The last living spouse of a Civil War veteran has died

Photo by Garry T on Unsplash, Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival/Facebook

In strange-but-true news, the last known surviving spouse of a Civil War veteran just died last month.

How is that even possible? The U.S. Civil War took place from 1861 to 1865, and no one who survived the war is still alive. However, there are two things that make it possible: 1) As much as we might like to imagine that Americans fighting over the right to own Black people was super ancient history, the Civil War was just 160 years ago. That's two 80-year-olds living back to back. 2) Some people live long lives and have unlikely marriages, which makes for fascinating historical stories like this one.

Helen Viola Jackson died December 16 at age 101. She was 17 when she married 93-year-old James Bolin, a widower who had served as a private in the 14th Missouri Cavalry of the Union army, in 1936.

A 17-year-old marrying a 93-year-old definitely raises some eyebrows, but the story is actually kind of sweet.

A statement shared by the Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival offers context to the union:

"She remained largely silent, even among her close family and friends about her link to the 19th century War Between the States, until three years ago, when she decided to share her complete life story as she was working on the details of her funeral with her minister.

Jackson grew up in a family with 10 children and met her husband at church near her home during the height of the Great Depression.

The Daughters of the Union Veterans confirmed Jackson's marriage using historical documents, including a signed affidavit from the last living witness to the nuptials.

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

James Bolin was a 93-year-old widower when Jackson's father volunteered her to stop by his house each day and assist him with chores as she headed home from school.

Bolin who was a private in the 14th Missouri Cavalry and served until the end of the war in Co. F, did not believe in accepting charity and after a lengthy period of time-asked Jackson for her hand in marriage as a way to provide for her future.

'He said that he would leave me his Union pension,' Jackson explained in an interview with Historian Hamilton C. Clark. 'It was during the depression and times were hard. He said that it might be my only way of leaving the farm.'

Jackson, who was 17 years old, married Bolin in front of a few witnesses at his Niangua, Missouri home on September 4, 1936. Bolin recorded the wedding in his personal Bible, which is now part of a rotating exhibit on Jackson that has traveled to several museum locations, including the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum in Mansfield, Missouri.

Although the two were married, Jackson explained that the nuptials were on her terms. She still wanted to live on her family farm with her immediate family and she wanted to keep her last name, sharing the information with few individuals outside of those who had served as witnesses.

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

Jackson was wed to Bolin from 1936 until his passing on June 18, 1939. However, she never officially applied for his pension as one of her step-daughters threatened to ruin her reputation.

'All a woman had in 1939 was her reputation,' she continued in her 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 did not share her story from 1939 until the winter of 2017. She never remarried and no children were born to the union.

'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.'"

It's a bit sad that Jackson never applied for the pension that was the reason for the marriage in the first place, but life is complicated.

More than anything, this story is a reminder that it just wasn't that long ago that the U.S. nearly split in two over the southern states' desire to maintain the evil institution of slavery. Someone who was married to a soldier in that war was alive a month ago.

Today, we watched a violent storming of the U.S. Capitol by people carrying the Confederate flag, in a surreal throwback to the people who marched on the wrong side of history 160 years ago.

From Your Site Articles

4 simple hacks to help you meet your healthy eating goals

Trying to eat healthier? Try these 4 totally doable tricks.

Photo by Anna Pelzer on Unsplash

Most of us want to eat healthier but need some help to make it happen.

True

When it comes to choosing what to eat, we live in a uniquely challenging era. Never before have humans known more about nutrition and how to eat for optimal health, and yet we’ve never been more surrounded by distractions and temptations that derail us from making healthy choices.

Some people might be able to decide “I’m going to eat healthier!” and do so without any problem, but those folks are unicorns. Most of us know what we should do, but need a little help making it happen—like some simple hacks, tips and tricks for avoiding pitfalls on the road to healthier eating.

While recognizing that what works for one person may not work for another, here are some helpful habits and approaches that might help you move closer to your healthy eating goals.

man pulling chip out of a chip bag Our mouths loves chips. Our bodies not so much.Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

Goal: Snack on less junk food

Tip: Focus your willpower on the grocery store, not your home

Willpower is a limited commodity for most of us, and it is no match for a bag of potato chips sitting on top of the fridge. It’s just a fact. Channeling your willpower at the grocery store can save you from having to fight that battle at home. If you don’t bring chips into your house in the first place, you’ll find it a lot easier to reach for something healthier.

The key to successful shopping trips is to always go to the store with a specific list and a full stomach—you’ll feel much less tempted to buy the junky snack foods if you’re already satiated. Also, finding healthier alternatives that will still satisfy your cravings for salty or crunchy, or fatty foods helps. Sugar snap peas have a surprisingly satisfying crunch, apples and nut butter hit that sweet-and-salty craving, etc.

slice of cake You can eat well without giving up sweets completely.Photo by Caitlyn de Wild on Unsplash

Goal: Eat less sugar

Tip: Instead of “deprive,” think “delay” or “decrease and delight”

Sugar is a tricky one. Some people find it easier to cut out added sugars altogether, but that can create an all-or-nothing mindset that all too often results in “all.” Eating more whole foods and less processed foods can help us cut out a lot of ancillary sugar, but we still live in a world with birthday cakes and dessert courses.

One approach to dessert temptation is to delay instead of deprive. Tell yourself you can have any sweet you want…tomorrow. This mental trick flips the “I’ll just indulge today and start eating healthier tomorrow” idea on its head. It’s a lot easier to resist something you know you can have tomorrow than to say no to something you think you’ll never get to have again.

Another approach when you really want to enjoy a dessert at that moment is to decrease the amount and really truly savor it. Eat each bite slowly, delighting in the full taste and satisfaction of it. As soon as that delight starts to diminish, even a little, stop eating. You’ve gotten what you wanted out of it. You don’t have to finish it. (After all, you can always have more tomorrow!)

A naturally colorful meal is a healthy meal.Photo by Anna Pelzer on Unsplash

Goal: Eat healthier meals

Tip: Focus on fresh foods and plan meals ahead of time

Meal planning is easier than ever before. The internet is filled with countless tools—everything from recipes to shopping lists to meal planning apps—and it’s as awesome as it is overwhelming.

Planning ahead takes the guesswork and decision fatigue out of cooking, preventing the inevitable “Let’s just order a pizza.” You can have a repeating 3-week or 4-week menu of your favorite meals so you never have to think about what you’re going to eat, or you can meal plan once a week to try new recipes and keep things fresh.

It might help to designate one day a week to “shop and chop”—getting and prepping the ingredients for the week’s meals so they’re ready to go in your fridge or freezer.

Organic foods are better for the Earth and for us.Photo by andrew welch on Unsplash

Goal: Eat more organic/humanely raised food

Tip: Utilize the “dirty dozen” and “clean 15” lists to prioritize

Many people choose organic because they want to avoid pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals. Organic food is also better for the planet, and according to the Mayo Clinic, studies have shown that organic produce is higher in certain nutrients.

Most people don’t buy everything organic, but there are some foods that should take priority over others. Each year, researchers from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) analyze thousands of samples of dozens of fruits and vegetables. From this data, they create a list of the “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” fruits and vegetables, indicating what produce has the most and least pesticide residue. These lists give people a good place to start focusing their transition to more organic foods.

To make organic eating even simpler, you can shop O Organics® at your local Albertsons or Safeway stores. The O Organics brand offers a wide range of affordable USDA-certified organic products in every aisle. If you’re focusing on fresh foods, O Organics produce is always grown without synthetic pesticides, is farmed to conserve biodiversity, and is always non-GMO. All animal-based O Organics products are certified humane as well. Even switching part of your grocery list to organic can make a positive impact on the planet and the people you feed.

Healthy eating habits don’t have to be all or nothing, and they don’t have to be complicated. A few simple mindset changes at home and habit changes at the grocery store can make a big difference.

health

Joy

13 truck drivers parked side by side in the middle of the night to save a life

Humanity at its best.

Around 1 a.m. on April 24, semi-truck drivers in the Oak Park area of Michigan received a distress call from area police: An unidentified man was standing on the edge of a local bridge, apparently ready to jump onto the freeway below.

Those drivers then did something amazing. They raced to the scene to help — and lined up their trucks under the bridge, providing a relatively safe landing space should the man jump.

Keep ReadingShow less

Education

3,700-year-old Babylonian stone tablet gets translated, changes history

They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.

via UNSW

Dr. Daniel Mansfield and his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia have just made an incredible discovery. While studying a 3,700-year-old tablet from the ancient civilization of Babylon, they found evidence that the Babylonians were doing something astounding: trigonometry!

Most historians have credited the Greeks with creating the study of triangles' sides and angles, but this tablet presents indisputable evidence that the Babylonians were using the technique 1,500 years before the Greeks ever were.

Keep ReadingShow less

education

The last living spouse of a Civil War veteran has died

Trying to eat healthier? Try these 4 totally doable tricks.

Goal: Snack on less junk food

Tip: Focus your willpower on the grocery store, not your home

Goal: Eat less sugar

Tip: Instead of “deprive,” think “delay” or “decrease and delight”

Goal: Eat healthier meals

Tip: Focus on fresh foods and plan meals ahead of time

Goal: Eat more organic/humanely raised food

Tip: Utilize the “dirty dozen” and “clean 15” lists to prioritize

Humanity at its best.

Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

1. Pee-regnant.

2. How (not) to sleep.

3. Cry baby.

4. The new things that scare you...

5. ...and the new things that give you the creeps.

6. Being a new mom can get a little ... disgusting.

7. And every mom has experienced these postpartum horror stories.

8. There are many, many memorable firsts.

9. Getting to know your post-baby body is an adventure.

10. Pumping ain't for wimps.

11. You become very comfortable with spit-up. Very comfortable.

12. Your body, mind, and most importantly, heart, will expand in ways you didn't know possible.

They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.

Making them sit in the discomfort of their own filth is an excellent way to shut that garbage down.

Why do people even know this stuff?

Muhammad is statistically the most common first name on the planet while Wang is the most common last name on the planet. But I still haven’t met anyone named Muhammad Wang.

The only word in the English language with all vowels+Y in alpha order is “facetiously”

Queen Elizabeth is one of the only people in the world who doesn’t need a passport to travel. Everyone else in the royal family does.

NYE goes hard

In DNA, mushrooms are more similar to animals than they are to plants.

London Tube platforms have different tilings because when the Tube was originally built, a lot of people who used it were illiterate, and the different tilings helped them know what station they were at.pic.twitter.com/Yw8e04zCJA

You've never seen your own face. You've seen a reflection, and you've seen pictures, but you've never actually seen your own face!

Elephants are the only animals other than humans who have something like funerals. They cover the dead elephant gently with leaves and branches, then stand around in a circle for hours making sad noises.

There was a day when your parents put you down and never picked you up again.

Humans have a coccyx (aka a tailbone) which is the remnant of, you guessed it, a vestigial tail. One of our several vestigial features.

The act of touching glasses to cheers comes from medieval suspicions of poisoning each other, so youd slam mugs together to spill each others drinks into your own to show trust you werent trying to kill them. Europeans man...

Male dolphins can ejaculate as far as 10' and with such force it can kill a human if that human was foolish enough to attempt zoophilic relations with dolphin.

Artificial raspberry and strawberry flavoring comes from the anal glands of a beaver.

If you are attacked by a gator and your arm is in its jaws, push, don't pull. If you can push the flap open at the back of its throat, water rushes in and it starts to drown and will open jaws, hopefully releasing you.

The Phenomena: "The Doorway Effect" When you forget the reason you enter a different room. To retrieve the reason, walk backwards w/o turning around. It can trigger the memory.

Breathe easy.