Journal Notes

Having one of my books featured in

Cowboys & Indians magazine has been a dream for a long time. 

Heard today it just made come true.

Enter now to win a copy of

The Widowed Ones:  Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

America has a mythic story that is inhabited by giants, men like General George Armstrong Custer, Captain Thomas Ward Custer, and Lieutenant James Calhoun. They live large on the silver screen, in literature, and in the American imagination.  We can all see them on Last Stand Hill, out of ammunition, their sabers drawn, knowing the end is coming.  But there is another story—a story that has largely been ignored for over a century and a half.  It’s the powerful and heartrending tale of what happened to the wives they left behind after the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Hounded by the media and tormented by souvenir hunters, they were not allowed to move beyond the sorrow.

Once or twice in a lifetime comes a meticulously researched book that so radically changes your understanding of a historical event it is as though the scales fall from your eyes and you actually see what happened for the first time.  The Widowed Ones. Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn is that book.

Listen to the women’s side of the story.  We promise you will never be the same.

Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear  

New York Times bestselling authors of Dissolution and The Ice Orphan  

Enter now to win a copy of

The Widowed Ones:  Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

It was almost two in the morning. Elizabeth couldn’t sleep. It was the heat that kept her awake, the sweltering, intense heat that had overtaken Fort Lincoln earlier that day and now made even sleeping an uncomfortable prospect. Even if the conditions for slumber were more congenial, sleep would have eluded Elizabeth. The rumor that had swept through the army post around lunchtime disturbed her greatly and until this rumor was confirmed she doubted that she’d ever be able to get a moment’s rest.

Elizabeth walked her anxious frame over to the window and gazed out at the night sky. It had been more than two weeks since she had said goodbye to her husband. She left him and his troops a few miles outside of Fort Lincoln. His orders were to intercept the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in the territory, force them back to the reservation, and bring about stability in the hills of Montana.

Just before riding out, she turned around for one last glance at General George Custer’s column departing in the opposite direction. It was a splendid picture. The flags and pennons were flying, the men were waving and even the horses seemed to be arching themselves to show how fine and fit they were. George rode to the top of the promontory and turned around, stood up in his stirrups and waved his hat. Then they all started forward again, and, in a few seconds, they had disappeared, horses, flags, men, and ammunition – all on their way to the Little Bighorn River. That was the last Elizabeth saw of her husband alive.

Over and over again she played out the events of the hot day that made her restless. Elizabeth and several other wives had been sitting inside her quarters singing hymns. They desperately hoped the lyrics would give comfort to their longing hearts. All at once they noticed a group of soldiers congregating and talking excitedly. One of the Indian scouts, Horn Toad, ran to them and announced, “Custer killed. Whole command killed.” The woman stared back at Horn Toad in stunned silence. Catherine Benteen asked the Indian how he knew that Custer was killed? He replied: “Speckled Cock, Indian Scout, just come. Rode pony many miles. Pony tired. Indian tired. Say Custer shoot himself at end. Say all dead.”

To learn more about the widows of the Last Stand read The Widowed Ones. 

Coming in June.

Between 1914 and 1926, roper, rider, and actress Bessie Barriscale dazzled silent film fans in a series of fast paced Westerns. Movie audiences were fascinated with the versatile and beautiful star’s ability to outsmart and outshoot the outlaws in pictures such as The Bells of Austi and The Gambler’s Pal.

Named Elizabeth Mary Barriscale at birth in New York City, she came to San Francisco with her family as a child and made her stage debut at the age of eight at the Baldwin Theatre. For three years beginning in 1905, she toured the United States and England in the play Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, playing the role of Lovey Mary. During the tour, the attractive blonde actress married Howard C. Hickman, actor, director, and author.

Late in 1907, she starred in The Bird of Paradise at the Alcatraz Theatre where she remained a favorite in later plays. In 1912, she and her husband went to Los Angeles where she made her silent film debut as Juanita in Rose of the Rancho. The Western picture was based on a play by David Belasco and Richard Walton Tully and was directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Bessie’s character was the feisty love interest of a government agent sent to help California landowners battle with an unscrupulous banker threatening to take over the territory. The film cost $16,988 to make and grossed $87,028 in 1914.

One of Bessie’s most popular films was Two-Gun Betty. The immensely talented cowgirl actress was able to show her incredible range in the tongue-in-cheek comedy Western. The premise was an inspired and unique one in 1918. Hoping to win a bet, Betty Craig (Barriscale) disguises herself as a man and lands a job as a ranch hand on the spread owned by her best friend’s brother, Jack Kennedy. It doesn’t take long for Kennedy and the other cowboys to see through Betty’s masquerade, but they don’t let on that they know that “he” is a “she”, and Betty becomes convinced that she has pulled off her deception. Betty and Jack inevitably fall in love and plan to get married, but first Jack must rescue Betty from a gang of desperadoes who don’t want to play along with her little game. Two-Gun Betty was directed by her Howard Hickman, produced by Robert Brunton, and distributed by Pathe Exchange.

Bessie and her husband left Hollywood in 1919 and crisscrossed the country for eight years on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. The pair performed comedy skits with Bessie adding in rope tricks when appropriate. Following the Hickmans’ retirement in 1927, the couple lived in Los Angeles before moving to Marin County in 1945. Howard died in 1949. Bessie died in 1965 at the age of eighty-one.

Bronc busting champion Kitty Wilkes won her first title at the Wild West Celebration Rodeo in Miles City, Montana, in 1916.  The seventeen-year-old, New York native’s straightforwardness and untamed physical daring gave fans the impression she was born and bred into the rugged life of a Wyoming ranch.  Few would have guessed she was new to the sport or that winning the top prize would inspire her to excel in other rodeos.  From that exciting moment in Miles City she was determined to show the world that one need not be “born in the saddle” to be a crack rider.

Katherine Derre, whose stage name was Kitty Wilkes, was born on July 15, 1899.  She had a natural talent for breaking horses and parlayed that skill into bronc riding in public showings.  Not only did she have a way with wild horses, but she was also an exceptional trick and fancy rider.  Owners of relay strings were eager to gain her services.

Between the rodeo in Montana in the summer of 1916 and the Pendleton Roundup in Pendleton, Oregon, in early fall of 1916, Kitty honed her bronc riding talent at ranches and rodeos throughout the West.  She insisted on using the orneriest animals for training.  Outlaw horses were blindfolded and saddled for her to ride.  One encounter resulted in the horse bucking Kitty off and bruising her ribs.  She wouldn’t allow the horse to beat her, however.  She swung back into the saddle, refusing to leave it until the animal finally broke.

Kitty’s nickname was Diamond Girl because she had a diamond set in her front tooth.  When needed, she would remove the diamond and pawn it for the entry fees to rodeo contests.

Her performance at the Pendleton Roundup in 1916 resulted in her being named the All-Around Champion Cowgirl.  Among the many people she met during the roundup was Yakima Canutt.  Canutt, who also competed at the rodeo, would go on to become one of Hollywood’s leading stuntmen.  Kitty and Yakima fell in love and were married in Kalispell, Montana, in 1917.

Kitty was a fierce athlete who hated to lose.  It was not uncommon for her to challenge women who outrode her, and she believed cheated, to a fistfight.  In September 1918, she was disqualified from participating in a rodeo in Washington because she hit a rider in the mouth with a piece of wood.

Not content with being the top female bronc rider in the country, she aspired to be the top female relay racer as well.  Rodeo fans loved to watch the petite woman fly past the grandstands on her horse, hurrying to meet the next mount waiting to be saddled and ridden to the next point.  More than once Kitty would be finishing part of the race standing on the stirrups trying to get into the saddle.  Her grit and resolve often paid off with a win.

The rodeo stars Kitty often competed against were Mabel Strickland, Bonnie McCarroll, and Prairie Rose Henderson.

Kitty Wilkes was eighty-eight years old when she died on June 3, 1988.

Not long ago, the Library of Congress found a recording of a song by American actress and singer Lillian Russell.  I was asked by the LOC to write a piece on the song that became the talented entertainer’s signature tune.

Visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22B8T-PEK28 to hear Lillian sing

Come Down Ma Evening Star.

“Come Down Ma Evenin’ Star”–Lillian Russell (1912)

Added to the National Registry: Essay by Chris Enss

When actors and Broadway producers Joe Weber and Lew Fields debuted their burlesque show “Twirly Whirly” in the fall of 1902, New York critics unanimously panned the production. An article in the September 12, 1902, edition of the “St. Louis Post” noted that “in the opinion of the theatrical reviewers at large, the piece itself showed how little real wit it takes to amuse the public.” The only bright spot in the program was a ragtime song sung by the celebrated actress and singer Lillian Russell. According to the December 19, 1902, edition of the “Kansas City Daily Gazette,” “L. Russell’s stunning beauty and glorious delivery of a brilliant piece entitled ‘Come Down Ma Evenin’ Star’ was the one and only highlight in ‘Twirly Whirly.’”

Written by composer and conductor John Stromberg, the sentimental ballad would become stage queen Lillian Russell’s signature tune. Stromberg was a well-respected songwriter who had created several popular works for Weber and Fields’ productions. Born in Canada in 1853, Stromberg often collaborated on his songs with lyricist Edgar Smith. Although Stromberg penned “Come Down Ma Evenin’ Star” specifically for Lillian, he resisted handing the song over to her because he didn’t believe it was good enough.

He had promised to write Lillian the “prettiest song she ever sang” and was consumed with doubt over the finished product. In early July 1902, John Stromberg was found dead at his home in Freeport, New York. The official cause of death was ruled as paralysis of the heart, following a long attack of rheumatism. Friends and colleagues knew the exceptional agony Stromberg suffered as a result of his rheumatism and were saddened to learn the real reason he had died was because he’d taken a fatal dose of insecticide to stop the pain once and for all. When Stromberg’s body was discovered, the sheet music for “Come Down Ma Evenin’ Star” was found in the pocket of the suit he was wearing.

Lillian Russell was the theater’s leading musical comedy prima donna in the 1890s. She had played in many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and had received tremendous acclaim both abroad and in America. Her beauty and voice had drawn innumerable admirers who showered her with jewels. Although she thought Stromberg was an exceptional talent, she worried her fans would not be pleased with her singing a ballad.

The song “Come Down Ma Evenin’ Star” would be a significant change in her style. When the curtain rose on “Twirly Whirly” and Lillian took her place center stage, the audience erupted with applause before she even uttered a note. When the excitement died down, she sang “Come Down Ma Evenin’ Star” with the feeling of an opera aria, displaying deep and personal emotion to the public before her. At the conclusion of the song, the audience cheered and clapped approvingly. Lillian’s anxieties were at last relieved. A review of her performance in the mid-September edition of the “Daily Mirror” reported that “Miss Russell made a decided hit with ‘Come Down Ma Evenin’ Star.’”

Lillian would sing Stromberg’s final song often in her future years. She noted in her memoirs that each time she sang the song she would see John in his last, painful hours finishing the manuscript just for her. “I always thought of Honey Stromberg whenever I sang that song,” she wrote. “And, strange to say, no one ever sang it in public but me.” In a final tribute to Stromberg, Weber and Fields, led by Lillian, staged a benefit for Stromberg’s widow. It netted more than $6,000. In 1912, Lillian recorded her rendition of “Come Down Ma Evenin’ Star.” It was the only recording she ever made.

When news that cowgirl and silent film actress, Victoria Forde, had left her husband Western star, Tom Mix, in August 1928, fans were crushed.  The husband-and-wife team had entertained audiences in several films together between 1914 and 1922. Both were skilled riders who performed their own stunts in the cowboy and outlaw movies made for the Selig Polyscope Company. They were well-loved by movie-goers across the country and their marriage was as admired as their talent. Everyone imagined their homelife mirrored their idyllic onscreen relationship.

Victoria Forde was born on April 21, 1896, in Manhattan, New York. Her mother was a popular Broadway actress who nurtured her daughter’s love for horseback riding and entertaining.  She helped get Victoria work in films when she was fourteen. The teenager made several pictures with Biograph Company, one of the first major American motion-picture studios in the early days of filmmaking. In 1912, Victoria signed a contract with Nestor Studios and in a five-year period made more than a hundred short films with the company. When her time with Nestor Studios ended, she joined Selig Studios. She was thrilled to be signed to appear in Western films because she could ride her horse while appearing opposite Tom Mix.

Victoria and Tom were married in 1918 and made more than thirty short Western together. In 1922, the couple welcomed their daughter Thomasina to the world. Shortly after her birth, Victoria retired from acting to stay home with the child. By August 1928, the Mix’s marriage was all but over. Tom made the announcement during an interview with a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance. According to the cowboy star, Victoria had moved to Paris with their daughter and was seeking a divorce.

“It seems Victoria Forde wasn’t such a great actress when she and Tom Mix married,” an article about the pair in the Los Angeles Times read. “Nor was Tom the ace of Westerns then, as he is now, with several millions to his credit. He was making a fair living when he met Victoria and she was an ambitious girl who had lofty ideas for her future. One of those was to be able to have her face operated on by a good plastic surgeon. A horseback accident had marred her features. And one of the first things her husband had done for her was a facial operation in which the marks of the horse’s hoof were eradicated.”

The article indicated that Tom’s drinking was one of the reasons for the marriage ending. He had a problem with alcohol that Victoria couldn’t handle. The couple divorced in 1931.

Victoria never returned to the screen. She died on July 24, 1964, at the age of sixty-eight.

There weren’t many women in the late 1800s who had the opportunity to accompany their husbands on adventures that were so exciting they seemed fictitious. Such was the case for the women married to the officers in General George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. There were seven officers’ wives. They were all good friends who traveled from post to post with one another along with their spouses. Of the seven widows, Elizabeth Custer was the most well-known. As the wife of the commanding officer, Libbie felt it was her duty to be present when the officer’s wives at Fort Lincoln were told their husbands had been killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

The women were overwhelmed with letters of condolence. Most people were sincere in their expressions of sorrow over the widows’ loss. Others were ghoulish souvenir hunters requesting articles of their husbands’ clothing and personal weapons as keepsakes. The press was preoccupied with how the wives of the deceased officers were handling their grief. During the first year after the tragic event, reporters sought them out to learn how they were coping, what plans they had for the future, and what, if anything, they knew about the battle itself. The widows were able to soldier through the scrutiny because they had one another. They confided in each other, cried without apologizing, and discussed their desperate financial situations.

The friendship the bereaved widows had with one another proved to be a critical source of support. The transition from being officers’ wives living at various forts on the wild frontier to being single women with homes of their own was a difficult adjustment. Without one another to depend upon, the time might have been more of a struggle. The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn tells the stories of these women and the unique bond they shared through never-before-seen materials from the Elizabeth Custer Library and Museum at Garryowen, Montana, including letters to and from politicians and military leaders to the widows, fellow soldiers and critics of George Custer to the widows, and letters between the widows themselves about when the women first met, the men they married, and their attempts to persevere after the tragedy.

Preorder The Widowed Ones:  Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn now. Email proof of purchase to gvcenss@aol.com to be entered into the Kindle Giveaway on June 1, 2022.

Reel cowgirl Ruth Roland portrayed Pearl Marvin in a dozen silent films in The Perils of Pauline series between 1915 and 1917. Fans were on the edge of their seats watching the spunky actress ride her way in and out of trouble while solving crimes.  They waited in suspended animation for the film operator to change reels so they could learn the fate of the lead character. In the stuffy darkness of the theater the piano player tried, unsuccessfully, to quiet the audience’s nerves with a tasteful rendition of “Hearts and Flowers” to a gum-chewing accompaniment. Yet the suspense was a terrific ordeal, and the projector flickered out just as Ruth, all lost save honor, lay roped to a filthy pallet, with a leering bad guy rubbing his hands in the doorway. All wondered if the heroine would make it out alive!  Audiences loved Ruth.

Ruth Roland, who took Pearl White’s place in the hearts of the hair-breadth escape fans when Pearl deserted Hollywood for Europe just before World War I, remained for a heart-throbbing period the star of the serial “flickers.”  Whether in chaps or elegant gown, Ruth was always just slipping by the flick of an eyelid from the most appalling situation in her pictures; and with an astute comprehension of interest “build-up” her director always left her, at the conclusion of each performance, tied to a railroad track with the express thundering around the bed, or shackled in a sinister basement while the water crept upward from knees to waist, or leaping on horseback from the edge of a cliff to escape “a fate worse then death.”

Born in San Francisco on August 26, 1892, the daughter of John R. Roland, a newspaperman who had worked on the New York Sun and San Francisco Chronicle, Ruth began her stage career at the age of three, when she went on tour with Edward Holden’s “Cinderella” company.  Ruth’s screen career began in 1910. “I reached Los Angeles on April Fool’s Day,” she once related, “and stepped out at once and got a job. I fixed up a stage sketch with my horse and we were booked to perform in Los Angeles and dozens of nearby towns.”  Shortly thereafter, she was signed with the Kalem Film Company earning $115 a week. Her first picture was The Last Shot, one of the earliest westerns made. In ten years, she made a hefty sum making movies and she invested her earnings in real estate.

In the late 20’s Ruth retired from the screen to devote her entire time to her extensive real estate holdings, consisting principally of business lots in the Wilshire-Fairfax district in Los Angeles. At one time she reputedly had property worth three and a half million dollars.

Ruth did her own stunts in all her pictures until she was thrown from a horse. The accident caused injury to her spine which gave her much pain in later years. She was diagnosed with cancer in early 1937. The illness took her life on September 22 of the same year.

Ruth Roland was thirty-nine years old when she died.

Last chance to enter to win a copy of

Happy Trails: 

A Pictorial Celebration of the Life and Times of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

The first three people to enter to win today will win a copy of the book!