Journal Notes

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The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Elizabeth Custer and Annie Yates sat on the front porch of the Yates home watching Annie’s children playing in the yard.  A stack of papers rested in the laps of both women, and, when they weren’t distracted by the unremarkable daily tasks of their new lives without their husbands, they sifted through the letters and government paperwork that had steadily arrived since late July 1876.

The summer of 1876 had passed slowly.  The men who died at the Little Bighorn were sorely missed.  Elizabeth had taken to sleeping with one of Custer’s shirts.  It smelled like him, and, at night when she longed to have him near, it helped ease her pain.  Annie spent evenings after the children were in bed writing letters to her deceased husband.  She knew he was gone, but she had an overwhelming need to communicate with him about their little ones and the difficulty she was having moving on.  Elizabeth and Annie had found unique ways to deal with their grief and by mid-fall were venturing out into public, if only to visit one another.  Maggie Calhoun, on the other hand, still struggled, refusing to leave her parents’ home to even attend church. “Now that Bubbie is gone,” Maggie shared with Elizabeth about James Calhoun’s death, “…I do not feel that mentally I am fitted to fill any position of usefulness to others.”

Nettie Smith’s correspondence to Elizabeth revealed her struggle to move forward from the tragedy as well.  “Last night I found a diary kept by Smithie on the Yellowstone Expedition [1873] in which so often he writes of his ‘little wife’.  In one place he says, ‘These are hard marches, but it is consoling to know that we are marching toward my little wife Dudds.  God bless her!  Only about a month separates us.’  Oh, if that last part could only be true now.  I realize the terrible truth more and more every day.  Where shall we find the strength to endure?”

Some of the other officers’ widows weren’t faring any better.  In early October, Elizabeth had received a letter from Eliza Porter.  Mrs. Porter had returned to Maine where she and her husband James had met and married.  She wanted her two sons to be near her family in Franklin County.  The Porter’s first child, David, had been born in 1871 in Massachusetts, and their second boy, James, had been born in March 1876 at Fort Abraham Lincoln.  Elizabeth had been with her at the birth.

To learn more about the Elizabeth Custer and the other widows read

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

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The Widowed Ones:  Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Thirty-four-year-old Elizabeth Bacon Custer filed into the Methodist church in Monroe, Michigan, on August 13, 1876, with hundreds of others attending the memorial service of her husband of twelve years, General George A. Custer, and five of his officers killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  She was adorned in a black bombazine (silk) dress with black fringe and a black bonnet with a black crepe veil.  The mourning outfit would be her standard wardrobe for years to come.  She walked mechanically, but purposefully, down the center aisle, her eyes focused on a reserved seat in the front pew.  Friends and acquaintances smiled piteously at her as she passed; some refrained from looking at her at all.  Those who knew of her and her well-known husband by reputation only stood on tiptoe and craned their necks to watch her every move.

The heat that afternoon was sweltering.  Members of the Baptist and Presbyterian churches had joined the Methodists to pay tribute to the slain soldiers who were raised in the town located on the western shores of Lake Erie.  The combination of congregants along with the other funeral goers made the atmosphere in the house of worship oppressive.  Halftones from the bright sun diffused through the stained-glass windows cast a colorful light on the portrait of General Custer sitting on the organ next to a magnificent podium in the very front where the pastor delivered his weekly sermons.  Custer’s picture was surrounded with an evergreen wreath, and two sabers crossed underneath the picture.  The names of Captain Yates and Henry Armstrong Reed were scrawled across ribbons encompassing another display in evergreen.

To learn more about the Elizabeth Custer and the other widows read

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn. 

As Variety film critic Cecelia Ager once wrote: “There ought to be a statue erected, or a Congressional Medal awarded, or a national holiday proclaimed, to honor that great woman, Margaret Dumont, the dame who takes the raps from the Marx Brothers. For she is of the stuff of which our pioneer women were made, combining in her highly indignant Duse, stalwart oak, and Chief Fall Guy—a lady of epic ability to take it, a lady whose mighty love for Groucho is a saga of devotion, a lady who asks but little gets it.” Thankfully, there is now STRAIGHT LADY by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian to properly celebrate the underrated Margaret Dumont. Chris has such a gift for telling fascinating tales about fascinating women, but this is my favorite. Delightful surprises in store for the fortunate reader. Marx Brothers’ and MGM fans are going to love this book!

Michael Troyan, MGM; HOLLYWOOD’S GREATEST BACKLOT

This reviewer owns countless books on Custer and the battle at the Little Big Horn. Some are well researched. Some are well written. Few enjoy both qualities. “The Widowed Ones” scores ten in both respects.

It also presents an entirely new angle to the oft done subject matter. In other words, this is the best Custer book ever for the casual reader and the jaded western researcher.  Bravo! Chris Enss. She, in collaboration with Howard Kazanjian and Chris Kortlander, gives a stunning and emotionally charged view of the women that were left behind after the historic loss of George Custer’s command in 1876.

The book weaves its way through the devastation wrought upon Libby Custer and the widowed wives of the men that wore the blue of the 7th Cavalry.  Enss and Kazanjian do a terrific job detailing the women’s handling of loss; not only their husband’s demise, but also the pain of official criticism aimed to besmirch their loved ones, and their grappling with getting on with their lives without any apparent means.  The path Libby et. al. took is detailed in “The Widowed Ones”, an insightful glimpse of how the survivors cope, or don’t.  Each reader can measure their grit and resolute devotion to their fallen husbands.  It is a marvelous story.  Enss and company have filled in a neglected hole in one of the West’s greatest historical events.  If you are restricted to one last book purchase, this is the one.

Columnist, Scott Dyke  Green Valley News  Green Valley, Arizona

The Battle of Little Bighorn or the Battle of Greasy Grass, the climax of the Great Sioux War of 1876, is remembered for the resounding, bloody defeat of U.S. forces (led by Lt. General George Armstrong Custer) by Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors. Enss and co-author Howard Kazanjian (who together wrote None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead: The Story Of Elizabeth Bacon Custer), and their collaborator Chris Kortlander (founder of Montana’s Custer Battlefield Museum) examine this well-studied battle (part of the U.S. theft of Plains Indian lands in the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota) through the lens of Gen. Custer’s widow Elizabeth Custer and six other widows of Custer’s U.S. 7th Cavalry officers, focusing on how the widows processed their grief and attempted to rebuild their lives.

Drawing on never-before-seen archival material from the Elizabeth Custer Library and Museum in Garryowen, MT, (particularly correspondence among the seven widows, and between the widows and U.S. politicians, military leaders, and soldiers), Enss and Kazanjian recount how it fell to Elizabeth Custer to break the news of the massacre to the officers’ wives. In the years following, she kept in contact with many of them while answering reams of correspondence and defending her husband’s honor and conduct during the battle. Enss and Kazanjian write that some of the widows struggled with debilitating grief and were unable to process their husband’s fates, while others set out to secure government jobs to supplement meager U.S. army pensions.

VERDICT: Readers interested in 19th-century, women’s and military history will be drawn into this thoroughly humane and sympathetic treatment of U.S. army widows.

“Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian’s inspiring book, The Widowed Ones is a compelling history text focused on women’s experiences following the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  Clarion Rating: 5 out of 5”

Foreword Clarion Review

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The Widowed Ones:  Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Seventh Cavalry officers’ wives who lost their spouses at the Battle of the Little Bighorn survived the ordeal because of the friendship they had with one another.  No one else could understand their grief or help them get past the tremendous hurt.  The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian tells the stories of these women and the unique bond they shared.

Using never-before-seen materials from the Elizabeth Custer Library and Museum in Garryowen, Montana, including letters to and from politicians and military leaders to the widows, fellow soldiers, and critics of General George Armstrong Custer to the widows, and letters between the widows themselves about when the women first met, the men they married, and their attempts to preserver after the tragedy, Enss and Kazanjian share the tale of these stalwart women.

During the first year after the tragic event, the press sought the widows out to learn how they were coping, what plans they had for 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 Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian will be released in June 2022.  The title will be available wherever books are sold and through the National Book Network.

Early Reviews

“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 Timesbestselling authors ofDissolution and The Ice Orphan  

 “The rigor of the scholarly research on display here is quite simply astonishing, as the authors seem to leave no stone unturned.  This is a perspicacious study that not only captures these particular women’s plights, but also an age in which independence for women came with extensive difficulties.”

Kirkus Review

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THE WIDOWED ONES:  BEYOND THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN

CHRIS ENSS and Howard Kazanjian with Chris Kortlander

“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.” — W. MICHAEL GEAR AND KATHLEEN O’NEAL GEAR, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHORS OF DISSOLUTION AND THE ICE ORPHAN

Seventh Cavalry officers’ wives who lost their spouses at the Battle of the Little Bighorn survived the ordeal because of the friendship they had with one another. No one else could understand their grief or help them get past the tremendous hurt. The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn tells the stories of these women and the unique bond they shared.

Irish Central ran a story about the book Iron Women and my Irish heritage.

I was honored to be included in the publication.

Click on the link below to read the complete article.

The untold story of the women who helped build the US railroads

“Iron Women: The Ladies Who Helped Build The Railroad” by Chris Enss celebrates the women who influenced the first transcontinental railroad in the 1860s.

IrishCentral Staff

@IrishCentral

https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/new-book-women-helped-build-railroad

Enter now to win a copy of Iron Women:  The Ladies Who Helped Build the Railroad

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Iron Women:  The Ladies Who Helped Build the Railroad

While attending college in Pennsylvania, Mary Lawser was part of a group comprised of several accomplished female artists.  They were known as the Philadelphia Ten.

Among the members was a talented painter and sculptor named Mary Louise Lawser.  Like Mary Colter, Mary Lawser was hired by a major rail line company to help promote westward travel.

Born in 1906 in Pennsylvania, she exhibited at a young age.  She attended the Pennsylvania Museum School, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.  Mary’s work was exhibited in galleries in Europe and New York.  She was recognized by her peers as a gifted, bronze work artist.  After graduation she took a position as an art instructor at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and at Bryn Mawr.

In early 1940, she was hired to work for notable architect Paul Cret.  The French-born, Philadelphia architect and industrial designer was impressed with Mary’s design and execution of bronze tablets found inside Alexander Hamilton’s home, The Grange.  Commissioned by the American and Historic Preservation Society, the tablets were made to honor Alexander Hamilton, first secretary of the United States treasury.  In addition to designing buildings on the University of Texas campus and the Pan American Union Building in Washington, D.C., Paul Cret designed railroad cars for the Burlington and Santa Fe rail lines.  While Mary was employed by Cret, she contributed to decorating various railroad passenger cars with sculptures, wood carving, and mixed metal creations.

When Cret passed away in 1945, Mary was hired by another respected Pennsylvania architect, John Harbeson, to aid him in creating a new look for Burlington’s Pioneer Zephyr.  Although in the employ of Harbeson, Mary was singled out by the Budd Company, a railroad industry manufacturer, to design murals for the interior of the passenger cars that would inspire ticket-buyers to go west.

In 1948, Mary began work on a mural for the California Zephyr’s Silver Lariat.  The train was built as a dome coach, a series of cars that have glass domes on the top where passengers can ride and see in all directions around the train.  Mary painted a mural of the Pony Express in the large dining and lounge car.

Over the course of her five-year business relationship with the Budd Company, she created murals for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Denver and Rio Grande Western, and the Western Pacific Railroad.  Mary’s murals generally adorned the end walls of the dome coaches and they always depicted Western historical themes.  She also sculpted the appliques of apples and grapes which hung at each end of the dining cars as well as the lyre-based radio speakers.

Mary Lawser died in 1985 at the age of seventy-nine.

To learn more about Mary Lawser and the other ladies who helped build the railroad read

Iron Women