Many Loves of Buffalo Bill (19 page)

The days leading to William's funeral were a haze for his family and close friends. Before being buried at Lookout Mountain in Denver, his body lay in state at the capitol building. Throngs of sorrowful fans passed by to view Buffalo Bill and pay respects to their idol. Louisa and Julia disagreed about where William's remains were to rest. Julia insisted that he had picked Cedar Mountain in Cody as his favored spot to be buried, and his will confirmed that wish. Louisa said that William had changed his mind and asked her to bury him in Colorado. “It's pretty up there,” Louisa wrote he told her on his deathbed. “I want to be buried up there instead of Wyoming.”
²⁰

The road to the site in Colorado was snow-covered, and it was six months before William's grave could be dug. Thousands of mourners followed the flag-draped casket up to the mountain grave the day of his funeral. Among the tearful grievers were six unidentified women, rumored to have been romantically involved with Buffalo Bill.
²¹

William made provisions in his will for Julia, May, and their families (Helen had preceded him in death) and for Irma and her family, but the bulk of his estate, valued at more than $65,000, went to Louisa.

Louisa returned to Wyoming with Irma, Fred, and their three children after the memorial service. Irma and her husband managed the hotel William had built in Cody and also helped to care for his other properties there. In October 1918 the couple both came down with the flu and died within four days of each other. Irma was thirty-four years old. Heartbroken, Louisa assumed the responsibility of raising her grandchildren. She lamented the loss of her family in her autobiography, published in 1919. “I face the sunset,” she observed. “My children are gone…. I am alone, my life lived, my hands folded… . It will not be long now until I see the fading of the sunset in my own little world, until the time shall come when I am with the children I loved, and the man I loved—on the trail beyond.”
²²

Mrs. William Cody passed away on October 20, 1921, from heart disease. Louisa wanted to be buried with Buffalo Bill, but William's sister told the
Denver Post
that the request “could not be realized.”

“It would be necessary to blast the grave out of solid rock,” May Decker shared with reporters. “This could not be done without great damage to Colonel Cody's burial place.” Louisa's attorney helped make it possible for her to be buried in the grave with William without harming the site. On November 1, 1921, her body was placed above the concrete layer that covered William's coffin.
²³

William was seventy years old when he died. Louisa was seventy-eight. Their turbulent marriage lasted more than fifty years.

1
. Joy Kasson,
Buffalo Bill's Wild West
(New York: Hill & Wang, 2000), 36.

2
. William F. Cody,
The Adventures of Buffalo Bill
(New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1904), 139.

3
. Nellie Snyder Yost,
Buffalo Bill: His Family, Friends, Fame, Failures, and Fortunes
(Chicago: Sage Books, 1979), 99.

4
.
Cody v. Cody
deposition, District County of Sheridan County, Wyoming, February–April 1904, 11.

5
. Julia Cody Goodman and Elizabeth Leonard,
Buffalo Bill: King of the Old West
(New York: Library Publishers, 1955), 142.

6
. Larry McMurtry,
The Colonel and Little Missie
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 110–111;
New York Times
, October 30, 1898; Yost,
Buffalo Bill
, 99.

7
. Don Russell,
The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill Cody
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979), 258.

8
. William F. Cody,
An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill
(New York: Cosmopolitan Book, 1920), 5–6.

9
. Ibid., 15.

10
. Ibid., 118.

11
. Yost,
Buffalo Bill
, 71.

12
. Ibid.

1
. William F. Cody,
The Adventures of Buffalo Bill
(New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1904), 120; Helen Cody Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
(Chicago: Duluth Press, 1899), 58–59.

2
. Julia Cody Goodman and Elizabeth Leonard,
Buffalo Bill: King of the Old West
(New York: Library Publishers, 1955), 75; Cody,
The Adventures of Buffalo Bill
, 122.

3
. Helen Cody Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
(Chicago: Duluth Press Publishing, 1899), xiii.

4
. Goodman and Leonard,
Buffalo Bill
, 38.

5
. Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
, 3.

6
. Cody,
The Adventures of Buffalo Bill
, 101.

7
. William F. Cody,
An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill
(New York: Cosmopolitan Book, 1920), 6; Goodman and Leonard,
Buffalo Bill
, 73.

8
. Adolph Regli,
The Real Book about Buffalo Bill
(New York: Garden City Books, 1952), 30; Goodman and Leonard,
Buffalo Bill
, 307.

9
. Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
, 11.

10
. Cody,
An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill
, 15.

11
. Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
, 40–43.

12
. Cody,
An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill
, 29.

13
. Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
, 47.

14
. Ibid., 101.

15
. Don Russell,
The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill
(Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1979), 17.

16
. Buffalo Bill Historical Center McCracken Research Library, MS6, 1B, Box 1, Folder 5.

17
. Ibid.

18
. “Buffalo Bill Cody,” Wikipedia,
www.wikipedia.com
.

19
. Nellie Snyder Yost,
Buffalo Bill: His Family, Friends, Fame, Failures, and Fortunes
(Chicago: Sage Books, 1979), 226.

20
. Ibid., 43.

21
. Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
, 175.

22
. Ibid., 123.

23
. Goodman and Leonard,
Buffalo Bill
, 138.

24
. Ibid., 139; Louisa Cody and Courtney Ryley Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
(New York: D. Appleton, 1919), 36.

25
. Goodman and Leonard,
Buffalo Bill
, 138–139.

26
. Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
, 132.

1
. Joy Kasson,
Buffalo Bill's Wild West
(New York: Hill & Wang, 2000), 18–19.

2
. Helen Cody Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
(Chicago: Duluth Press Publishing, 1899), 122.

3
. William F. Cody,
An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill
(New York: Cosmopolitan Book, 1920), 90–91.

4
. “Louisa Frederici,” Arnold Historical Society,
www.arnoldhistorical.org
, 2–4.

5
. Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
, 122.

6
. Nellie Snyder Yost,
Buffalo Bill: His Family, Friends, Fame, Failures, and Fortunes
(Chicago: Sage Books, 1979), 10–11; Louisa Cody and Courtney Ryley Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
(New York: D. Appleton, 1919), 34.

7
. Cody and Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
, 5.

8
. Ibid., 9–11; Adolph Regli,
The Real Book about Buffalo Bill
(New York: Garden City Books, 1952), 124–125.

9
. Julia Cody Goodman and Elizabeth Leonard,
Buffalo Bill: King of the Old West
(New York: Library Publishers, 1955), 137.

10
. Cody,
An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill
, 94.

11
. Ibid., 95.

12
. Ibid., 91–100; Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
, 134.

13
. Cody and Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
, 42–44.

14
. Regli,
The Real Book about Buffalo Bill
, 125–126.

15
. Cody,
An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill
, 99–101.

16
. Ibid., 104.

17
. Ibid., 105.

18
. Cody and Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
, 67–68.

1
. Nellie Snyder Yost,
Buffalo Bill: His Family, Friends, Fame, Failures, and Fortunes
(Chicago: Sage Books, 1979), 18.

2
. Louisa Cody and Courtney Ryley Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
(New York: D. Appleton, 1919), 155–157.

3
. William F. Cody,
An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill
(New York: Cosmopolitan Book, 1920), 137–140; Adolph Regli,
The Real Book about Buffalo Bill
(New York: Garden City Books, 1952), 141; Yost,
Buffalo Bill
, 4.

4
. Julia Cody Goodman and Elizabeth Leonard,
Buffalo Bill: King of the Old West
(New York: Library Publishers, 1955), 188; William Cody,
The Adventures of Buffalo Bill
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1904), 135.

5
. Regli,
The Real Book about Buffalo Bill
, 160.

6
. Yost,
Buffalo Bill
, 40.

7
. Cody and Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
, 196–205.

8
. Ibid., 160–164.

9
. Goodman and Leonard,
Buffalo Bill
, 195–196; Yost,
Buffalo Bill
, 25; William F. Cody,
Buffalo Bill's Life Story
(New York: Cosmopolitan Book, 1920), 159.

10
. Jay Monaghan,
The Great Rascal: The Life and Adventures of Ned Buntline
(New York: Bantam Book, 1953), 4.

11
. Yost,
Buffalo Bill
, 45.

12
. Cody and Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
, 207.

13
. Henry E. Davies and Paul A. Hutton,
Ten Days on the Plains
(Dallas: Southern Methodist University, 1985), 25–26.

14
. Cody and Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
, 218.

15
. Don Russell,
The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill Cody
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979), 182.

16
. Cody and Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
, 221.

17
. Ibid., 232.

18
. Ibid., 231.

1
. Helen Cody Wetmore,
Last of the Great Scouts
(Chicago: Duluth Press Publishing, 1899), 211.

2
. Ibid., 211.

3
. Buffalo Bill Historical Center McCraken Research Library, MS6, IB, Box 1, Folder 5.

4
. Louisa Cody and Courtney Ryley Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
(New York: D. Appleton, 1919), 261–264.

5
. Julia Cody Goodman and Elizabeth Leonard,
Buffalo Bill: King of the Old West
(New York: Library Publishers, 1955), 226.

6
.
Cody v. Cody
deposition, District County of Sheridan County, Wyoming, February–April 1904, 29.

7
. William F. Cody,
The Story of the Wild West: Buffalo Bill's Autobiography with Campfire Chats
(Waynesboro, TN: Historical Publication, 1888), 614.

8
. Buffalo Bill Historical Center McCraken Research Library, MS6, IB, Box 1, Folder 5.

9
. Cody,
The Story of the Wild West: Buffalo Bill's Autobiography with Campfire Chats
, 652; Cody and Cooper,
Memories of Buffalo Bill
, 251–252.