RIP Civil War Vet's Daughter Ms. Stella Mae Case

Ms. Stella Mae Case of Playa Vista has passed away.

She was one of the last living legacies to connect us to the veterans of the Civil War.

It is amazing and disturbing how many of our elderly are passing away, carrying with them their direct knowledge of historical events that helped shape this country and define the controversies which still engage academics and polemicists in furious debate.

Ms. Case was the long-lived daughter of John Harwood Pierce, an Illinois youth who joined the Union army after two  previous attempts to enlist.

Imagine having a parent who witnessed first hand the shots fired from one brother against another brother in a conflict which tested whether any nation “engaged in a great civil war, can long endure.”

 Not only did he perpetuate a perpetual union of free man, but Mr. Pierce also suffered the ignominy of “carpet-bagger” and educated freedman, former slaves who in many cases were merely thrown of the plantations where they had endured crude involuntary servitude, only to be arrested for vagrancy or lynched for their skin color.

 And this man fathered Ms. Stella Mae – at the age of 70! Like Father Abraham, Mr. Pierce was certainly old and full of years.

I only hope that someone took notes from Ms. Case before she passed on. Imagine the rich accounts that she could have shared!