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The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn
George & Elizabeth Custer seated.
Persistent raindrops tapped against the windows of Elizabeth Custer’s Park Avenue apartment in New York City. The prim, eight-four-year-old woman, clad in a black, Edwardian dress, stared out at the dreary, foggy weather. She wore a pensive expression. Her graying hair was pulled back neatly into a tight bun, although a few loose tendrils had escaped and gently framed her small face. Her throat was modestly covered with lace.
The room around Elizabeth was grand in size and filled with items she had collected during her days on the Western Plains. Framed drawings of the Kansas prairie, a trunk with George’s initials across the top, photographs of friends and family at various outposts, and an assortment of books on subjects ranging from travel beyond the Mississippi to the types of wildflowers that lined the Oregon Trail were among her treasures. The sparse furnishings in the apartment were covered with newspapers and journals. A small desk was littered with hundreds of letters.
Elizabeth glanced at the clock on a nearby table and then clicked on a radio housed in the gigantic cabinet beside her. As she tuned the dial through static and tones, a bright, maroon light from the console of the radio sifted into the hollow of the dark room. At the same time, the fog outside the window lifted a bit, and the vague, misty outlines of palatial apartment buildings, museums, and churches came into view.
Elizabeth found the radio station she was looking for and leaned back in a plush chair as a voice described upcoming programming. She pulled a shawl around her shoulders and sat, patiently waiting. After a few moments, an announcer broke in with pertinent information about the broadcast to which Elizabeth planned to listen: an episode of Frontier Fighters entitled “Custer’s Last Stand.” The airdate was June 26, 1926, fifty years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
