Aaron Lilburn Hurt was born on March 27, 1842 in Russell County, Virginia. He enlisted in the 29th Virginia Infantry on March 27, 1862, his 20th birthday. He was present at all musters through April of 1864. He spent the next several months sick in various hospitals in Richmond, and was eventually sent home on a furlough. No further wartime record exists. In a pension application in 1906, he claims to have been with the unit until the surrender.
After the war he married Louisa H. Ball in 1869. Aaron and Louisa had 12 children, of whom 8 survived to the 1900 census. Louisa died and Aaron married Mary Catherine Mise. She died sometime after 1920.
Aaron liked to go to Confederate reunions. Newspapers recorded his attendance at the 1923, 1926, 1927, 1928, and 1930 reunions. He probably attended many others. At the Birmingham reunion of 1926, he met a lady named Fanny Graves, a widower from Chattanooga, TN. In 1926, she was approximately 55 years old. Aaron was 81. Upon being introduced, it was said that Mrs. Graves was looking for a husband. "What sort of a husband?" asked Hurt. "Oh! a good looking one that owns a farm." she replied. "I'm your man." replied Hurt. However, the reunion soon ended and both returned to the native cities.
The two kept in touch, exchanging two letters a day. They agreed to meet at the next reunion.
A year later they met at the Confederate reunion, this time in Tampa, Florida. They still felt strongly for each other, and Aaron asked Fanny to marry him. She consented and a ceremony was arranged. A fellow veteran, Reverend J. M. Smith of Marshall, Texas, agreed to perform the ceremony before he left the reunion. Unfortunately, the time came for the pastor to leave and the couple had failed to arrive. The cause of the postponement was the decision to get the bride's parents' consent to the marriage. Consent was gotten, but the pastor was gone.
In the absence of the original pastor, the Reverend W. D. F. Snipes, a Presbyterian minister and superintendent of the Tampa school system, stepped in to perform the ceremony. He quipped that he had been "marrying couples for 52 years and has never had a knot come untied yet."
The two were married in the chambers of Judge G. H. Cornelius, among a large crowd. "My I never saw so many witnesses in my life." said Fanny. "It is a pretty big crowd," said Hurt, "but I've faced worse looking crowds than this and lived through it. I guess I'll survive this." After the brief ceremony, Hurt declared "See, the first thing she did when she got to Tampa was to get Hurt."
The wedding was a hit, making the front page in local newspapers, and getting a picture in papers as far away as Ohio. Prior to taking the picture, Hurt combed his hair with a borrowed comb and said of the picture "It will show the other veterans here how to conduct themselves properly at a reunion."
Hurt returned to Russell County ahead of his bride, who returned home to Chattanooga to wrap up affairs before joining him there. Upon being interviewed by a local paper, Hurt stated "Some of the boys are laughing at me for getting married, but I don't care for that. I've got just as much right to a wife as anybody."
But all was not well for Aaron and Fanny. She never left Chattanooga to come to Virginia. Letters were written, but to no avail. Fanny Graves soon dropped off the map. Aaron felt the loss "keenly" but continued to attend Confederate reunions, partly in hope that he would see Fanny again. He never did.
