Round 5 - LELL

Question 1

Please state your name and relation to the plaintiff for the court.

Answer 1

My name is Loretta Ida Ellison. I am Peter’s older sister. My mother is Shirley and my father is Dennis.

Question 2

What is your relation to the Farm?

Answer 2

The Farm has been in the family for many years. I was about 4 when we moved.

Question 3

What was it like growing up there?

Answer 3

I loved to feed the cows when I was younger. Dad would let me run around with a paint brush or ride in the tractor. It was a good time.

Question 4

Was your inheritance ever discussed during your childhood? ​

Answer 4

I remember Dad saying to me when I was little, maybe 8 or 9, words like “One day, this will all be yours”.

Question 5

How did you react to this?

Answer 5

It was a bit dramatic, you know, a bit like Mufasa saying to Simba in The Lion King, “One day, everything the light touches will be yours”. But I knew that Dad meant he wanted the farm to stay in the family and that me and Peter would own it one day.

Question 6

Where did this knowledge come from?

Answer 6

As kids, Dad would always wax lyrical about how the farm would be passed down from generation to generation.

Question 7

When would he say this?

Answer 7

He would say it while we were working or while we were at the dinner table.

Question 8

How often did you work on the Farm?

Answer 8

I did a bit around the Farm as a kid, but as I grew up, I became a little less interested in doing farmwork. It didn’t exactly get you in with the cool group at school if you turned up in old, torn, smelly clothes.

Question 9

How much work did you do after you lost interest?

Answer 9

I would help out here and there but Peter and Dad did pretty much all the work.

Question 10

So, did you stay involved much?

Answer 10

After high school, I decided to go to university and study law. Dad asked whether I’d still stick around to help on the Farm if he needed me.

Question 11

What did you say?

Answer 11

I said no.

Question 12

What, if any, involvement did you have with the farm after that?

Answer 12

I would come back to the Farm during uni breaks, but I didn’t really help out on the Farm. Peter knew what he was doing and he and Dad were handling things well.

Question 13

What happened after you finished uni?

Answer 13

I met my now husband about 2 years after I finished uni. We moved to a place in Scarborough fairly soon after we met and he proposed to me a year later. I didn’t really go back to the Farm after that. I lost touch with Mum and Dad and Peter.

Question 14

How has your relation with them been since then?

Answer 14

Dad reached out years and years later. I thnk it was early December 2010. He wanted the family round for a Christmas dinner and wanted us to reconnect.

Question 15

What did you say?

Answer 15

I decided to go.

Question 16

How was the dinner?

Answer 16

It was quite a nice dinner.

Question 17

What was it like reconnecting with the family?

Answer 17

I didn’t realise that Peter and Dad had been through a big argument, but they were getting along quite fine that day. Apparently they agreed that Peter would come back and work on the Farm and Dad gave him an advance payment of $10,000. To compensate him for that work.

Question 18

How were things after the dinner?

Answer 18

Things were fine after that. We all had dinner every so often and we stayed in touch more than we had previously.

Question 19

What happened after that?

Answer 19

Then things took a turn when Dad announced at one of our family gatherings that the Farm would be left to both me and Peter.

Question 20

And how did you react to this?

Answer 20

I mean, I knew that was the case, but Peter obviously had other ideas. He thought it was all for himself.

Question 21

How is your relation to your parents now?

Answer 21

I don’t think I’ve spoken to him or Mum since that day.