Why not Agnes?

If what she wanted was control, the simplest thing in the world is to take the child.

She had the house and the money and the standing and a probate court that would have appointed her in an afternoon.

Why hand him to the one person in that family who had walked away?

The answer is in paragraph fourteen of the Thorne 1994 Trust and it is two lines long and my grandfather dictated it in a lawyer’s office in November 1994 and then died four months later.

It says that no person serving as trustee may also serve as the guardian or custodial parent of the beneficiary, and that if a trustee accepts such a role, that trustee is deemed to have resigned.