Why Patsy Cline penned her will two years before her death as she sat on a plane is a bit of a mystery. Douglas Gomery, the author of “Patsy Cline: the Making of an Icon,” believed she may have been experiencing postpartum depression. She’d given birth to her son Allen a few months earlier and was already back on the road by that spring to support her family. Other sources believe Cline had a premonition of her death, per Good Housekeeping.
Because Cline never filed the handwritten will, when her life was tragically cut short at age 30, she died without a legal will and the case went to probate court, according to Gomery’s book. Cline’s estate was worth the equivalent of $4.5 million today — per Equity Atlas — and under Tennessee law Charlie Dick, as Cline’s husband, inherited her estate. Per Cline’s wishes, Dick initially left his children in the care of her mother, Hilda Hensley.
