Civil War widow dies
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Unusual “marriage”, and potentially “fradulent” since the intention of the “marriage” was solely for the young woman to inherit the old man‘s pension.
But they went into it with good (though not necessarily legal) intentions, and in the end she did not try to claim the old man’s pension after his death, so no real harm done. If nothing else, I respect their good intentions.
I feel sad that the woman felt she had to keep her story hidden for most of her life. Glad she embraced it and got something good out of it in her last few years.
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This one's a bit extreme as the guy was 93, but the recognized late war widows had similar stories, except it would be a girl of 17 and a guy of 75, and most of those girls probably 'earned' their pensions. I think the last civil war pension stopped being paid during the lifetime of (old) TNCR. Or maybe a few years earlier.
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This one's a bit extreme as the guy was 93, but the recognized late war widows had similar stories, except it would be a girl of 17 and a guy of 75, and most of those girls probably 'earned' their pensions. I think the last civil war pension stopped being paid during the lifetime of (old) TNCR. Or maybe a few years earlier.
The last person to receive a Civil War pension was Irene Triplett, a daughter of a Civil War veteran, who died on May 31, 2020.
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The last one's story:
Her mother died when she was 11. At 18, she met a cabdriver, Howard Farrow, and they had a son before Mr. Farrow died in a car accident in 1926.
Alberta Stewart, her father and her son moved to Opp, Ala. Just up the road lived William Jasper Martin, a widower born in 1845 who had a $50-a-month Confederate veteran's pension.
Mr. Martin, then 81, struck up a few conversations with his young neighbor, Alberta Stewart, and a marriage of convenience was born.
''I had this little boy and I needed some help to raise him,'' Ms. Martin recalled in a 1998 interview.
They were married on Dec. 10, 1927, and 10 months later had a son, William.
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Last Union one had the same gap, 81-18.
Gertrude Janeway, the last recognized widow of a Union veteran from the Civil War, died here on Friday in the three-room log cabin where she lived most of her life. She was 93.
She had lived for more than six decades after the death of the man she called the love of her life, John Janeway, who married her when he was 81 and she was barely 18.
She was buried today near her husband's slender military tombstone at the tiny New Corinth Church cemetery.
An honorary member of the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Mrs. Janeway was the last recognized Union widow. She received a $70 check each month from the Veterans Administration.
Mrs. Janeway, who lived her whole life in Blaine, about 30 miles north of Knoxville, was born 44 years after the Civil War ended.
Her husband was a 19-year-old Grainger County farm boy who ran away to enlist in 1864 after being encouraged by a group of Union horse soldiers he met on his way to a Blount County gristmill.
He sent his horse home and signed up under the surname January because ''he was afraid his people would come and claim him,'' Mrs. Janeway said.
Two months later, he was captured by Confederate soldiers near Athens, Ga. He was later released and rejoined his unit, the 14th Illinois Cavalry.
After the war, he spent many years in California before returning home to Tennessee and meeting Gertrude, then 16. When her mother refused to sign papers allowing her to marry before 18, he waited for three years.
He bought her the cabin in 1932, and it was there that he died in 1937, at 91, from pneumonia.
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Last Union one had the same gap, 81-18.
Gertrude Janeway, the last recognized widow of a Union veteran from the Civil War, died here on Friday in the three-room log cabin where she lived most of her life. She was 93.
She had lived for more than six decades after the death of the man she called the love of her life, John Janeway, who married her when he was 81 and she was barely 18.
She was buried today near her husband's slender military tombstone at the tiny New Corinth Church cemetery.
An honorary member of the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Mrs. Janeway was the last recognized Union widow. She received a $70 check each month from the Veterans Administration.
Mrs. Janeway, who lived her whole life in Blaine, about 30 miles north of Knoxville, was born 44 years after the Civil War ended.
Her husband was a 19-year-old Grainger County farm boy who ran away to enlist in 1864 after being encouraged by a group of Union horse soldiers he met on his way to a Blount County gristmill.
He sent his horse home and signed up under the surname January because ''he was afraid his people would come and claim him,'' Mrs. Janeway said.
Two months later, he was captured by Confederate soldiers near Athens, Ga. He was later released and rejoined his unit, the 14th Illinois Cavalry.
After the war, he spent many years in California before returning home to Tennessee and meeting Gertrude, then 16. When her mother refused to sign papers allowing her to marry before 18, he waited for three years.
He bought her the cabin in 1932, and it was there that he died in 1937, at 91, from pneumonia.
