The enduring realization that when a great challenge comes, the most ordinary people can show that they value something more than they value their own lives. When the last of the veterans had gone, and the sorrows and bitterness which the war created had at last worn away, this memory remained.
Bruce Catton
Helen Jackson was 17 when she wed 93 old Union veteran James Bolin:
At the time, Jackson had been providing daily care for Bolin, a widower who served as a private in the 14th Missouri Cavalry through the Civil War.
Because the war veteran “did not believe in accepting charity,” he asked Jackson “for her hand in marriage as a way to provide for her future,” according to the statement.
“I never wanted to share my story with the public,” Jackson reportedly said during an oral history recording in 2018. “I didn’t feel that it was that important and I didn’t want a bunch of gossip about it.”
Go here to read the rest. When James Bolin was serving in the Civil War there were a handful of veterans of the American Revolution still alive, North and South. We are still in many ways a very young country.
The math is just unfathomable…
What a strange story.
He marries her because he wants her to have his Union pension. She never lives with him or uses his name.
When he dies, she doesn’t apply for the pension because one of his daughters threatens her.
She never marries or has any children.