Franklin Sears of Wimberley, Texas.

This will be a page honoring him, explaining his final week for those who never got answers, and outlining the battle waged on his behalf to legally get his assets where he wanted them to go.

That was a 2-year fight but we, on behalf of Frank, prevailed - his estranged sisters, one of whom was an attorney, who magically came out of nowhere after years, got nothing of consequence.

He did not wish to be kept alive, but I - though his chosen Executor, but not a blood relative - could not do anything about that. I put the word out to his circle of friends, the only family I knew about of his for 20 years, and someone located a sister. Estranged. I passed her contact info to the hospital, (More coming)…

FRANK SEARS MEMORIAL PAGE - STILL WORKING STUFF IN, Feb. 2025.

Pics above and below from the mid and early 2000s. This will be a tribute page to my friend, who left this world on Dec. 10, 2021. It will have a few great Frank stories, some answers and timeline of events for his circle of friends, and an outline of the legal happenings around his estate which I headed up the defense of as his chosen Executor. And GREAT information on wills and probate law in Texas I’ve learned, as it applies to contests from long-estranged family.

1. TRIBUTE
An absolute legend. I miss you, Frank. You were allowed to pass on December 10, 2021. A good team fighting for the charity you asked to happen after you were gone made it happen, just about as you wished. Good has come of this, my friend; the best of you lives on in good lives and hearts, and all the causes and places you contributed to. I encourage all who knew him to gather a handful of the good earth Frank loved, sanctify it in your own way, and toss it into the wind as if setting something sacred free. I encourage those who didn’t know him but are feeling loss in your lives today to do the same. And if you are struggling with addiction, to reach out for help with mental health too, to approach it from that way as well and feed your wellness from its roots. Know you too are loved and cared about. Please love and care for yourselves, and for each other. Feed the birds in peace but face the raptors like warriors. One of Frank’s favorite albums is Bob Marley’s Legend. May it both heal and encourage you to take the stand you’ve been given and be strong.

2. DEPARTURE
For Frank’s circle of friends, his real family as chosen by him, we all know of Frank’s struggles in the last years of his life as the pandemic kept him isolated and increasing legal issues from his slip-ups tied him from traveling. Please, through these details, always remember Frank for the good man of kindness and integrity he was - just making some poor decisions while battling addiction - and not the other Frank, OK?

The details posted here are public and Frank would tell you himself. He owned his slip-ups. And now that there is another party who swept in but didn’t get what they wanted from Frank’s estate, it’s important for the truth to be preserved. Frank was arrested after a traffic accident caused by his being impaired by alcohol, and brought to jail. While there, he had a seizure and was taken to the hospital. He caused such a scene there - but still able to answer the legal coherency questions - that they had no choice but release him. He attempted to walk home (a 20 minute drive) on a busy road and was struck. He was readmitted with a catastrophic head injury and never woke up. As his friend - “trusted friend of over 20 years” he wrote - he never mentioned any living family to me that was relevant to him. I knew he came from DC, had a horribly abusive childhood, and left them all behind as a young man. He made brief mention one time of his mother passing, but that was it. I never asked.

I was one of his go-to people when he needed things done. Rides to the doctor, house-sitting early on when he’d travel, go check on his renters and collect a rent check when he was out of the country. My number was the one he gave as next of kin for doctors and hospitals, in case of emergency. It was my number in his wallet that weekend, and I got the call from the hospital. Despite the paperwork I’ll talk of next, I was unable to get the hospital to remove him from life support after they determined he was never going to wake up - a state Frank specifically wrote he did not want to linger in. That only happens when the official form is filled out, or by next of kin. The hospital spent days trying to find any relatives and could not locate any. All of value he really had was his hand built house, which he wanted sold and the funds distributed to causes and people he specified. That was to be my job, this had been written out some time before he passed. He’d seen me live and build my place and run a company for years and figured I was the friend to handle his business when he died.

Every day, who went to the hospital? Me. I had a will and a written bunch of requests and instructions. I showed this ALL to the hospital to establish who I was in this scene and get Frank’s wishes known. Over time he had talked about wanting to help people with his stuff, and about a year earlier he left that to me to do - in his own writing, by his own will, in a hand written (“Holographic”) will, and then in several pages of clarifying instructions I asked him for once he told me I was “Going to handle everything.” “You know what to do with it.” No, Frank - I need you to tell me what you want to happen, your decisions. I’ll know what to do with those. This was a one page WILL leaving his home and personal property in my hands, and INSTRUCTIONS when I asked for specific organizations and individuals he wanted the house money (the house was to be sold) given to, and his wishes should he become incapacitated, and for the handling of his body.

These papers were openly presented to, and copied by, the hospital. But I was not able to help with Frank’s lingering in a comatose state. As I reached out and communicated with his circle, an old friend mentioned he had sisters and knew how to contact them. They passed this info to me, I passed it along immediately to the social worker at the hospital, they were contacted, one contacted me, and they came to the hospital and authorized his removal from life support. That was the end of Frank’s travels and wild life.

They came in and took charge of the hospital dealings, and possession of Frank’s remains. He was cremated as he requested, I had supplied the hospital and the sisters with recommended choices for that locally. I did not publish public obituary of his death because they were now involved and obviously - from body language on - looking to take control. Plus, being in Frank’s life and understanding his property situation (something estranged relatives out of his life for decades would not), he had renters and un-securable buildings and security was a concern. I figured this would all form up quickly into a plan and those could be addressed. I did not form any kind of celebration of life party at that time because Frank wished his ashes be handled a certain way by his friends, and I was not in possession of them yet. (NOTE: Texas law is that kin, whether you hate them or not, has rights to your remains.) Plus a party would have been inappropriate given the man’s struggles with alcohol that ultimately killed him. And that was not my job.

The sisters would use this to paint me as trying to hide it all, which is nuts because his whole local circle all knew he died. What I didn’t want were fringe elements going to check out what Frank may have had at his place, since there was a single female renter there, already kind of on edge at what this all meant for her having a roof over her head.

In the hospital, when no staff was around, as Frank lay comatose I told him not to worry, that I was going to take care of everything. I performed a quick ceremony over him with Native and Buddhist elements; his way of seeing this life had those in it. So, if nothing else went our way, he got a proper ceremony. (more coming here on the ceremony) Also, I was communicating with social and case workers, nurses and surgeons, hospital financial department, his parole officer, the tenant, just doing what I was asked to do BY FRANK. Upon meeting his estranged sisters, one who is an attorney, I told them as his Executor I’d be happy to work with them. They came in wondering who the hell I was. Well, I was Frank’s friend for the past 20 years. Where the hell were they?

3. ESTATE
Frank had a house on a desirable piece of land that he had built over many years. (more coming here on the house, my history with it, and stories about its construction - with more pics below) It needed work and additional systems that would be expected in a place of the value it became. Other than that, some old bicycles, a non-running truck, a crashed car in the hands of an impound yard, and some books and thrift store clothes, Frank didn’t own many possessions. He had a quarter-full storage unit with some odd art and used furniture and rugs from the house he rented out. He had a dilapidated RV trailer he lived in. Worn out tools. That was it. Again, anyone who knew Frank knew this - he was a minimalist. He drove the same old maroon Nissan pickup to 330,000 miles. His sisters came in gunning for everything. Despite their claims to be close, they didn’t know much about Frank. And they sure as shit didn’t know much about me.

4. THE BATTLE
I retained an attorney and filed for probation of the will. The sisters contested the will, claiming every manner of anything they could possibly accuse me of under the sun, the tactic of people trying to just see what would stick. Fraud, theft, misrepresentation, forgery, you name it. They wanted me removed, they wanted the will to be negated BY adding the instructions to it (both written BY FRANK) because the instructions were sloppily written and adjusted by me at Frank’s request - a BIG no-no on an actual will. You can’t have anything crossed out and re-written, especially by somebody else, ESPECIALLY not someone named as a beneficiary. But this wasn’t his will - it was about five sheets of yellow paper with things he wanted done and amounts and for whom listed out. Short answer, they wanted it all and they wanted to play hardball. One sister was an attorney, and they hired a big firm from San Antonio. Tried to bargain me away when they couldn’t remove me. Umm… screw that, and screw them. I wasn’t IN this for anything, if it came down to that. But not to them.

Every single one of their accusations were, one by one with the help of a second litigation attorney on my/our team, proven false. Yeah, that WAS Frank’s handwriting. And if you thought anybody was going to coerce Frank Sears or make him do anything he didn’t want to do, or even talk the guy OUT of anything, YOU DID NOT KNOW HIM. No, he was NOT mentally unable to write such a document - the guy traveled the world, built his own house, and worked for himself for decades to pay for all of that. Frank had suffered a head injury decades ago, and I guess they figured they could use that to make him look like someone who couldn’t be responsible for himself now that he was DEAD. I took offense not to how they tried to paint me, but that they tried to paint their own brother as that just to try to get his stuff. No wonder he didn’t want anything to do with them. Some digging once they were known to me uncovered some very sketchy mother’s estate money all ending up as legal fees and Frank getting written out by who handled it kind of stuff. Guess who handled it.

I remember being with my litigation attorney and meeting the other “nice sister” at Frank’s storage unit so she could take a look. For that I wanted Frank’s remains so we could do a ceremony for him like he wanted. I grabbed that black box and pulled it into my chest thinking “You give me MY brother back! You don’t even deserve his DUST.” It was great, I might add, to watch her roll up that door and find the Frank Sears treasures. Yep, this is what you’re fighting for. I told my attorney “I’m not going to lie, what’s going on inside her head after seeing that storage unit just fills me with a certain kind of joy.” He said it was the most Sicilian thing he’d ever heard. It was a two year fight. He was ceremonially released off the back porch of his house, as he requested in writing. (more coming here on the ceremony)

5. THE AGREEMENT
Agreement was reached through negotiation that the family get Frank’s personal items. God, they fought tooth and nail for that once it became apparent they weren’t going to take it all, and they couldn’t get the house. Knowing they were old tools, a box of thrift store clothes and some books, basically, we gave them that. The home and land were held as his estate and, as Frank wished, sold by third party administration, with ALL funds being distributed proportionally to the organizations and individuals FRANK wrote out. The sisters shrewdly negotiated for “residuals”, the amount left over if the assets are more than listed total beneficiary payments… Frank hadn’t included that in the will, and these were blood relatives and now entitled to them. Fine. They were so sure it was a fortune property and that was in the end what they fought for, to be last in line. Showing how much they knew about Frank, his house, and his belongings. We agreed.

6. RESULTS
The house sold, but the sale didn’t cover his written amounts to give plus the expenses, directly because of the legal fees they instigated trying to come in and grab it all for themselves (which do get reimbursed); everyone who mattered took a little percentage haircut on the numbers, but they (we) all got close to what he wanted, and there was nothing left. So Frank’s estranged family walked away with nothing from it. I was not involved in any way in the sale, third-party administration is what happens in these cases. Left to me, everything would have been sold and settled in 60 days at a peak time in the market, everybody would have gotten envelopes and anything left would have been donated. That’s not how it went. But Frank’s wishes prevailed.

7. LEGACY
On the wall of the newly remodeled and expanded Wimberley Public Library is a donor wall. There is a fairly big square with Franklin Sears on it. The other places and organizations and lives he touched with little “pocket warmers” from his estate (as he’d call little payouts) won’t have engraved plaques but will have food, funding, reliable cars, gas in the tank, work on their places, and less worry for a while. Here are a few things we will also give to Frank, the honor of helping you with some legal lessons about what you do with your stuff. First, read above about a RESIDUALS CLAUSE. You have to say who gets “any residuals greater than the total of listed beneficiary payments” vs. the total value of the estate. People will rip each other to shreds thinking the big number is enough for them to get what’s left over. Second, get a real will. A holographic will is open to a lot more scrutiny and harder to defend than an attorney prepared will. Definitely better than nothing, and if Frank could look it up and write it out well enough to have this outcome, you can to. There’s NO excuse just to let your stuff go where you don’t want it to when it could be turned into useable gifts to causes and others you care about, to help them. Third, put in a NO CONTEST CLAUSE that anyone mentioned in the will shall be removed as beneficiary if they contest the will to get more. Fourth, if you’re leaving someone out of a will - family you hate, for example - you can’t just pretend they don’t exist. You have to write them in to write them OUT.

SO, a big thank you to Frank from your circle - what your life added up to has gone where you wished and has helped out many others lives. And for his sisters, who I’m sure will read this… “May you be blessed with all you deserve.”