Bula Croker.

About Bula Croker

Bula Croker, birth name Beulah Benton Edmondson, was a Native American teacher and women's suffrage activist. She rode a horse while dressed in Native attire in the 1913 suffrage parades in Washington, D. C. and along New York City's Fifth Avenue. While entertaining socialites with tales of her Cherokee ancestry, she met Richard Croker, a former Tammany Hall political boss and the two quickly became engaged. They married in 1914, despite a forty-year age difference, causing three of Richard's children from his first marriage to begin a series of lawsuits that would last for over fifteen years. The children claimed that Croker was not of Cherokee ancestry and accused her of fraud, but evidence proved that she was registered on the rolls of the Cherokee Nation. They also attempted to prove, unsuccessfully, that their father was incompetent. When Richard died in 1922, he disinherited all but one of his children and left his multi-million dollar estate to Croker. The three children attempted to break the will by claiming that Croker was a bigamist. They then tried to use a Florida statute to bar her from disposing of their Palm Beach properties because the sale would violate her right to dower and their right to inherit. In each claim, Croker eventually prevailed; however, the string of lawsuits, costs associated with her defense, and delays on being able to sell the properties, led her to file bankruptcy in 1937.