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PRO-LIFE COUPLE’S PLAN ON HOLD

Forest and Aileen Grauel have a dream.

Their dream is to convert a 22-acre property near Washington, D.C., into a pro-life oasis of healing and help.

But right now, that dream is on hold, mired in a nasty legal wrangle with the trustee of Forest’s parents’ estate.

The dream is a three-part one:  In Part 1, the two-story white frame farmhouse in which Forest was born and raised, and in which he and Aileen now live, will become Mother’s House, a Gabriel Project home for mothers with crisis pregnancies.

In Part 2, twenty acres of rolling farmland will become Rachel’s Field, where post-abortive parents may erect memorials to their unborn children.

Part 3 will be the building of the Sacredness of Life Memorial Chapel on a slight elevation toward the rear of the property.

The Grauels’ dream for the 22-acre property evolved gradually.

Forest was not always pro-life.

“I used to view pro-lifers as loonies,” he admitted in a May 10 interview at his home on Spencerville Road in Burtonsville.

The Grauels’ first child, a daughter, lived only one month, succumbing to a rare stomach disease.

When Aileen was pregnant with their second child, they were still struggling to pay medical and burial bills.

Aileen’s physician told them that the disease that killed their first child could likely reoccur in their second.

From a purely medical standpoint, he said, he would like to see the child born, to observe whether the second baby did carry the disease.

But knowing their financial dilemma, he advised that Aileen have a “procedure,” which he could prescribe.

It was 1971, “pre-Roe v. Wade – but abortion was already rampant in our society,” Forest explained.

“I remember telling Aileen that the doctor was right; we don’t need this expense right now.  But she said, no, we’re not going to do that – we’re going to have this baby.”

When Elva Jean was born, sound and healthy, Forest couldn’t have been a prouder father.

“So, increasingly, the pro-choice argument became more and more indefensible to me,” he said.  “I became less and less pro-choice and more and more pro-life.”

Hearing on Christian radio about a prayer vigil at an abortion clinic in Kensington, Forest decided to take part.

There, he met veteran pro-lifer Dick Retta.

“Dick came up to me and said, ‘Would you like to have a rosary?’  I said, ‘I don’t know how it works, but I’ll try it.’”

Grauel became a regular at the area clinic prayer vigils.  Aileen joined him later.

Forest was raised in the Methodist faith, his wife in the Congregational Church; together, they belonged to the Mormon Church for 20 years.

But the faith of the Catholics at the prayer vigils impressed them both.

“I was overwhelmed by these good Catholics!” said Aileen.  “The Spirit was so strong – there were tears in my eyes.  That’s what interested me in the Catholic Church.”

Forest agrees.  Although they have not yet joined the Church, both he and Aileen now attend Mass and Eucharistic Adoration.

In addition to the farm house in which they live and a barn and several outbuildings, the 22-acre property includes a brick home next door that was occupied by Forest’s parents, as well as two rental homes not contiguous to the rest of the property.

Forest’s father, George, a master builder, built the farmhouse in 1927.

Forest helped his dad build the brick home in 1959, cutting logs from a 20-acre woods they owned.

George Grauel died in 1990, shortly after he and his wife had executed two essentially identical trust documents regarding their estate.

Sandy Spring Bank in Olney was named trustee of both trusts in 2002.

A series of events since then have left the fate of the Grauels’ dream uncertain.

Following the death of Forest’s mother in early 2004, Sandy Spring Bank, in accordance with the stipulations in her trust, had the property appraised.

The trust granted Forest the right to purchase from his mother’s estate “the home including the barn and outbuildings where he presently lives in and as much from the immediately contiguous land as he may desire to purchase from his share of the estate and additionally on a first right of refusal basis.”

The appraisal placed the value of the property, a piece of prime development acreage, at $1.5 million.  Forest wanted to buy all 22 acres.  

However, a December 9, 2004, letter from Sandy Spring Bank offered him the opportunity to purchase a subdivision of the property for $405,000.

Grauel was nonplussed; apparently, a second appraisal had been made on a proposed 3-acre subdivision that he had neither asked for nor wanted.

Relations between the Grauels and the trustee became adversarial.

In September 2005 the bank subjected Forest to a probing three-hour videotaped deposition.

The next day he was offered, through his attorney, a chance to settle apart from further litigation.  

Fearing that protracted litigation would eat up his parents’ estate in costs, to the detriment of himself and his three brothers, Grauel accepted the bank’s proffered contract of sale for all 22 acres.

But he was unable to find a lender willing to loan him anything on the contract of sale.  Professionals to whom he turned for advice told him the contract was near “fatally poisoned” with restrictions of use.

Grauel appealed to Sandy Spring Bank, in a May 9 letter, to be the “lender of last resort,” and grant him a mortgage loan under the terms of the contract of sale they had written.

When the letter went unanswered, Grauel filed suit in Montgomery County Circuit Court, asking for a temporary restraining order and an injunction against the property being sold to someone else, pending an adversary hearing.

Forest has set up a website, www.lifeprinciplestrust.org, concerning the project.

Kulley Bancroft, a spokesperson for Sandy Spring Bank, said in a May 30 phone interview that the bank is not in opposition to Mr. Grauel’s desire to buy the entire 22-acre property, nor was it ever opposed to his plan for the use of the property.

But she said that the bank is not just working with Forest, but, as trustee, has a responsibility to all four Grauel brothers.

Ms. Bancroft said that Mr. Grauel voluntarily entered into the contract of sale and that he himself set the parameters of the time frame in which a lender on the contract must be found.

Asked if the bank has other potential buyers for the property, she said she was sure there were, but did not know of any specific buyers.

Bancroft said she was “unaware” as to whether the land would be considered prime development property.