Albert Martin, Last Known Widow of a Civil War Veteran

May 31, 2004 3:20 PM

Alberta Martin, the last known widow of a civil war veteran, has died at the age of 97. Alberta Martin married William Japser Martin, a Confederate veteran, in 1927, when she was 21 and he was 81. William Martin died less than four years later and Alberta Martin married his grandson two months after that. [Much of the news will cover it (i.e. CNN, MSNBC, et all, but the link above is for a site specifically about her.]
posted by bluedaniel (12 comments total)

Discussed here when the last Union war widow died last year. NPR has an interview with Alberta Martin wherein she discusses her brief and bizarre marriage. She ended up marrying again to her late husband's grandson.
posted by PrinceValium at 3:48 PM on May 31, 2004

She ended up marrying again to her late husband's grandson.

Yuck! And people wonder why some in the US can't shake southern stereotypes.
posted by Bag Man at 3:51 PM on May 31, 2004

You forgot to warn of the incredibly annoying MIDI music onlaunch.
posted by bz at 3:58 PM on May 31, 2004

The field is now wide open for war widow reenactors.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 4:08 PM on May 31, 2004

?I'm My Own Grandma?
posted by planetkyoto at 4:29 PM on May 31, 2004

♪I'm My Own Grandma♪
posted by planetkyoto at 4:31 PM on May 31, 2004

I suck. Those are musical notes.
posted by planetkyoto at 4:32 PM on May 31, 2004

Alberta Martin married William Japser Martin... when she was 21 and he was 81.

"Some people say I'm robbing the cradle, but I prefer to think that SHE's robbing the grave!" -Prof. Farnsworth
posted by clevershark at 5:00 PM on May 31, 2004

"You forgot to warn of the incredibly annoying MIDI music onlaunch."

Yowza, sorry mate, I just caught that. I'd posted from work where I haven't the speakers on, I hadn't known there was MIDI on the site. Had I known, I would have posted a warning (NSFE).

MIDI's I suspect, are Satan's way of delivering the Anti-Net.
posted by bluedaniel at 5:38 PM on May 31, 2004

Huh. So "The Last Living Confederate Widow Tells All" was a sham.
posted by bingo at 8:21 PM on May 31, 2004

Yuck! And people wonder why some in the US can't shake southern stereotypes.

I don't think marrying the non-blood relative of your deceased partner is at the top of the list of negative southern stereotypes. Sure, it's sort of strange, but it isn't any stranger than marrying someone sixty years older than you. It's not like it was her grandson. People run off with brothers and sisters in law all the time, all over America. At least she had the decency to wait until his cold, lifeless, rotting corpse was in the ground before she made off with junior.
posted by The God Complex at 10:28 AM on June 1, 2004

Huh. So "The Last Living Confederate Widow Tells All" was a sham.

Perhaps. But it was still a good book, I thought.
posted by jennyb at 12:44 PM on June 1, 2004