Here is a reminder that our great civil war was not that long ago in the grand scheme of things. Juanita Tudor Lowrey, she of Kearney, Missouri, is the daughter of one Hugh Tudor, who fought in the Union Army’s Fourteenth Corps. Apparently he was one the young men, described by Bruce Catton, who wrote “18” on a piece of paper, stuck it in his shoe, and told the technical truth to the draft board that he was “over eighteen.” I have always suspected that there are a larger number of veterans’ children still among the living than we might believe. In the 1920s and 1930s there were a surprising number of May-December relationships between veterans and young women. A young woman might marry an aged veteran, take care of him in his final years, and then become eligible for his pension when he died. These were difficult times. Remember, the Depression began in the early 1920s in many parts of the country, not with the Wall Street Crash and Dust Bowl as our collective memory has it today. There was no Social Security yet either. People do what they have to do to get by. It probably did not happen that often, but enough for it be a phenomenon worth noting. At least often enough to produce Ms. Lowrey.
(image courtesy Kansas City Star)
The Strawfoot 