What do you think of this age gap?

Question

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, US Civil War Veteran John Janeway and his wife Gertrude Grubb Janeway from Tennessee is the largest marriage age gap at 63 years. When they got married in 1927, John was 81 years old and Gertrude was 18 years old. They remained married until John died 10 years later from pneumonia at the age of 91. For Gertrude, he remained the love of her life despite the age difference. What do you think of this? Proof that age doesn't really matter?

OlderAndWiser · Accepted Answer

Helen Viola Jackson was 17 years old when she married 93 year old James Bolin in 1936. That is an age gap of 76 years, so the 63 year gap between the Janeways was not a world record.

In the late years of the 19th century, various Southern states decided to award pensions to veterans of the Confederate Army. Those benefits were alsy payable to the soldier's widow after the soldier's death. The fedderal government did the same thing for veterans of the Union Army. In the early 1900's, it wasn't uncommon for a young girl with very modest prospects to marry an elderly gentleman and provide care for him for the remainder of his life in exchange for receiving inheritance from him as well as his veteran's pension. There were several widows of Civil War veterans who were still alive and receiving pensions until 2020, when Helen Viola Jackson died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_widows_who_survived_into_the_21st_century