Helen Jackson accepted the old man's offer, but with strict ground rules: She would keep her maiden name, go home to her family every day and tell only a few select people. The couple's 76-year-old age difference would surely have created a scandal.
Bolin agreed.
On September 4, 1936, Jackson and Bolin were married in the living room of the veteran's house. Shortly after the ceremony, Tommy Macdonnell, a teenage who was preparing for a squirrel hunt, and his father, Bolin's physician, congratulated the couple. Keep this quiet, Dr. C.R. Macdonnell urged his son.
To cement the union, Bolin gave his bride a pink topaz ring that had belonged to his second wife, and the common law marriage was recorded in his cherished personal Bible, given to him decades earlier by a traveling evangelist.
Their union followed Jackson's guidelines: cooking, housekeeping, chores and then she would return to her home every night. Although her husband talked about Civil War "blood and guts stuff" all the time, Jackson paid him no heed.
--Old Secesh
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