After Elizabeth

Before I leave the Elizabeth Custer story to concentrate on the other books I’m working on I’d like to look back at her life one last time. I’ve spent more than three years with her and it’s going to be hard to move on. Elizabeth Custer was thirty-four when her husband was killed at the Little Big Horn. She had been married to George Custer for twelve years. After the shock of bereavement, with its clarifying vision, all was nebulous. It was said that on the evening of the Sunday following, Elizabeth arranged a religious service to be held in the parlor of her home at Fort Lincoln. So broken by George’s death and overcome by the heat of the day, she fainted in the middle of the service. Elizabeth returned to her home town of Monroe, Michigan. She remembered how happy she was there with George. Now she was a stricken woman isolated in grief. Letters of condolences poured in on her. The letters helped her go on and gave her the courage she needed to go through George’s things. It was here she made some astonishing discoveries. Among the items in his footlocker were letters and photos from other women and gambling receipts which showed he had more than $13,000 in gambling debts. It’s hard to know how she was able to go on from there, but go on she did. Elizabeth was a remarkable champion of George and his life as a soldier. Regardless of his infidelity she defended his military career to the end. She died in 1933 at the age of 92. The story of her life with and without George should be made into a movie – and I’ll get right on that after Thunder Over the Prairie gets made. It’ll happen. Right, God?