A man sat by his campfire in Ohio's Cuyahoga Valley National Park. He watched a couple roll four potted trees to their campsite on a cart. He asked the fair question. Who brings trees camping? The answer was baby giant sequoias, seven of them, on their way from California to Boston.
Betsy Corcoran told the story in the Journal's travel report. She and her husband, George Anders, visited Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks in the spring of 2021, in the middle of Covid. The biggest trees there stand taller than 10 blue whales piled end to end. Many have fire scars so wide a horse could pass through. The trees are still alive. That toughness got to her.
A few cones, each about the size of a marshmallow, went into her pocket. She admits park rangers don't want you taking anything, not even a stick. A year later the cones let go of their seeds. She got them to sprout. Four years on she had nine small sequoias, too big for their buckets. Two went into her own backyard. The rest, she decided, should go to people who meant something to her.
Seven trees, seven homes
The legal part was easier than you'd think. Each tree needed a plant-health certificate to cross state lines, about $50 apiece. Then the couple strapped seven pots into a Pacifica minivan and left at 8:30 on a Tuesday morning. The route ran 3,900 miles. Stops included Salt Lake City and a niece in Wisconsin with a toddler. A friend took one to plant in northern Michigan next spring. An old boss in Maryland plants oak acorns every year. His oldest oaks now stand 30 feet tall.
The last stop was Concord, Mass., and her brother Chris. A year earlier the two of them had buried their parents in Newtown, Conn., their hometown. A tree went to Newtown too. As teenagers they'd groaned when their parents made them dig in the garden. Now brother and sister planted a sequoia together while a light rain fell. A dawn redwood already grows on his land a few dozen yards away. She calls planting a tree an act of radical optimism. A sequoia can live 1,000 years. Even at 100, she writes, her trees would likely outlive her house.
Our read
This is an estate story in hiking boots. Nearly all of it is about giving while you're alive, to people you can see, for a future you can't. The Michigan friend said it in four words. "It's like touching immortality." That's the feeling most families say they want from an estate plan. Most never get it, because the plan sits in a drawer until a funeral. The Corcorans did the opposite. They handed out the gift, watched it go into the ground, and kept the memory. Giving while living is also, in plain money terms, the most flexible way to give. You see where it lands.
Here's the connection to your own plan. The sequoia only works because someone promised to water it while the roots are small. Your plan has the same weak spot. It's the beneficiary form. That form names who gets the IRA, the 401(k) and the life insurance, and it overrides the will. People update it when they marry. They forget it after a divorce, or when a parent dies. This week, log in to each account and read the name on the form. If a name needs changing, it's a five-minute fix. If you're not sure who should be on it, that's a short talk we're glad to have with you. You don't plant a thousand-year tree and skip the watering can.