. He was married to Otelia Hackney. We’re left to do it.”, POSTSCRIPTOn January 9, a week after this story had gone to press for our February 2019 issue, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Eric Dunaway dismissed Joycelyn Alston’s verified petition seeking heirship. “It was almost like it was so hard for him to talk sometimes that you wanted to help him talk. Rush Limbaugh spoke about the afterlife a lot in his finals days, saying that ‘he knew he was going to heaven’ according to his wife Kathryn in a conversation with Todd Herman, who spoke of how she and her late husband prepared for his death. I dicovered a sister that’s wasn’t a part of my life. Senator from Georgia from 1957 to 1981. What do you do? Like Herman, Otelia was one of eight children. Zion Cemetery with Bro. Herman J. Russell: 2013 Georgia Trustee. By Maria Saporta On November 15, 2014, Herman Russell had died. As Frankel explained in court, Russell left $10 million to his second wife. At the hospital, she ran into Herman, a neighbor and friend she’d known since childhood. Did Herman Russell know he had fathered a child out of wedlock? “What does it say about him if he knew all these years that I existed?”, Young, who’s not followed the case closely, says it is incomprehensible that Russell would knowingly turn his back on his own child. Prior to that, she spent 27 years with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, becoming its business columnist in 1991. This was in Atlanta, where Veray had grown up, attending the Allen Temple A.M.E. Church in Summerhill. “Why now?” Joyce asked. She married in 1984, taking her husband’s name—Alston. By then he likely didn’t need his father’s money anyway; six years earlier, his father had turned over his plastering business to Herman, who’d set to work immediately expanding it. She does remember that before the two parted ways, Russell gave her a $50 bill. What most people thought was a negative he turned into a positive.”. It made sense to her; after all, writing letters had yielded nothing. “Give my mama some back child support—that’s my attitude,” Joyce says. If Russell died in the interim, the notes would be forgiven. “As long as I can understand him,” she replied, “don’t you worry about it.”, Russell used his speech impediment to his advantage, recalls Ambassador Andrew Young, who first met the builder not long after moving to Atlanta in 1961. “It made you reach out to him,” Young says. I always wondered what happened to me.”. Herman called me up one day and said, ‘I want you to come with me,’ and he took me to meet John Portman and Charlie Loudermilk. The offer was $450,000, to be paid over two years, as well as her choice between a 10 percent interest in the Lake Burton vacation home or $500,000 paid over 10 years into a trust for her and her “lineal descendants,” with Joyce naming the trustee and the trustee paying the taxes. My faith has grown so much. “But I wanted to meet them.”. She just kept saying, ‘Thank you, Lord Jesus.’”. WXIA 11 NBC Atlanta In the fall of 2016, two years after Herman Russell’s death, Joyce traveled to Atlanta to meet the three siblings she’d never known. “We all are human. Russell & Co., and he was involved in the building of many of Atlanta’s most iconic buildings. “He would never have neglected a child of his,” Young says. The matter that had been strictly hush-hush had become public record. In 1983, Russell put life insurance policies totaling approximately $5 million into a trust, the beneficiaries of which were his three children. It was “clearly and unambiguously” Buffington’s intent to provide only for his two daughters and not his out-of-wedlock child, the court ruled. “Our conversations were always cordial,” Donata said. “I had been almost totally aligned with the civil rights movement, and so all that the white community saw of me were stories in the papers from Birmingham, Selma, or someplace. “It’s unfortunate,” Michael, 53, agreed. … On its way to becoming the largest Minority Business Enterprise real estate firm in the country, the Russell company amassed vast holdings, much of it Section 8 housing that the company would not only build but manage. What’s your favorite color? “I thought, ‘Am I entitled to something?’” she recalls. “I just missed him.” The questions she had imagined for so many years asking him—simple things such as his favorite food, or if he got into trouble as a kid—she could never ask. Grave site information of Herman A. Russell (1907 - 1983) at Mountain View Cemetery in Mesa, Maricopa, Arizona, United States from BillionGraves The Russell children also have come to terms with a side of their father that had been unknown to them. The stranger laid out the paperwork to prove his case. Frankel says Russell’s intentions, through estate planning done over decades, were clear: “To give his property, with minimal taxes, to his children.” Frankel estimates that the true value of Russell’s estate was north of $100 million, and could be as high as $200 million. To Joyce, it was insufficient. Half-siblings, technically, but as Joyce explains it, the family in which she had grown up made no such distinctions. Indeed, it is the trusts—and not his will—where the details of his ultimate wishes are unspooled. This is a good time to note that Joycelyn Alston works as an accountant. And the settlement was to remain confidential. “Your father is not your father,” Veray told her. Mary grew up in Houlton and attended Houlton schools. They do not know whether their father even knew of her existence, and they certainly did not know she was their kin until her lawyers sent a letter in August 2015. “Nor do I feel it reduces the love he had for our mother,” said Michael, speaking of Otelia Hackney Russell, who was married to Herman Russell for 50 years until her death in 2006. By this point, Joyce’s curiosity was more than just academic; half her medical history, she realized, was unknown. No, her mother said. Since the 1960s, his company has helped shape Atlanta’s skyline, including work on the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Mercedes Benz Stadium, State Farm Arena and many more. Although she dismissed the case that June, she refiled the court case on Aug. 8, 2017. “She’s a little bit older than me,” said Donata, who is at peace with this latest twist in their lives. As part of the confidential negotiations, Frankel got to review Herman Russell’s Form 706, an IRS filing that outlined the value of his estate. She didn’t tell her brothers. These items—called nonprobate assets—include life insurance proceeds, retirement accounts, jointly-held real estate. These were her siblings. There was something she needed to tell her daughter, and it was best done in person. Technically speaking, he sold these assets, but the income generated by them—such as rent in Section 8 housing—often exceeded the amount the children needed to pay their father back, Frankel explained. But two justices dissented, with one, the late Harris Hines, calling the majority ruling a “giant step backwards in the development of the law in regard to the rights of biological children born without the benefit of marriage.”. In addition to Michael Russell and his wife, Lovette; and his siblings, Jerome Russell and his wife, Stephanie; and Donata Russell Major; Herman Russell is survived by his wife… “She cried,” Joyce says. In fact, on the day that her mother came to visit, Joyce was living with one of her aunts and working at a department store. In his will, he provided for his two daughters and requested that anything left over in his estate pour over to a family trust, the trustees of which were his daughters. H.J. When he was 28, Herman Russell’s mother, Maggie, died. Joyce is also motivated in part by the thought of her mother, who had never sought any money from Russell. “I had a family line that I wanted to know,” she says. He would never let a child of his not be part of his family.”. Soon Michael arrived, and he immediately hugged Joyce. At a Glance … “ We develop. The Russell children do not know what the next step will bring. Later, Russell remarried Sylvia, then President of AT&T Georgia. “Certainly having grown up the way we had, we were curious and welcoming.”. Soon after realizing she was pregnant, Veray went to inform Russell. From his purchase of a small parcel of land at age 16 in 1946 to an entrepreneurial legacy starting in construction; Herman J. Russell is a business entrepreneur, civic leader and philanthropist focused on his 50th anniversary motto of “strengthening America’s foundation”. At the time she sent the letters, in the mid-1980s, Herman Russell had become one of the most prominent black businessmen in the nation, overseeing a vast empire of real estate and construction interests, as well as airport concessions. “I have my own emotions about this, but I’m sure they have theirs, too. You move on, and you grow. (In the years after Otelia’s death, he married Sylvia Anderson, then the president of AT&T Georgia.) With her mother’s survival by no means assured, Joyce, who describes herself as very religious, began making promises to God. Georgia law is unclear, Frankel says. Russell & … He was one of the first African-American business leaders to sit at the tables of power in Atlanta – from the board of the Commerce Club to serving as chairman of the Metro Atlanta Chamber to co-chairing the Atlanta Action Forum. Buffington defined his children in the will very specifically—as “only the lawful blood descendants.” A woman named Regina Todd sued in probate court, arguing she deserved a portion of Buffington’s estate. Joycelyn was born in 1958, two years after the Russells were married. Until then, Joyce had intentionally not researched much about the life of her biological father. At a loss, he suggested to the man that they simply switch lots. Like Herman, Otelia was one of eight children. And the Russells—Donata, Jerome, and Michael—were, indisputably. “In Probate Court, the will states: ‘For the purposes of this will, my descendants are the three children,” Frankel said. Alston claims that if Mr. Russell was aware of her existence, he would have provided equally for her along with his other children.”. We all make mistakes. Donata and her brothers wonder why Joycelyn did not reach out to their father before he died at the age of 83. “My father was a public person,” Donata said. “She wants to be treated as a biological child of Herman Russell,” said Alston’s Atlanta attorney, Craig Frankel. “This is a new area of law and [Judge Dunaway] is going to let the appellate courts decide. He died on November 15, 2014 in Atlanta. The advent of DNA testing may have removed any uncertainty when it comes to blood kinship, but the emotional, financial, and legal implications are as murky as ever. Required fields are marked *. And like Herman, she was also strong-willed. He also dismissed Alston’s amended complaint that sought a share of Herman Russell’s estate. They also include trusts. Could she really be a daughter of Herman Russell? Photo - Herman Russell, President Bill Clinton and Ann Jackson; Photo - Herman Russell and Mayor Willie Herenton, 1990-1992; Photo - Herman Russell, Otelia Russell and Donata Russell, 1986; Photo - Herman Russell holding his son Herman Russell Jr., 1959; Photo - Herman Russell with Herman Russell Jr. and Donata Russell “In a case like this, most of the time, the critical issue is whether or not there is paternity,” says Craig Frankel, Joyce’s attorney. Dunaway cited many arguments in making his ruling, including that Georgia law prohibits a claim such as hers, and that the statute of limitations had run out. “Each of the three Russell children had to earn what they received—working, learning the business, and earning their parents’ trust so they could ultimately be entrusted with these assets.” Nevertheless, Lantta said, more than 30 years later, someone else is coming in and trying to claim pieces of what their generation helped build. Russell Plastering Company did work for general contractors across Atlanta, while also buying and building more rental units. Herman J. Russell, born in the Jim Crow-era South, built one of the oldest and largest black-owned construction and real estate firms in the country. Select this result to view Russell A Hermann's phone number, address, and … She didn’t seek child support from Russell. There’s other things. In 1993, he transferred $5 million in assets—including many real estate properties—to trusts in his children’s names. But Craig Frankel, Alston’s attorney, said the legal battle isn’t over yet, and that his client would take her case to the Georgia Court of Appeals. “I have lived long enough to know that there are not answers to everything in life,” Donata said. Russell was a 1991 recipient of the Horatio Alger Award, and received the title Georgia Trustee from the Georgia Historical Society in 2013. He contributed toward a fund that ensured that a trove of King’s private papers would stay in Atlanta and not be auctioned off. In other words, you don’t need to name someone to disinherit them. Because of the pending legislation, the children were careful in what they said. But a vast catalog of holdings bypasses probate. Donata, Jerome and Michael sat down for a lengthy in-person interview in Michael’s Midtown condo to talk about that journey – one that has led them to Fulton County Superior Court and the Probate Court. One thing led to another. (The stand was on city-owned land, and when the racist aldermen laughed the young man with the speech impediment out of City Hall after he asked permission to do business on the parcel, Russell opened the stand anyway.) His will provided for only some of his children, since he’d written it in 1920, before his younger children, including Herman, were born. She never even told the man she’d marry. Russell was a tireless networker and political kingmaker, helping persuade Young to run for Congress in 1970. “Herman integrated my life in Atlanta,” Young says. “Honestly,” Antonio recalls now, running his hand up his forehead, “the first thing that stuck out to me was, that explains my hairline versus Granddad’s, because his hair was so beautiful. Later, Russell remarried Sylvia, then President of AT&T Georgia. The total value of the assets was roughly $28 million, although Frankel said in court he suspects the true value was closer to $50 million. “Nor do I feel it reduces the love he had for our mother,” said Michael, speaking of Otelia Hackney Russell, who was married to Herman Russell for 50 years until her death in 2006. Your source for breaking news, news about New York, sports, business, entertainment, opinion, real estate, culture, fashion, and more. That said, the Russell children said their feelings toward their father and his illustrious career in the Atlanta community have not changed. Notwithstanding the transfers Russell made to his three children during his lifetime, which totaled at least $38 million and which were all perfectly allowable under the law, he did not die a pauper.

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