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Elizabeth "Libbie" Bacon was born in [[Monroe, Michigan]], in 1842, the daughter of a wealthy and influential judge and state representative, [[Daniel S. Bacon|Daniel Bacon]] (b. 1798).<ref name="legis">{{cite web |URL=https://mdoe.state.mi.us/legislators/Legislator/LegislatorDetail/4531|title=Legislator Details - Daniel S. Bacon|publisher=[[Library of Michigan]] |accessdate=June 3, 2020}}</ref> Her father had profitable investments in real estate and other business ventures.<ref name="Stiles 2015 110–111">{{Cite book |last=Stiles|first=T.J.|year=2015|title=Custer's Trials|publisher=Vintage Books/Penguin Random House|location=New York |isbn=978-0-307-47594-7|pages=110–111}}</ref>
Tragedy marked much of her childhood, with her three siblings and mother all dying before CusterElizabeth's thirteenth year. As the only one of the judge's children who would live to adulthood, her father doted on her, being charged by his dying wife to "...{{nbsp}}be both a mother and father{{nbsp}}..." to the young girl. Judge Bacon, nearly ten years later, stated "I have ever felt the force of these words... I feel the responsibility beyond anything in my life before or since."<ref name="Stiles 2015 110–111"/>
CusterElizabeth Bacon was both beautiful and intelligent, graduating from a girls' seminary in June 1862 at the head of her class. Her father hoped she would make a good marriage with a man from her own elevated social status, and she rejected several suitors.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wert |first=Jeffry D. |year=1996 |title=Custer: The Controversial Life of George Armstrong Custer |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=0-684-81043-3 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/custercontrovers0000wert/page/62 62–65] |url=https://archive.org/details/custercontrovers0000wert/page/62 }}</ref>
She had briefly encountered her future husband George Armstrong Custer as a child, and socially met him again in the autumn of 1862, when he had returned to Monroe on leave from the first year of the American Civil War. GeorgeHe later wrote that he fell deeply in love with her as of their first formal meeting. She eventually returned these feelings, but her father refused to allow then-Captain Custer into the Bacon home or to permit her to meet him outside it, much less get married, as George proposed in the final week of 1862. He was from a poor, undistinguished family, and the judge hoped his daughter would have better than the life of an army wife.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wert |first=Jeffry D. |year=1996 |title=Custer: The Controversial Life of George Armstrong Custer |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=0-684-81043-3 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/custercontrovers0000wert/page/65 65–68] |url=https://archive.org/details/custercontrovers0000wert/page/65 }}</ref> After Custer, just prior to the [[Battle of Gettysburg]] (where he played a significant role), was promoted to [[Brevet (military)|Brevet]] [[Brigadier general (United States)|brigadier general]], Judge Bacon finally relented and they were married in Monroe at the First Presbyterian Church on February 9, 1864.<ref name="historynet.com">{{Cite web |url=https://www.historynet.com/libbie-custer-wounded-thing-must-hide.htm |title=Libbie Custer: ‘A Wounded Thing Must Hide’ |last=Hutton |first=Paul Andrew |date=August 16, 2017 |website=HistoryNet |access-date=April 5, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://monroefirst.org |title=First Presbyterian Church of Monroe |access-date=April 5, 2020 }}</ref>
== Married life ==
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