‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.’ is the first line of L P Hartley’s book, THE GO-BETWEEN, and for some reason the quote came to mind when I read a news item earlier today.
It concerned an announcement by the ‘Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War’ that the last widow of a soldier who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War had died on 16th December 2020 at the age of 101!
It appears that Helen Viola Jackson had been 17 years old when she married the 93 year-old James Bolin, a former private in Company F, 14th Missouri Cavalry, on 4th September 1936. She had been encouraged to help him with domestic chores by her father, but Bolin refused to accept charity, and insisted on marrying her so that when he died she would be able to draw the widow’s pension due to the wife of a former Union soldier. They married soon afterwards.
He died in June 1939, and she never remarried. She also never applied for the pension that was due to her.
I remember when Harry Patch, the last surviving combat soldier of the First World War, died in 2009, and as I write this, the number of people who fought during the Second World War is rapidly diminishing. To read a news item that marks the death of the last surviving widow of a soldier of the Union Army during the American Civil War rather stopped me in my tracks ... and made me realise that it was probably the last human link between that bit of the past and the present day,
Quite staggering to think of that link to a conflict so long ago.
ReplyDeleteBigLee,
DeleteThis was an exceptional example, but these sorts of links make you realise how brief the interval between recent events and history are. I can remember teaching about the Cold War, and realising that I was talking about things that I’d experienced, but which the students thought had happened a long time ago.
All the best,
Bob
I run into this every year now, with regard to 9/11/2001. It used to be that my students were children when it happened, then infants, and now were born over a half-decade later.
ReplyDeleteTime can be both our greatest friend and our most bitter enemy, depending upon our perspectives.
I watch films from the 30s and realize that everyone in them are gone even, in a great many cases, the infants.
The conflicts of the past act as stepping stones by which we pass over the ebb and flow of the tides of history. It is a given that as collectors and gamers of historical miniatures, we tend to take a closer look at these, except for those professionals who make such study their life's work.
When Ken Burn's The Civil War first aired, I was struck by the first words we hear, the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes, it has stayed with me ever since. That our fragile connections to the past are lost to us as a people, unless we endeavour to save and record the evidence. It is one reason why I became a history teacher.
I did not mean to write so much of this response, but I've had extra reason of late to consider the past and our present on a more intimate level, especially regarding what each of us leaves behind in our wake as we journey into eternity.
Thought provoking post, Bob.
Justin Penwith,
DeleteAs a former history teacher, I have also come across this phenomenon.
As one gets older, our past begins to form part of history, but as long as we retain the memory of the times we have lived through, they still remain current for us.
Since I retired, I’ve been doing research into the history of various Masonic Lodges and their members, concentrating particularly on their military service. I’ve published the results of my work in three small books, copies of which are lodged in the Library of Freemasonry in London as well as being sold by Lulu.com and Amazon. By doing so, I’m hoping to keep the memory of their lives and service alive for future generations.
Over recent months, I have also had cause to consider my own mortality, and one consolation is that I will be leaving behind a legacy of sorts in the form of my books. Part of me hopes that in fifty years time, a wargamer will find one of my long-forgotten books in a second-hand bookshop, and will think to themselves that the rules look interesting enough to try out ... just as I did with Joseph Morschauser’s book!
All the best,
Bob
Bob,
DeleteI'm sure wargamers in future will still read your books, just as today's wargamers read Featherstone, Young & Lawford, and Grant - but I wonder whether there will still be any second-hand bookshops!
Best wishes,
Arthur
Arthur1815 (Arthur),
DeleteI hope so ... and I suspect that there will be still a few second-hand bookshops around.
All the best,
Bob
I recently reasd, well listened to technically, Part 1 of Susan Bauer's History of the world. It covers roughly the first 4,000 years of human history for which we have written records. It does make a century or two seem a little time indeed.
ReplyDeleteRoss Mac,
DeleteAssuming that a generation is about thirty years, the time between the beginning of recorded history spans approximately 135 generations ... with roughly 65 generations since the birth of Christ. This sounds a lot of generations until you realise that if one representative of each of those generations was able to sit on a London bus, there would still be some spare seats.
All the best,
Bob
How incredible! I remember as a kid in the 60s the centenary of the ACW and at the same time seeing the limbless WW1 veterans sitting outside the Star & Garter home by Richmond Park. Now that war is also over a hundred years old - not sure I'll make it to the centenary of WW2!!!
ReplyDeleteStryker,
DeleteThe teacher I had for A-level maths had served as a subaltern on the Western Front in 1917 and 1918. When he taught me, he was the age that I am now.
I can remember the survivors of the ‘Old Contemptibles’ marching past the Cenotaph on Armistice Sunday, and during my childhood, the numerous limbless WW1 veterans one saw pretty well everywhere.
It is sobering to think that the centenary of the outbreak of WW2 is only eighteen years away!
Keep safe and keep well,
Bob
Sad. I was in the Air Force for 20 years, worked in varies imaging fields. I heard so many stories from the vets. I met the commander of the Regiment that captured the bridge at Remagan. Yet his favorite story was telling how in college at the University of Texas he played football twice at the Cotton Bowel game. I met a navy pilot who was so short he had to sit on his parachute to see out of his cockpit during the war. Also met a German woman who was in Koninsburg when the Soviets conquered it. She was shipped along with the other German survivors to Siberia. She was eventually realised with a handful of other Germans and made it to the West. So many stories that I can't remember now. What happens when I can't remember them?
ReplyDeleteDoug Southwell,
DeletePlease record these interesting stories somehow! They need to be preserved for posterity. If you can write them down, they can be lodged somewhere, and they will not be ‘lost’. Furthermore, in writing them down - along with your own memories of your time in the Air Force - will help you to remember them.
All the best,
Bob
I love these long links to the past - see here this 2016 example with chart of recent 2016 pension payouts from ACW, Spanish American War etc https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/civil-war-vets-pension-still-remains-on-governments-payroll-151-years-after-last-shot-fired
ReplyDeleteMark, Man of TIN,
DeleteThe article the link goes to is very interesting, and it’s amazing to see how many dependents from the earlier wars are still alive.
All the best,
Bob
Bob,
ReplyDeleteI read in La Grande Armee by George Blonde that the author as a child in the 1930s spoke to a very old man who as a child in the 1870s himself spoke to Napoleonic veterans.
Mike C,
DeleteAssuming that a generation is approximately thirty years, there would have been four between 1810 and 1930.
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob -
ReplyDeleteI have often thought of the past in terms of generations and lifetimes. Possibly that is due to in part to the long generations in my own family: my grandfather born 1877, my father in 1916, and I'll be 70 next month.
I was thinking a while back that 2021 is the 200th year since the death of Napoleon Bonaparte. I've lived more than a third of that time. Napoleon was at the height of his powers three of my lifetimes ago.
Probably my 'ancients' benchmark is King David of Israel, who flourished c.1000BCE. I first started thinking about this when I read that the moon was (on average, since there is such a huge difference between apogee and perigee) receding from earth at a rate of 3.8cm per year.
That seems like rather a lot, but then, looking back to King David's time, the moon was on average about 115 meters closer. Over a million years, the moon would have been 115 kilometers closer. Considering the variation between perigee and apogee is 50,000km, it put things into perspective.
King David flourished 43 of my lifetimes ago. If we take 'recorded human history as beginning c.3500BCE, that's less than 80 of my lifetimes ago. Jesus would have looked back to that time with the same perspective we 'see' King David...
What amazes me, though, is humanity's technological explosion in just the last couple of hundred years. When my great grandfather was born, steam locomotion was still in its infancy, as was telecommunication; when my grandfather was born, heavier than air and horseless transportation was unknown, as was radio, when my father was born... aye, well.
I have no idea what it all means. I have long had an uneasy feeling, though, that human cleverness has far, far outstripped human wisdom.
Cheers,
Ion
Archduke Piccolo (Ion),
DeleteYou seem to come from a family with a history of living long lives. My paternal grandfather was born in 1882, my father was born in 1926, and I was born in February 1950.
Recorded history is relatively short in relationship to the time since the first homo sapiens walked on the face of our planet 300,000 years ago ... which is less that 10,000 generations ago.
Technological advance over the last two generations has been phenomenal. My paternal grandfather was born six years after Otto built his first internal combustion engine, and died the year after Sputnik was launched. My father was born in the same year that John Logie Baird demonstrated his first grayscale ‘television’, and died not long after taking delivery of his second PC.
I recently read a story about a conversation between a sixty-year-old and a twenty-year-old. In a very disparaging manner, the latter listed all the technological advances and advantages they had to make their lives better. In reply, the sixty-year-old replied ‘My generation created many of those things. What will you do that will enhance the lives of the generation that comes after you?’
Keep safe and keep well,
Bob
It’s amazing to think that someone with a link to the ACW died so recently. I’m glad you posted about this. It’s certainly thought-provoking.
ReplyDeleteIt’s nearly 39 years since the Falklands War which I consider’recent’, yet only 37 years between that and the end of WWII.
Nundanket,
DeleteThere are occasions when time feels very elastic. Referring to your example, in my mind the Falklands War seems to have taken place relatively recently (I was 32 at the time), but the end of WW2 was only five years before I was born ... and that seems as it it was a very long time in the past.
All the best,
Bob