Telescoping history

Another Confederate widow has died - but not the last. Key dates in the story:

• 1848 - birth of William Cantrell
• 1864 - enlistment of Cantrell in the Confederate Army
  
• 1915 - birth of Maudie White Hopkins
  
• 1934 - financial marriage, husband 86, wife 19
• 1937 - death of Cantrell
• 2008 - death of Hopkins

This is interesting because it shows how huge a span of history the relationships of one person can encompass. Cantrell could have known someone born before the Revolution.

I started to think about time spans when I realized that my daughter had been born longer after the Vietnam War than I had been born after World War II. It was shocking to me that she must think, as I had about my parents' childhood war, that her parents' war was safely settled.

Of course, with John McCain gaining ground and after 2004's vast cultural divide, it's obvious that Vietnam is not settled.

Update: Almost forgot - she married him in part for his Confederate pension. Who paid these pensions to a treasonous army? The former CSA states [--Peggy Harris]. Yet 40 acres and a mule never materialized.