WWII veteran is the only son of a Civil War soldier still alive

1,583 Views | 5 Replies | Last: 3 mo ago by Jugstore Cowboy
Jugstore Cowboy
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AG
SIAP; went back a couple pages and didn't see it.

https://www.ky3.com/2024/06/14/ozarks-life-wwii-veteran-is-only-son-civil-war-soldier-still-alive


Quote:

Bill Pool enlisted in the Army in 1941 and, after basic training, was off to the heart of the ground offensive in Europe.

"The rest of France, across Germany, and Salzburg, Austria, when the war was over," Bill recalls

Like so many families across the Ozarks, Bill's family was in the military. Bill's father served in the Civil War.

"The things I've heard them say, they thought very highly of him," Carolyn said.

Bill's father, Charles Parker Pool, was born in 1844. Doing the math, Charles was 80 when Bill was born. This January, Bill will turn 100.

He is the only son of a Civil War soldier still living.

"My grandfather served in the Civil War," Carolyn would often tell her school teachers. "And the teacher would go, 'Now honey. There is no way that your grandfather served in the Civil War.' And I tried to tell them, 'Yes, he did.'"

The Pool family is featured in Tim Pletkovich's book Civil War Fathers: Sons of the Civil War in WWII.
I'm sure there's no reason to doubt the paternity.

Generational overlaps/leaps are always kind of fascinating to me. The men in my family who served in WWII were great-grandsons of a Union officer.

Anyone read the book?
one safe place
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That is wild when you think about it. The span of time is hard for my mind to come to grips with at times. A few years ago, I went on a Doughboy tour. There were 38 of us and most on the tour had a grand father or a great uncle who had fought. On elderly gal's father had fought in World War l.
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aalan94
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This is possible, but not likely. Fraud is more likely. Given the scam that civil war pensions were, old men married young women and gave them their pension benefits. 80 year old men marrying 20 year old women was not unheard of. However, consummating this marriage is highly unlikely.
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Jugstore Cowboy
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Well, as I said, I'm sure there's no reason to question the paternity. After all, there was no paternity testing back then. But it is possible. Just look at Tony Randall!

I only recently learned a little of the gigantic mess of Civil War pensions, and how long they lasted with claims of younger, sometimes 2nd or 3rd wives, and their children.

A newspaper article on the VA from 1962 stated there still thousands on the roll at that time.

The last Civil War pensioner died in 2020. Irene Triplett died at the age of 90.

Quote:

In 1924, Triplett, at 83, married Elida Hall, who was nearly 50 years his junior. It was his second marriage, according to news reports; his first wife died in 1923.

Such an age disparity in marriages wasn't entirely unusual at the time. Researcher Jay Hoar told the Journal that he had uncovered 72 marriages of Civil War veterans in which there was at least a 19-year age difference between husband and wife. That included one union between a 93-year-old man and his 26-year-old bride.


Many marriages occurred during the Great Depression, when a military pension helped provide financial security and the wife could serve as her older husband's caregiver.

Irene was born in 1930, and Moses died in 1938, at 92. That left his wife eligible for his Civil War pension.
https://www.aarp.org/home-family/voices/veterans/info-2020/last-civil-war-pensioner-dies.html

She had a cognitive disability, which put her in the category of "helpless" children who were eligible.

Confederate dependents did not become eligible for Federal pensions until 1958; prior to that they petitioned their respective state legislatures to honor and extend Confederate pensions.
[url=https://www.aarp.org/home-family/voices/veterans/info-2020/last-civil-war-pensioner-dies.html][/url]
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