Elizabeth Bacon Custer was the wife of the infamous General Custer, the cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars.
While they play complete strangers in the film, Victor Raffo and Ruth Raffo were father and daughter in real-life.
Victor Raffo was in fact a pottery student and does his own work in the film. He was the first student to be admitted at Greenwich House Pottery and later on became a teacher there.