Pension question

John Winn

Lt. Colonel
Joined
Mar 13, 2014
Location
State of Jefferson
I'd like to find out when Oregon quit paying a widow's pension. I've got the pension application but I'm trying to find out what happened to the widow who seems to have fallen off the radar three years after her husband's death (when the probate case closed; she applied for the pension two years after he died).

So, thunk I, it seems there should be some record of payments made and when they stopped (which would tell me when the widow died) but I can't seem to locate such. Has anybody done that sort of research ? If so, how did you get your answer ?

Thanks for any suggestions.
 
I'd like to find out when Oregon quit paying a widow's pension. I've got the pension application but I'm trying to find out what happened to the widow who seems to have fallen off the radar three years after her husband's death (when the probate case closed; she applied for the pension two years after he died).

So, thunk I, it seems there should be some record of payments made and when they stopped (which would tell me when the widow died) but I can't seem to locate such. Has anybody done that sort of research ? If so, how did you get your answer ?

Thanks for any suggestions.
Have you checked the US Civil War Pension Index at Ancestry.com?
 
I'd like to find out when Oregon quit paying a widow's pension. I've got the pension application but I'm trying to find out what happened to the widow who seems to have fallen off the radar three years after her husband's death (when the probate case closed; she applied for the pension two years after he died).

So, thunk I, it seems there should be some record of payments made and when they stopped (which would tell me when the widow died) but I can't seem to locate such. Has anybody done that sort of research ? If so, how did you get your answer ?

Thanks for any suggestions.
Names would be needed to be of much help. The US government would have paid out the pension, not Oregon. There may be information at Fold3 as well, but again without a name won't be able to assist much.
 
Have you checked the US Civil War Pension Index at Ancestry.com?

Yes. That only shows the application. After that, it was up to the state that paid the pension and those records are not on line. The widow disappears from all records I can find a few years after her husband's death. What I'm trying to find out is what happened to her and I thought at least back in the day they had to have written a check every month and mailed it and then, when the widow died, make some sort of note of the death and quit making payments. My question is how one might go about finding that information (assuming it survived the ages).
 
Names would be needed to be of much help. The US government would have paid out the pension, not Oregon. There may be information at Fold3 as well, but again without a name won't be able to assist much.

I've got the names and have looked on fold3. All they have is the application (as with Ancestry). What I want is when the pension was discontinued. And I did think that the pensions were paid by the states but maybe that was only Confederate ones.

Just for grins here's the data:

John Trobridge Rolison
Co. I, 23 NY Inf.
d. 1-12-1888 in Jackson County, OR
his widow, Louise Rebecca Rolison (Louisa on the pension application), is last noted in probate records dated 1891. I'm thinking she may have remarried as she was only 28 when John died but who knows. By 1900 their only child was living by himself in Portland.
 
Here's the file so were all on the same page...

Fold3_Roloson_John_T.jpg
 

Thanks a bunch. I don't know how I missed that as I'd been to the JCGL and I even took her FindAGrave stone photo (albeit a number of years back). For some reason my searches on Ancestry didn't turn that up (and I did have her maiden name and found her parents). Well, a bit embarrassing but mystery solved. Thanks for your time.

Yeah, her first husband is one of the Union vets in our cemetery I'm researching (which is why I was interested in what happened to her). He's got a military stone in another section.
 
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