Post by Robert Braun on May 5, 2003 9:29:16 GMT -5
The last living link to 'the War'
By Philip Rawls
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ENTERPRISE, Ala. — The nation's last known living link to its great Civil War never has worn a hoop skirt or lived in a mansion like Tara.
Alberta Martin was a sharecropper's daughter with a baby and no job when, in 1927, she married a man 60 years her senior. William Jasper Martin had been a Confederate soldier, and his $50-a-month pension, paid by the state of Alabama, ensured there would be food on the table and, many years later, fame.
"Miz Alberta," as everyone calls her, is 96 now and spends her days in a wheelchair. Civil War re-enactors and history buffs take her to Sons of Confederate Veterans events from Gettysburg to St. Louis. They see that she has regular visitors at a nursing home in Enterprise and make sure that, after a bleak lifetime of hardscrabble poverty, she can be comfortable in her final days as a living link to history.
Her role became even more significant when Gertrude Janeway, the last widow of a soldier of the Union army, died in January in Tennessee at age 93.
Mrs. Martin's eldest son appreciates the late-in-life recognition and comfort that has come to his mother. "She lived a rough, rough life back in the '20s and '30s," says Harold Farrow, 78, who now lives in North Little Rock, Ark. "They sharecropped and had a miserable life."
His mother was a seventh-grade dropout working in an Alabama textile mill when she met a cabdriver named Howard Farrow. They stood before a preacher to get married, but had bought the marriage license to make it official. Money was tight. But it didn't matter. It was legal enough.
Six months after Harold was born, Howard Farrow died in a traffic accident.
Alone and living with her father, the new widow began to notice "the old man" who walked by her house on his way to play dominoes with friends. William Jasper Martin was nearly 82 and she was barely 21. Their courtship consisted of a few conversations.
"He asked my daddy if he could let him have me," she recalls. "My daddy told him that he didn't care if I didn't."
So, on Dec. 10, 1927, Alberta and W.J. Martin, late of the Alabama infantry, CSA, were married in a ceremony at the courthouse in Andalusia in southern Alabama. She wore "just a plain blue cotton dress."
Theirs was never a typical or an easy marriage. Their wedding night was spent in her half-brother's crowded house with lots of other family. "When we went to bed, we had the baby in between us and he went to crying," she said. Two days later, they rented their first house, with a stove and a table as the only furnishings.
Even in those Depression days of grinding poverty, tactless people often asked why a young woman, just a slip of a girl, would marry such an old man even if he was a soldier of the South. Mrs. Martin, who had a sense of humor when she had nothing else, usually turned the question away with humor: "It's better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave." But sometimes, she recalls pensively, "I would look out over the fields and wonder what it was like to be married to a younger man."
For a woman as poor as Mrs. Martin, the real answer was simpler: "He had $50 a month."
They, like other married couples, had each other as well. For her husband, the marriage brought late-in-life joy. On Oct. 10, 1928, their son, Willie, was born. The old man loved to go to town proudly carrying the boy on his shoulders.
They were married nearly five years when W.J. Martin died in 1932. Two months later, Mrs. Martin married her late husband's grandson.
The marriage of Alberta and Charlie Martin set gossips' tongues wagging. They were turned out of their church. Alberta Martin made no excuses. "I was lonesome."
Months later, they were welcomed back by the church. The couple marked their 50th anniversary before Charlie died in 1983.
Afterward, Mrs. Martin lived with her son Willie, making ends meet with her third husband's pension as a World War II veteran. She told people she was a Civil War widow and she ought to be getting the Civil War widow's pension as well, since Alabama law still guaranteed pensions to the men who had defended the state against the Yankees. Her daughter-in-law wrote to Gov. George C. Wallace to plead for help, but a poor widow with little education had a hard time getting anybody's attention in Montgomery.
In 1996, Ken Chancey, a dentist in Enterprise, and other members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans took up her cause and persuaded state officials to approve a pension for her. They bought the first air conditioner for an old woman who had lived her entire life in the sweltering summers of southern Alabama.
Today, Mrs. Martin's hearing is fading, and so is her memory. She deals with it with a fine sense of humor and a ready smile. "I'm old enough to forget, ain't I?"
By Philip Rawls
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ENTERPRISE, Ala. — The nation's last known living link to its great Civil War never has worn a hoop skirt or lived in a mansion like Tara.
Alberta Martin was a sharecropper's daughter with a baby and no job when, in 1927, she married a man 60 years her senior. William Jasper Martin had been a Confederate soldier, and his $50-a-month pension, paid by the state of Alabama, ensured there would be food on the table and, many years later, fame.
"Miz Alberta," as everyone calls her, is 96 now and spends her days in a wheelchair. Civil War re-enactors and history buffs take her to Sons of Confederate Veterans events from Gettysburg to St. Louis. They see that she has regular visitors at a nursing home in Enterprise and make sure that, after a bleak lifetime of hardscrabble poverty, she can be comfortable in her final days as a living link to history.
Her role became even more significant when Gertrude Janeway, the last widow of a soldier of the Union army, died in January in Tennessee at age 93.
Mrs. Martin's eldest son appreciates the late-in-life recognition and comfort that has come to his mother. "She lived a rough, rough life back in the '20s and '30s," says Harold Farrow, 78, who now lives in North Little Rock, Ark. "They sharecropped and had a miserable life."
His mother was a seventh-grade dropout working in an Alabama textile mill when she met a cabdriver named Howard Farrow. They stood before a preacher to get married, but had bought the marriage license to make it official. Money was tight. But it didn't matter. It was legal enough.
Six months after Harold was born, Howard Farrow died in a traffic accident.
Alone and living with her father, the new widow began to notice "the old man" who walked by her house on his way to play dominoes with friends. William Jasper Martin was nearly 82 and she was barely 21. Their courtship consisted of a few conversations.
"He asked my daddy if he could let him have me," she recalls. "My daddy told him that he didn't care if I didn't."
So, on Dec. 10, 1927, Alberta and W.J. Martin, late of the Alabama infantry, CSA, were married in a ceremony at the courthouse in Andalusia in southern Alabama. She wore "just a plain blue cotton dress."
Theirs was never a typical or an easy marriage. Their wedding night was spent in her half-brother's crowded house with lots of other family. "When we went to bed, we had the baby in between us and he went to crying," she said. Two days later, they rented their first house, with a stove and a table as the only furnishings.
Even in those Depression days of grinding poverty, tactless people often asked why a young woman, just a slip of a girl, would marry such an old man even if he was a soldier of the South. Mrs. Martin, who had a sense of humor when she had nothing else, usually turned the question away with humor: "It's better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave." But sometimes, she recalls pensively, "I would look out over the fields and wonder what it was like to be married to a younger man."
For a woman as poor as Mrs. Martin, the real answer was simpler: "He had $50 a month."
They, like other married couples, had each other as well. For her husband, the marriage brought late-in-life joy. On Oct. 10, 1928, their son, Willie, was born. The old man loved to go to town proudly carrying the boy on his shoulders.
They were married nearly five years when W.J. Martin died in 1932. Two months later, Mrs. Martin married her late husband's grandson.
The marriage of Alberta and Charlie Martin set gossips' tongues wagging. They were turned out of their church. Alberta Martin made no excuses. "I was lonesome."
Months later, they were welcomed back by the church. The couple marked their 50th anniversary before Charlie died in 1983.
Afterward, Mrs. Martin lived with her son Willie, making ends meet with her third husband's pension as a World War II veteran. She told people she was a Civil War widow and she ought to be getting the Civil War widow's pension as well, since Alabama law still guaranteed pensions to the men who had defended the state against the Yankees. Her daughter-in-law wrote to Gov. George C. Wallace to plead for help, but a poor widow with little education had a hard time getting anybody's attention in Montgomery.
In 1996, Ken Chancey, a dentist in Enterprise, and other members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans took up her cause and persuaded state officials to approve a pension for her. They bought the first air conditioner for an old woman who had lived her entire life in the sweltering summers of southern Alabama.
Today, Mrs. Martin's hearing is fading, and so is her memory. She deals with it with a fine sense of humor and a ready smile. "I'm old enough to forget, ain't I?"