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Lifetime of saving at stake in trial

After saving more than $500,000, a 100-year-old former schoolteacher, says in court that a friend is trying to swindle her.

By MOLLY MOORHEAD
Published July 15, 2006

DADE CITY - Euphemia Rowland, wearing thick glasses, a blue suit and her white hair in a bun, didn't sit in the witness stand for long.

Hard of hearing and nearly blind, the 100-year-old woman struggled to hear attorneys' questions and see others in Circuit Judge Wayne Cobb's courtroom on Friday.

But when asked if she ever intended to give her friend and caretaker, Betty Shye, the more than $500,000 she saved throughout her life, Rowland was clear:

"No, I surely didn't ever think about anything like that."

The trial continued Friday in the lawsuit Rowland filed against Shye, a woman she met in church and came to rely upon for friendship and help with her affairs.

The relationship soured when Rowland went into a nursing home after falling in her house. Shye, who had power of attorney over Rowland, insisted she remain there. Now Rowland says Shye tried to swindle her out of her money, having transferred thousands from joint accounts to Shye's own and naming children as beneficiaries.

Shye, 74, says her goal was to protect her friend from others who are after her money.

Rowland, a longtime schoolteacher, never lived like a wealthy person. Instead, she always saved and did without, managing to amass a small fortune.

Her stepgrandson, Paul Neighbor, testified Friday about Christmas presents he would get as a child.

"They were clothes that she bought at the Goodwill or fruit that she picked at the orchard," Neighbor said.

Any time she helped friends or family, he said, she expected to be paid back.

"She has a very staunch belief that nobody should get anything they didn't work for," he said, adding that Rowland didn't charge interest, believing that was against biblical teachings.

He never knew, he said, that his grandmother had any money.

Financial adviser Dave Jarrett testified about a meeting between him, Rowland and Shye in which Rowland asked to set up a joint brokerage account.

Rowland knew, he said, that the arrangement meant her money would go to Shye when she died.

The next, and likely final, hearing in the case is set for Aug. 21.

[Last modified July 14, 2006, 22:11:14]