Personally I would clean it up, get the rust off, oil it and get it ready to go. If it was abandoned in the house when you bought it, it is yours. You can get a Hoppe's shotgun cleaning kit at your local sporting good store and it will have everything you need to clean it up and maintain it, with the exception of rust removal.
These weren't expensive guns to begin with, but were solid firearms. Doesn't look to be in bad shape (take a look down the bore to see!). If it isn't broken in some way yet to be determined, you can probably get a lot of use out of it.
As far as registration goes, it has been so long since Western Auto sold guns I would bet it was never registered as it probably wasn't required.
From the 'net:
Sometime in the 1940s or 1950s, or possibly earlier,[vague] Western Auto started selling rifles and shotguns in its catalogues. As with other chains at the time, such as Sears, Roebuck and Co., Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney, Western Auto's firearms were sold under a proprietary brand. Often called "store brand" firearms, they were firearms produced by reputable name brand manufacturers, such as O.F. Mossberg & Sons, Remington Arms, Savage Arms, Winchester Repeating Arms Company and High Standard Manufacturing Company. Western Auto firearms sold under the "Revelation" brand name, and were generally models from the brands Savage, Marlin Firearms, or Mossberg.
Other than markings, Revelation models were identical to standard production models. They were the most basic models produced by the various manufacturers, and featured plain birch or walnut stocks. However, metal bluing remained good and nearly all models were provided with iron sights and mounting provisions for scopes. Once valued lower than "name brand" equivalents, store-brand rifles, shotguns and revolvers have essentially reached price parity with their more universal counterparts. Firearms were one of many lines added to the store in a product diversification effort. By the end of the 1950s Western Auto was very much like a Sears store, even equipped with a catalog order center. Auto parts comprised only a small percentage of the company's sales by the mid-1960s and had all but disappeared by the 1970s.
I can't remember for sure, but I think Western Auto quit selling firearms in the 70s.
Robert
My guess is it belonged to the lady's husband before he died that we bought the house from and she just forgot it was up there. She has since passed on as well.
