Tasha Tudor Estate Battle: Famed Author's Children Fight Over Ashes and $2M
Photo: Tasha Tudor.
Now, they're fighting over her money. The court battle over her $2 million estate rages on almost two years after the famed children's book author and illustrator died at age 92.
At issue are family grievances old and new, including whether Tudor was unduly influenced when she rewrote her will to give nearly everything to one son, and virtually nothing to his three siblings.
A court will schedule a deposition for Amelia Stauffer of Ada, Ohio, a close friend of the author's and someone the lawyers believe might know about the will. As it stands now, the case is headed for trial.
Tasha Tudor earned fame for the delicately drawn images and watercolors illustrating "Little Women" and dozens of other children's books and for her own "Corgiville Fair."
Family and simplicity were at the heart of the Tudor name. Fans all over the world - especially in Japan and Korea - bought her books and later visited her Web site; the ardent ones took $165-per-person tours of her Vermont homestead, which her sons built by hand in the 1970s.
But the estate fight has torn at the homespun fabric of her image since her June 18, 2008, death from complications of a stroke.