ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 24, 1996 TAG: 9607240047
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ELBA, ALA.
SOURCE: Associated Press
At the age of 89, Alberta Martin is finally getting a pension.
Martin, whose husband was a Confederate Army private in the Civil War, recently signed papers to apply to the Alabama Department of Human Resources for a Confederate Widow's pension of about $150 a month.
``I don't know why they didn't give me one earlier,'' Martin said. Her cause has been backed by state Sen. Dwight Adams, who said DHR officials have told him her chances of getting the pension are good.
Mike Gibson, a spokesman for the pension agency, said officials cannot comment on specific cases. ``But we can tell you the laws are still on the books; and if someone applies and they qualify, they will receive the benefits.''
Martin's story has been reported in the past, particularly when a Confederate widow in South Carolina died several years ago and Martin was described by some Civil War groups as the only surviving Confederate widow.
She was born Dec. 4, 1906. She was about 18 when she married Howard Farrow and had a son with him before Farrow died in a car accident in 1926. On Dec. 10, 1927, she married William Jasper Martin, who was born in 1845 in Augusta, Ga., and was about 60 years her senior. Ten months after they married, they had a son, William, who now lives with her.
William Jasper Martin died on July 8, 1932. Two months after his death, Martin married his grandson, Charlie Martin. Charlie Martin died in 1983.
Alberta Martin said William Jasper Martin never spoke of his soldiering in the Civil War, when he served with the 4th Regiment Company K of the Alabama Infantry of the Confederate Army.
She said she married him in part ``to get away from home, I guess. I had this little boy and I needed some help to raise him. ... The old saying is, `It's better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave.'''
LENGTH: Short : 42 linesby CNB