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Maudie Hopkins

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Maudie Hopkins (born December 7, 1914) is an American who is believed to be the last surviving widow of a Civil War veteran.

Born Maudie Acklin in Lexa, Arkansas, she, at age 19, married one William M. Cantrell, aged 86, on February 2 1934, in hopes of escaping poverty. Cantrell enlisted in the Confederate Army at age 16 in Pikeville, Kentucky, and served in General Samuel G. French's Battalion of the Virginia Infantry. He was captured in 1863, and was part of a prisoner exchange. He'd had a previous wife, who died in 1929.

Cantrell supported her with a pension of US$25 every two or three months, and she inherited his home in 1937. She received no further pension benefits after his death. She remarried later in 1937, and twice thereafter, and had three children.

It was not especially uncommon for young women in Arkansas to marry Confederate pensioners; in 1937 the state passed a law stating that women that married Civil War veterans would not be eligible for a widow's pension. The law was later changed in 1939 to state that widows born after 1870 were not eligible for pensions.

Hopkins generally kept her first marriage a secret, fearing that the resulting gossip (of marrying a much older man) would damage her reputation.

After research with records from Arkansas and United States Census Bureau data, she has been certified by various historical organizations, most notably the United Daughters of the Confederacy. However, a spokewoman for the UDC, Martha Boltz, has said that there may be two other widows, one in Tennessee and another in North Carolina, but if they exist they wish to be in anonymity.

She currently resides in a nursing home in Lexa, Arkansas.

See also

References

  1. Schlueter , Roger. Civil War soldier's widow lives Belleville News-Democrat August 3, 2008
  2. Schlueter
  3. Schlueter
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