Irene Triplett, last person to collect an American civil war pension, dies at 90

[progree]

The Guardian, June 7, 2020,

The last person to receive a US government pension from the American civil war has died.

Irene Triplett was 90 when she died last Sunday in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. Her father, Mose Triplett, fought for the Confederacy and the Union in the civil war, which began in 1861 and ended with the defeat of the slave power in 1865. He applied for his Union pension 20 years after the war and in 1930, when his daughter was born, he was 83.

He fought for the Confederacy, then deserted and fought for the Union.

Mind-boggling when one realizes the Civil War ended 155 years ago.

Mose Triplett was unsurprisingly not popular in post-war North Carolina but eventually, in 1924, still childless, he married a second time. He was nearly 80. His new wife, Elida Hall, was 34. As the Journal put it, “such an age difference wasn’t rare, especially during the Great Depression when civil war veterans found themselves with both a pension and a growing need for care.”

Triplett and Hall had five children but only two survived: Irene, who like her mother suffered from mental disabilities, and Everette, a son born when Mose Triplett was 87. As the Journal wrote in 2014, “Irene and Everette Triplett were born in tough country during tough times. The forested hills ran with white lightning from illegal stills. Ms Triplett said she didn’t drink moonshine, but she got hooked on tobacco in first grade.”

... “A lot of people were interested in her story,” Phillips said, “but she’d always deflect the conversation to something different going on in the news.”

More: https://news.yahoo.com/irene-triplett-last-person-collect-100048991.html

[underpants]

1. $73.13 per month

I missed your info about his fighting for both sides. Amazing.

I wonder if there was a specific office that paid this to her or if it was just one in the massive month military pension check/direct deposit run.

[Beakybird]

2. Incredible!