Last Civil War Veteran s Widow Dies Aged 101 Published January 6th, 2021 - 12:39 GMT
Helen Viola Jackson died on December 16, at the age of 101. (Facebook)
Highlights
Helen Viola Jackson died on December 16 at her Missouri nursing home aged 101.
The last known widow of a Civil War soldier has died at the age of 101, ending a remarkable life story that she had kept to herself for over 80 years.
When Maudie Hopkins of Arkansas died in 2008, it was believed that there were no known Civil War widows left in the nation.
Then, in December 2017, Helen Viola Jackson of Marshfield, Missouri, decided to tell her own astonishing tale.
Helen Viola Jackson died on December 16 at her Missouri nursing home aged 101
She had married Civil War veteran James Bolin in 1936, when he was 93
Bolin asked her to marry him because he wanted her to have his Union pension
Bolin died three years later, but Jackson never claimed his pension
Bolin s daughter threatened to ruin Jackson s reputation if she took the money
Jackson said that Bolin was a kindly man who wanted to help her financially
Jackson never remarried or had children, and devoted herself to her community
By Zack Budryk - 01/05/21 09:56 PM EST
A woman believed to be the last living widow of a Civil War veteran has died at 101.
Helen Viola Jackson died Dec. 16 at Marshfield, Mo.’s Webco Manor Nursing Home, the Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival said in a statement.
Jackson recently told a minister she had married James Bolin, a 93-year-old widower who served in the 14
th Missouri Cavalry, when she was 17, according to the statement. The Daughters of the Union Veterans were able to corroborate her account based on historical documents.
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Bolin, who “did not believe in accepting charity,” asked Jackson to marry him so that he could leave her his pension amid the Great Depression, she told a historian in 2018. The two were married Sept. 4, 1936. He died less than three years later.