Wealthy recluse starts a treasure hunt after death

International News Photos (New York, N.Y.) · January 28, 1949

A nation-wide treasure hunt started today as authorities began a search for relatives and heirs of 70-year-old recluse, Miss Frances Louise Butler, who died in a $2.75-a-day Akron hotel room yesterday. Miss Butler (photo, left, apparently taken at the turn of the century) is reputed to be a former opera star. Bankers believe that her fortune, which she said she wanted "taken up in an airplane and scattered over the ocean," amounts to more than one-million dollars. In photo at right, Walton A. Woodling (left), attorney for an Akron bank, and Howard Milford, assistant trust officer, check through objects found in Miss Butler's hotel room.