Civil War Widow Died Yesterday

Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune had an obituary for a woman named Maudie White Hopkins.  She died at the age of 93.

Incredibly, her first husband was a Confederate soldier in the American Civil War!

The Civil War ended in 1866, and now it is 142 years later.

How does the math work out?

Well, it turns out that her first husband enlisted in the war at the age of 16, was captured the same year, and spent the war in a prison camp in Ohio.

Then, she married him much later - in 1934, when he was 86, and she was 19!

It was a caretaker relationship.  He wanted her to marry him and take care of him and, in return, he would leave her his house and land.

She described him as a "good, clean, respectable man".  He supported her on his Confederate pension, and left her his home when he died in 1937.  The pension ended at his death.

That is how a Civil War widow dies in 2008.