Finally over

Let's begin the last week of home schooling (pause for laughter) to announce the End of the American Civil War, known down South as the War of Northern Aggression and Southern Losing.

But I digress. The war is over at long last. The first "end" - the fighting - came at the Appomattox Courthouse in April, 1865, but then came Reconstruction and the cost of reparations and benefits for veterans and survivors, the last of whom has now passed on. 

It reminds me of the story about John Tyler's grandchildren still being alive, long after his presidency ended (1844). But, this is the story of Irene Triplett, who died at a long-term-care facility in Wilkesboro, N.C., at 90, just a couple of Sundays ago.

Irene Triplett

Irene received a check every month from the VA. $73.13 per month, totaling an annual stipend of $877.56, because her father was a Civil War veteran.

Irene was born in 1930. Her father, Mose Triplett, fought for, first, the Confederacy and then, when things looked bad for Robert E. Lee and his cohorts, switched to the Union side, which probably accounts for why he was able to live until 1938. Had he remained a Rebel, his longevity would likely have been significantly reduced, because 734 of the 800 men in the regiment he quit wound up dying at Gettysburg.

Old Mose headed for North Carolina when the war ended, took a wife named Mary, became a farmer, and applied for his pension in 1885. His and Mary's union was childless, but after Mary died in the 1920s, he remarried, to one Elida Hall.

Elida was 27. Mose was 78.

Mose's epitaph - "He was a Civil War soldier"

Put away your calculator - I did the ciphering. That's a difference of 51 years, but those two crazy kids got right down to the business of multiplying. After they lost several children, Irene came along in 1930 and was with us until just recently. Mose died in 1938 and it was just Irene  and her mother living in a rodent-infested poorhouse for many years until they were moved into a nursing home.

Elida died in 1967 and Irene was cared for in nursing homes for the rest of her life, enjoying hobbies such as watching the news and sharing the scoop with other residents, and chewing Star brand tobacco.

SO there ends the line linking us back to the Civil War. From our nation's next war, the VA is still paying benefits to 33 surviving spouses and 18 children receiving pension benefits related to the 1898 Spanish-American War.