These were women who were teenagers when they married 80-some-year-old guys. Shagnasty’s links pretty much spelled it out.
ggurl
I don’t think your posting was directed at me but yes, girls in their late teens, early 20’s married octagenarian Civil War veterans sometime around the 1920’s.
I thought it had something to do with the Civil War veterans’ benefits but in any event, the young women could count on their husbands’ money while he was alive. Some women I beleive inheritied homes, land, etc
I remember reading this in a book called “Significa” by Irving Wallace, David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace. I read this in a library many years ago. The book was just a random selection of interesting facts etc. (I don’t know how reliable their research was but if anyone has the book, it has about a page or 2 about Civil War Widows.)
It seems at the very least, pretty likely. According to the article linked from Wikipedia, her keeper is sure she’s the same tortoise Darwin collected because there simply haven’t ever been any others she could have become confused with. Even today, he says, there is only one other tortoise of that subspecies in the whole of Australia.
It would be nice to know if there’s any more definite evidence so I’ve written to the Australia Zoo to find out.
ok - i concede that point. But the “war widow” title, still doesn’t sit well with me; the more accurate title is “veteren’s widow”
Then why did it end his career?
anyrose
Agreed, Civil War Veteran’s Widow would be a much better term. I was just using the expression that I’ve always seen (but that doesn’t make it correct).
But Preparation H ain’t bad!!
Nah, just gas.
Because he wasnt just selling records in the rural south. note the mention of region in that post.
It’s also rather less dangerous to dance one’s doughy grub in front of a tortoise, methinks.
Were there drummer boys or powder monkeys in the Civil War? That would put them in their late 50s - rather more reasonable.
I emailed the Australia Zoo asking if there was any more evidence that Harriet once belonged to Darwin and got this reply:
Well that settles that then! 
Unfortunately that single assertion is undeniably wrong… Darwin did not take her to Australia, he took her to his home in England and John Wickham brought her to Australia a few years later in 1841. I have found a much more detailed article about Harriet which leaves one in little doubt that she was indeed Darwins pet tortoise.
That’s a good point, but I bet that to qualify for this (dubious) title, these women had to have married men who were officially enlisted.
Sadly, despite having Darwin’s Tortoise the Australia Zoo is one of the shittier zoos around. Overpriced, under animaled, overly full of themselves, and every keeper seems to have been instructed to do a Steve Irwin impression.
Taronga Park zoo in Sydney is worlds better.
Gee, the greatest thing I’ve ever learned is to love, and be loved in return. No, no, wait - it’s to love, just to love, and be loved.
The singles greatest fact I know: A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!
The antibiotic “Bacitracin” is derived from bacteria (Baci) found growing on a compound fracture in 7-year old Margaret Tracy (traci), at Columbia University’s New York Presbyterian Hospital, in 1943.
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e = mc[sup]2[/sup] (Einstein)
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e[sup]ip[/sup] + 1 = 0 (Euler)
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The breathtakingly beautiful woman Hedy Lamarr, who appeared nekkid in Ecstasy (1933), invented spread-spectrum communications.