Woman believed to be last Civil War widow dies at 101
Updated Jan 08, 2021;
Posted Jan 08, 2021
Helen Viola Jackson is shown this April 2017 photo. Jackson was believed to be the last surviving widow of a Civil War soldier when she died Dec. 16, 2020 in Marshfield, Mo. She was 101. In 1936, she was 17 when she married 93-year-old former Union soldier James Bolin.Photo courtesy Nicholas Inman via AP
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O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) Helen Viola Jackson’s 1936 marriage to James Bolin was unusual to say the least: He was 93 and in declining health, and she was a 17-year-old schoolgirl.
Bolin was also a Civil War veteran who fought for the Union in the border state of Missouri. Jackson was almost certainly the last remaining widow of a Civil War soldier when she died Dec. 16 at a nursing home in Marshfield, Missouri. She was 101.
KOAM
Married the 93-year-old soldier in 1936
January 8, 2021 8:38 AM Kaden Milner
MARSHFIELD, Mo. – The last surviving widow of a Civil War soldier has died.
Helen Viola Jackson of Marshfield, Missouri was just 17- years-old when she married 93- year- old James Bolin in 1936. She was a caregiver for the Civil War veteran, who served in the Union army. Jackson claimed Bolin proposed to her so he could pass on his pension to her after he died, to repay her for her services. This was during the Great Depression when many Americans were struggling.
The young bride says she and her husband’s relationship was strictly platonic and she never even moved into his house. They were only married for three years before Bolin died in 1939. Jackson kept her story and the marriage a secret until 2018, out of fear people would judge her or her late husband. She never remarried, and never tried collecting his pension.