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Last Civil War Widow Laid to Rest in Ala.
ELBA, Ala. - Alberta Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, has been buried in an 1860s-style ceremony complete with war re-enactors.
Martin, 97, died May 31, nearly 140 years after the Civil War ended. She was a 21-year-old widow with a young child when she met and married 81-year-old Confederate veteran William Jasper Martin in 1927.
After two days of lying in repose at the First White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery, a funeral service was held Saturday at the First Assembly of God Church in Elba.
Members of Company E, 15th Alabama re-enactor group carried Martin's flag-draped casket to a cemetery, followed by women dressed in black Southern belle dresses with black veils covering their faces.
Martin's caretaker, Dr. Ken Chancey, gave her eulogy, saying she was a very witty person who loved a good joke. He said Martin, who grew up poor and often went without shoes on her feet, was content with whatever she had.
William Martin died in 1932 after having one child with his wife. Two months later, Alberta Martin married her late husband's grandson, Charlie Martin, who died in 1983.
She lived in obscurity and poverty most of her life until members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans learned about her past in 1996. They started taking her to conventions and turned her into the belle of Civil War history buffs.
"It's one of our last living links to a grand old lady," said Confederate Veterans member Gerald Moore. "She was moving, she was a great person with an outgoing personality and she is a piece of Southern pride."
The last widow of a Union veteran, Gertrude Janeway, died last year in Tennessee at age 93.
ELBA, Ala. - Alberta Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, has been buried in an 1860s-style ceremony complete with war re-enactors.
Martin, 97, died May 31, nearly 140 years after the Civil War ended. She was a 21-year-old widow with a young child when she met and married 81-year-old Confederate veteran William Jasper Martin in 1927.
After two days of lying in repose at the First White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery, a funeral service was held Saturday at the First Assembly of God Church in Elba.
Members of Company E, 15th Alabama re-enactor group carried Martin's flag-draped casket to a cemetery, followed by women dressed in black Southern belle dresses with black veils covering their faces.
Martin's caretaker, Dr. Ken Chancey, gave her eulogy, saying she was a very witty person who loved a good joke. He said Martin, who grew up poor and often went without shoes on her feet, was content with whatever she had.
William Martin died in 1932 after having one child with his wife. Two months later, Alberta Martin married her late husband's grandson, Charlie Martin, who died in 1983.
She lived in obscurity and poverty most of her life until members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans learned about her past in 1996. They started taking her to conventions and turned her into the belle of Civil War history buffs.
"It's one of our last living links to a grand old lady," said Confederate Veterans member Gerald Moore. "She was moving, she was a great person with an outgoing personality and she is a piece of Southern pride."
The last widow of a Union veteran, Gertrude Janeway, died last year in Tennessee at age 93.