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While I was at the Arkansas History Commission, I looked up the Deceased Pensioner's Widow's Application for Robert Hudson Hoshall's widow, Ann.
(The Hoshalls are the maternal great great grandparents of my brother-in-law. Nancy Ann Elizabeth Hogg was the daughter of Eli McKnight Hogg and Nancy Ann Elizabeth Bates, and was born in Tennessee on 16 Feb 1840. She married Robert Hudson Hoshall in Dallas Co., AR on 20 Apr 1859, and died in Dallas County on 21 Apr 1922.)
I think this was the first time I have seen a complete widow's application for an Arkansas Civil War veteran - at least I think I've seen it.
It was very brief - four pages, because she still had some of his old friends alive to vouch for who he was and what he did, that he was dead, and she was his widow.
Four *very* badly microfilmed pages that I had to transcribe while I was still sitting at the viewer, mumbling under my breath about why Arkansas will not digitize its historic documents. The chick working for the History Commission was sitting a couple of viewers over from me, and since we were the only two there, she started the schtick about how Arkansans don't want to pay more in taxes to pay for things like digitizing old records.
She shut up after I started mumbling about...puhlease, do not come at me about tax increases in a state that still taxes food, forgawdssake...
So anyway, I was stunned to see the criteria for getting a lousy $50 widow's pension in 1908.
You had to be worse off than dirt poor.
I, Mrs. Ann E Hoshall, do solemnly swear that I am the widow of Robert Hudson Hoshall, who served as a soldier of the Confederate States, that I am now, and for the past twelve months have been a bona fide resident of this State; that I do not own property, real or personal, or both, or money or choses in action, in excess of the value of $400.00 (exclusive of household goods and wearing apparel), nor have I conveyed title to any property to enable me to draw a pension, and that I am not in receipt of any income, annuity, pension or wages for any services, the emoluments of an office, in excess of $150.00 per year; that my said husband died on the 4th day of July 1876, leaving me a widow with (8) eight girl children who I have raised and educated, am now unable to work, will be 69 soon, and I have not remarried, so help me God.
Signature Mrs. Ann E. Hoshall
Winessed by Thomas Green, Sr.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 6 day of July 1908...Clerk [illegible]
And I see from this that I am missing two of her girl children...
(The Hoshalls are the maternal great great grandparents of my brother-in-law. Nancy Ann Elizabeth Hogg was the daughter of Eli McKnight Hogg and Nancy Ann Elizabeth Bates, and was born in Tennessee on 16 Feb 1840. She married Robert Hudson Hoshall in Dallas Co., AR on 20 Apr 1859, and died in Dallas County on 21 Apr 1922.)
I think this was the first time I have seen a complete widow's application for an Arkansas Civil War veteran - at least I think I've seen it.
It was very brief - four pages, because she still had some of his old friends alive to vouch for who he was and what he did, that he was dead, and she was his widow.
Four *very* badly microfilmed pages that I had to transcribe while I was still sitting at the viewer, mumbling under my breath about why Arkansas will not digitize its historic documents. The chick working for the History Commission was sitting a couple of viewers over from me, and since we were the only two there, she started the schtick about how Arkansans don't want to pay more in taxes to pay for things like digitizing old records.
She shut up after I started mumbling about...puhlease, do not come at me about tax increases in a state that still taxes food, forgawdssake...
So anyway, I was stunned to see the criteria for getting a lousy $50 widow's pension in 1908.
You had to be worse off than dirt poor.
I, Mrs. Ann E Hoshall, do solemnly swear that I am the widow of Robert Hudson Hoshall, who served as a soldier of the Confederate States, that I am now, and for the past twelve months have been a bona fide resident of this State; that I do not own property, real or personal, or both, or money or choses in action, in excess of the value of $400.00 (exclusive of household goods and wearing apparel), nor have I conveyed title to any property to enable me to draw a pension, and that I am not in receipt of any income, annuity, pension or wages for any services, the emoluments of an office, in excess of $150.00 per year; that my said husband died on the 4th day of July 1876, leaving me a widow with (8) eight girl children who I have raised and educated, am now unable to work, will be 69 soon, and I have not remarried, so help me God.
Signature Mrs. Ann E. Hoshall
Winessed by Thomas Green, Sr.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 6 day of July 1908...Clerk [illegible]
And I see from this that I am missing two of her girl children...
