Last known widow of Civil War veteran dead at 101

MARSHFIELD, Mo. — Helen Viola Jackson, the last known widow of a Civil War veteran, has died. She was 101.

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Jackson died Dec. 16 at the Webco Manor Nursing Home in Marshfield, Missouri, the Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival said.

In 1936, when Jackson was 17, she wed James Bolin, a 93-year-old Civil War veteran. Bolin served as a private in the 14th Missouri Cavalry during the War Between the States.

Jackson kept her connection to the Civil War a secret until about three years ago. She decided in 2017 to share her life story as she was working with a minister on details for her funeral. The Daughters of the Union Veterans confirmed her marriage.

“I never wanted to share my story with the public,” Jackson said in an oral history recording in 2018 with historian Hamilton C. Clark. “I didn’t feel that it was that important and I didn’t want a bunch of gossip about it.”

Jackson was one of 10 children in her family growing up during the Great Depression. Her father volunteered her to help Bolin with chores each day before she would go to school.

Bolin did not believe in accepting charity and after awhile asked Jackson to marry him as a way to repay her.

“He said that he would leave me his Union pension,” Jackson said. “It was during the depression and times were hard. He said that it might be my only way of leaving the farm.”

Jackson decided to marry the nonagenarian, but it was on her terms. She kept her last name. She kept living on her family’s farm and aside from a few witnesses to the nuptials, few others knew of the wedding.

“How do you explain that you have married someone with such a difference in age,” she said in 2018. “I had great respect for Mr. Bolin and I did not want him to be hurt by the scorn of wagging tongues.”

They were married until Bolin died in 1939. She never applied for his pension after one of Bolin’s daughters (her stepdaughter) said she would sully Jackson’s name.

“All a woman had in 1939 was her reputation,” she said in the oral history interview. “I didn’t want them all to think that I was a young woman who had married an old man to take advantage of him.”

Jackson never remarried. The couple never had any children.

“Mr. Bolin really cared for me,” she said in an interview for Our America Magazine. “He wanted me to have a future and he was so kind.”

Jackson received numerous awards in her lifetime. She was the first recipient of the Cherry Blossom Medal in 2006.

A play, “The Secret Veil,” was made in 2019 about her life. It was performed that year at the Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival.

Maudie Hopkins was the last known Civil War widow. She died in 2008.

Cox Media Group