A little more regarding lowlifes at a funeral?

Hopefully you caught the previous post entitled lowlifes at a funeral but it's not necessary as this one stands on its own too. I'm amazed and bewildered at these people...at the funeral for a young husband and father, the inlaws .. brothers, parents of the deceased etc...made off with gifts left at the funeral home ...including some envelopes with cards in them and presumably some of these contained money cuz thats what people do when a young wife and small children are involved. So she has no way of knowing who might have sent a gift in order to send them a thank you note and of course the inlaws won't tell. How awful...but here's a big dillemma she's asked me about. A wealthy ish great uncle wrote a sizable check to the oldest brother to be in charge of and said to either put it towards the funeral costs or give to the widow in cash or both however he saw fit as the oldest of the siblings and to take responsibility of it so as to help out an already overburdened/stressed out grieving widow...The BROTHER DID NONE OF THE ABOVE..and she wouldhave never known about the check except she happened to hear about the money gift from some blabbermouth relative who let it slip while in gossip mode! Its been months now since the funeral..and when she mentioned it to the brother he didn't deny its existance, he just said he'd decided to split it between the remaining siblings..UGGGHHH this he justified by saying that she and her husband (his brother) had borrowed money from their mother, who took it from her savings so therefore it was the "estate" intended for everyone. So the dillemma now is....does she contact the uncle who rightly should have received a thank you from HER months ago and utterly rude seeming it is to have received such a large sum of money and not even acknowledged it...only she didn't know about it.. and does she give a simple thank you or should she explain that she only just learned of it but that she didn't recieve it?? one way or another, I'd think the uncle expected her to be the recipient and she needs to acknowledge that in some way???