ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 23, 1996 TAG: 9608230073
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ELBA, ALA.
SOURCE: Associated Press
ALBERTA MARTIN, possibly the only living Confederate widow, plans to get a hearing aid.
Alberta Martin has a shopping list, now that her pension has been reinstated: a hearing aid, new false teeth and an air conditioner.
Martin, 89, learned Tuesday that Alabama had agreed to renew her Confederate widow's pension and a supplement, 64 years after she became ineligible for the aid because she remarried.
Martin, who lives in a small house on the end of a dirt road, will get a monthly check of $335.
``I can sure use the money. I just wish I had known about it years ago. I could have used it then, too,'' she said.
Martin was a 21-year-old widow with a young son when she married 82-year-old William Jasper Martin in 1927. Martin had been a Confederate Army private, and their main income was his pension.
The couple had a son, William, who is retired now and lives with Martin.
William Jasper Martin died at age 87 in 1932. Shortly after his death, she married his grandson, Charlie Martin, making her ineligible to draw her late husband's pension.
When Charlie Martin died 1983, Alberta Martin became eligible to collect the veteran's pension again, but she didn't know it.
``I'm going to buy me a hearing aid,'' said Martin, who receives a small Social Security check and veteran's benefits from her marriage to Charlie Martin.
``And I'm probably going to get me a new set of teeth because these old ones don't fit me good any more. I think I may get an air conditioner in a month or two, once I'm sure the money is really coming. I want to put rugs on my floors, too. I haven't had a new rug since I moved into this house in 1972.''
Kenneth Chancey, an Enterprise dentist, and state Rep. Dwight Adams helped her get the benefit restarted. Chancey is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Martinby CNB