Inside The Life And Death Of The Last Civil War Widow Rischgitz/Getty Images
By Karen Corday/Jan. 21, 2021 10:09 am EDT/Updated: Feb. 1, 2021 9:17 pm EDT
It s hard to imagine that anyone alive in the year 2020 would have an incredible, zero degrees of separation personal connection to someone who fought in the Civil War, but when Helen Viola Jackson died in December 2020, it was the end of an era. Jackson, 101 years old, was thought to be the last living widow of a Civil War veteran, as reported by
The
Washington Post.
This unlikely partnership came to be in 1936 when Jackson, just 17 years old, married James Bolin, 93. Bolin was a neighbor of Jackson and her family in the small town of Niangua, Missouri. Jackson s father volunteered his teenage daughter to stop by Bolin s home each day to provide care and help with chores. To show his appreciation for her work, Bolin offered to marry Jackson so she would receive his military pension after he died. Jackso
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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.
O’FALLON, Mo. 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-