Submitted Photo Anita Donofrio wears a 7th Cavalry parade helmet. The helmet sports a dyed goldenyellow horse’s tail. Cavalry colors were navy blue and yellow.

Anita Donofrio, a recent resident of Ripley is a history buff specializing in George Custer and the battle of the Little Bighorn. She has been invited to speak this summer at the National Custer Battlefield Historical Museum Association Symposium in Hardin, Mont.

“In 1976 the Buffalo Evening News had a program about Custer’s Last Stand. I was fascinated and wanted to know more.”

Donofrio has been a member of association since 1990. She was introduced to the organization through a teacher friend and it piqued her interest.

“My father and I took our first trip to Hardin in 1995 to participate in the association symposium and field trip and visit the battlefield of Custer’s Last Stand. I’ve been (to the symposium) at least 20 times since then and made friends of authors and historians. I began my own research into the lives of the 7th Cavalry. I started collecting hundreds of books about the battle, Custer and the officers who fell with him. That led me to a deep interest in the widows and families and their stories.”

In 2019 Donofrio submitted a paper to the symposium regarding her research on Lt. Algernon Smith and his wife, Nettie, and Nettie’s experiences as a widow.

“The organization usually asks for a submission, and if you think you have a good paper, you send them a blurb about the topic. I was accepted to speak. I was very nervous!”

“The first talk went so well I was invited to speak again this year by the Symposium Coordinator, Dale Ramsey. My topic is about Grace Berard Harrington, widow of Lt. Henry Moore Harrington. Grace could never accept her husband’s death. She disappeared for three years, supposedly in search of Henry. There were Indians who remembered seeing a woman dressed in black wandering the battlefield where Custer and his men were killed. She eventually remembered snippets of those lost three years, wandering about. I find her fascinating!”

Last summer she attended the Little Big Horn Associates in Culpepper, Va., with friends Dale Kosman, Siobhan Fallon — her research partner, and Joe Creadon.

“The focus was on George Armstrong Custer’s illustrious career as the youngest general in the Civil War, 23 years old, in command of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade at Gettysburg. Culpepper is a horse town and it’s where Christopher Reeve, Superman, had his terrible accident while playing polo and was paralyzed. We took a side trip to Arlington National Cemetery to find the graves of our beloved 7th Cavalry.”

She is a frequent participant at the Ripley Public Library and is an active member of the Ripley Library Writers Group.