When you are reviewing your retirement and dependent benefits or helping your employees who are veterans or on active duty or, you would never think that what you are doing could have ramifications centuries into the future—but they can!
The Veterans Administration (VA) is still paying a pension to a dependent of a Civil War survivor, which means the pension is related to service that happened in the 1800s and is given to a dependent born in the 1900s who is still alive in the 2000s.
According to the VA, the last surviving Civil War veteran died in 1958. The Civil War ended in April 1865.
According to The Daily Mail, the pensioner is the daughter of a Civil War veteran who was born in 1930 and lives in a nursing home. She never married due to a mental impairment and is thought to be the child of a veteran and a much-younger mother.
She became the sole surviving dependent when the other survivor, who was born in 1920, died last year. Both qualified for survivor’s pension benefits because their fathers had served during wartime, and they were declared “permanently helpless” before their 18th birthdays, under VA rules.
Source: www.usnews.com
Wow–that is both mind-boggling and heart-breaking.