re: Inside Rural Corner of America - Cajun Life

quote:

---

That one guy who looked 65-70 at 0:22 said his grandfather was in the Civil war. That's not even possible. Say he's 70 + 70 (parents waited until 35 each), that's 140. That'd be 1884 today.

If he's 70 today, and say youngest born to be in Civil war was 15 years old, that means born in 1864-15 is 1849. 2024-70 is 1954. 1954-1849 is 105. His grandfather would have to be 105 years older than him.

---

A lot of older veterans married young girls and had kids after the Civil War because so many young men had been killed.

Civil War veterans also got pensions which made them attractive to younger women in later times, especially in hardscrabble rural areas.

The last wife of a Civil War veteran just died in 2020.

Let's say a dude was 17 in 1865 when the war ended and had a kid 40 years later, in 1910, at the age of 62.

Let's say that kid has a kid in 1945, at the age of 35.

That kid would've turned 78 in 2023, so it's possible.