The last-surviving U.S. Civil War widow died last month, at age 101, 84 years after her marriage to a Civil War veteran.
Helen Viola Jackson was 17 years old when she married 93-year-old James Bolin, who had been a private in the 14th Missouri Cavalry, on the Union side.
Jackson had been taking care of Bolin, and as a reward he offered to marry her so she would be entitled to his pension. They married in 1936 but kept it a secret and never lived together. He died in 1939. She never filed to receive his pension benefits, she never remarried, and she kept the marriage secret until 2017.
On the Confederate site,
Maudie Hopkins was the last widow. When she was 19, she married 86-year-old William M. Cantrell, who had served in the Battalion of Virginia Infantry. She died at age 93 in 2008.