That’s part if the reason I don’t like them.
Irene Triplett, the final recipient of a Civil War pension, died in 2020.
Irene Triplett - Wikipedia
looked her up, the cognitively impaired child of a vet. I was thinking a 70 yo married a 15 yo
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Correct, Irene Triplett was the child of a Union soldier, but the last widow of a Union soldier, Helen Jackson, also died in 2020… actually later than Irene Triplett. She decided not to apply to receive the pension despite being eligible, thus making Triplett the last pensioner.
And the ages weren’t 70 & 15… they
were 93 & 17 when they got married.
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interesting article
WTaF?
from the article, it appears she was his caretaker, but he couldn’t pay her, so the marriage was so she could get the pension.
But people shamed her about it, so she never took it
Very touching story in The Guardian -
She never remarried and his relatives gave her a framed photo of him a few years before she died and she said ‘This is the only man who ever loved me.”’
That’s not so much a “touching” story as it is an “incredibly sad and somewhat depressing” story.
Note: I didn’t read the article. Maybe there are other things in there that are touching.
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I was touched that they were able to form a three-year long connection with a 76 year age gap. It is sad that she never remarried but the connection clearly meant a lot to her.
The “never remarried” is sad enough, but “was never loved” is downright depressing.
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the wiki article seems to imply that they were not married in the biblical sense. The had a depression going on and an old man realized he could pass on a government pension to someone just by saying “i do” even if they really didn’t. ie it was an act of charity in a desperate time.
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I think marital love is a somewhat modern development. People have married for all kinds of transactional reasons throughout history, and I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong. I like to believe those marriages could evolve into something resembling love, and at least mutual respect, and perhaps if they had more years together, theirs could have, as well.
Obligatory:
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I am obviously not a judge of such things, especially from such a distance in time and space, but it sounds to me like this one did. Perhaps knowing his time was short, the husband weighed his words and actions more carefully than the rashness of youth leads some to do. Maybe the wife, despite her difficult circumstances, hadn’t had the tenderness of a young person’s heart burned out by the hardness of the world. Stranger things have happened.
TIL pluto-populist
2023 is the first year since 1987 that vinyl records will outsell CDs, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
I can’t wait for 8tracks to return.
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People these days seem to be “renting” music more than they are buying it. Streaming services, etc. Heck, I can even go on Youtube and watch me some Jeff Beck and pay an extremely modest fee (watch a few seconds of ads – suckers!). Now, how would Jeff Beck (RIP) get paid for my enjoyment of his music? I do not know.
I do know that whatever we have streaming through the Alexa (Spotify, I think) always plays the same songs when a category is chosen, based on prior listening habits (though I do not know if they keep “skip” demands as data). Wife has to be extremely specific in requesting, as she has eclectic and capricious tastes in music (and I love her for it!). “70’s rock” always starts with The Eagles’ “Take it Easy,” for example. “80’s alternative” always starts with Oingo Boingo’s “Dead Man’s Party.”
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I’m going to go ahead and crack open a beer and listen to my cassette version of Nirvana’s Nevermind and chill out. Side 1 twice and then Side 2.