Confederate Widow Dies

Baxter Bulletin of Baxter county, AR

Military Times

How are there still Confederate widows? End of life marriage of convenience it sounds like. Alternative end of life care plan. I guess in 1934 (year of marriage) social programs for care of elderly hadn't all that high a profile in Baxter county. Did he have children? I don't remember if the article said. It seems like that is where care would fall. Barring that, this reminds me of a older view of marriage as a cure all for social ills. In all varieties. Convenience to all parties being the primary factor. It sounds like Mrs Maudie Hopkins was poor enough to marry for very old reasons but young enough to not be of the mindset that saw it as entirely normal. She was ashamed of the marriage apparently and didn't even come out about it till recently. Deaths often give you a feeling of watching something pass from history, and marriage as this sort of social arrangement feels like it has more connection to living memory than Confederates. There is something poignant in talking to people who grew up in social conditions widely different from your own. Seeing that pass feels immediate and real. The Civil War is deep history, meaning it's gone off the deep end and no matter how fired up people still get over it (especially down here), no one has any connection to actual memory of it. No one's alive who experienced it, and no one's alive who knew anyone who experienced it. Unless you are a teenager who married an ancient guy in 1934. And the last of those might have just passed away.