Five years after George and Elizabeth Custer were married, George writes his wife from a location in the Wichita Mountains to share with her the trials of his command. The date was February 19, 1869. “My Darling…I have been very strict with the officers, have no favorites where duty is concerned. I have had Tom (George’s brother ) in arrest, also Y. The latter is “huffy” but I hope will soon get over it. Several officers refer to the pleasant times they have had at our house, masquerades, euchre parties and the like…. Oh, how I miss you.” In spite of the difficulties their marriage endure the couple remained devoted to one another. Rumors that George had fathered a child with another woman did not alter her attachment to him. She pressed ahead as though she never considered he could or would do such a thing. She was sure of how he felt about her and that’s all she concerned herself with. She knew he was a flirt and accepted that part of his personality. She could flirt with the best of them herself and made sure George saw the attraction other men had for her. It made him desperate to hold onto her regardless of the cost. There were no such thing as DNA testing at the time so proving any claim that he’d fathered a child with another woman was impossible in many respects to prove. I wonder how different their lives would have been had such technology been available. Not too long ago a young woman called me wanting information about my biological father. She had been told that she was his child. I could only give her information I had about his last location. I have, nor want a relationship with him. He left my brothers and I when we were quite young and never looked back. I phoned him seven years ago to ask him to help with the situation with my brother Rick. I was told then that he “had a family and we weren’t it.” And then he hung up on me. I don’t know whether the woman who contacted me ever got the answers she was looking for, but I hope she did. I think it must be an unsettling matter to not be sure of your parentage. It can be unsettling even when you do know too.
