Did you know someone who was born in the 19th century?

[Bertha Venation]

Tell us about who you knew who was born in the 19th century. The closest I came was my grandmother, born in 1917.

[Old Troop]

1. My maternal grandmother was born in 1892 and my maternal

grandfather was born in 1888. Grandma told us about taking the stage from Lynn, MA to North Conway, NH to visit relatives. When I mentioned how cool that must have been, she said that it was horribly uncomfortable and she'd take a car any day.

[hayu_lol]

2. Paternal grandparents...

grandmother: 1868+her twin sister and two other sisters. Collinsville,IL
grandfather: 1865 Gastonia, N.C.
father: 1900+his brother. Collinsville, IL
mother: 1908+12 brothers and sisters. Vicksburg, MS

[Maine-ah]

3. I'm pretty sure the closest I came, was my GG

she was born in 1901.

[raccoon]

15. deltet nt

[texanwitch]

4. My Grandparents were born between1890 and 1895.

They all died around 95 years old.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

5. No, but my great-grandmother (still living) was born in 1912.

Here's a pic from last year:

[Odin2005]

45. She looks very good for 97 in that pic!

My dad's dad was born in 1911, he would be 99 were he still alive. He died just after Christmas in 1985, 5 months before I was born. Lung Cancer. :(

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. Yes I did, my dear Bertha...

Both my mom's parents were born in the 19th century. My grandmother was born in 1896, I think. And my grandfather was around the same age.

My grandmother lived a long time, long enough to see her first great-grandchild: my oldest daughter. I was really thrilled to have given her my daughter...

I miss her still...

[haele]

7. Great-Grandmother - 1884; Great-Aunt - 1897

Great-Grandma (Dad's maternal grandmother) died in 1986. Her sister, Great Aunt Alma died in 1991. I've heard plenty of stories about 1900's Missouri, 1930's and WWII New York (Aunt Alma married a J.C. Penny's executive), and 1930 - 1950's Santa Monica.
GGM was, unfortunately, a bit afraid of the Reds, and as a good housewife, tended to agree with the political beliefs of GGF, who was a big Hooverite, Anti-Communist and thought the Birchers were on to something. According to my dad, he hated Roosevelt and Truman with a passion, and thought Eisenhower was a fake Republican. He died when I was two, so I didn't remember much about him; he was mad about Dad marrying a daughter of a Democrat - or perhaps it was because Mom's dad worked at the same insurance company branch office that Dad's paternal grandfather opened in 1905 when that family came out from Illinois. Dad's father was in early Los Angeles Aerospace and decided that being married to grandma was just too difficult and split when he was offered a better job elsewhere in the country during WWII, leaving Dad and his brother to be raised by GGF and GGU Herbie (born 1895 - who I vaguely remember, because he died when I was five, treating me and my younger brother like grandchildren)

Great-Grandma mellowed when it was clear that Dad was going to be the only grandchild that would have children, and that Mom was a pretty decent cook and housekeeper for a radical Democrat and Feminist. Her realm tended to be more of the crafts and skills related to keeping house, and that's what she liked to talk about. What was sad is that she was apparently an extremely talented musician when she was young, winning prizes and a scholarship to a fine arts academy in Chicago that she never followed through on because she "properly" got married at 17 when she graduated High School as was what was expected of a young lady of the middle class.
Aunt Alma was enough of a rebel that when offered a similar scholarship for her singing, she took it - and met Uncle Herbie when he was getting his degree.
Discussions with Aunt Alma reflected the life of someone who married into New York society and lived a life similar (but not as spectacular) as the character in "Auntie Mamie" As a singer, she would volunteer to hold "Broadway Canteens" for "the Boys" and lead Red Cross and YMCA activities for most of her life.
She would discuss history as it was unfolding and social trends that she experienced. And if you got her aside from GGM, she had some strong words about GGF and the more radical conservatism that she saw developing even then.

Haele

[suninvited]

8. my great grandparents on my mothers side were born

in the 19th century.

My great grandmother died in 1972. I barely remember her since my father was military and I only met her a few times and I was young. But my great grandfather lived until 1984. He was 96 years old.

[denbot]

9. My great grand parents 1888, and 1892. And a great aunt born in the 1890's.

My Great Grandfather died at age 87 when I was around 17, and my Great Grandmother and Grand Aunt passed in their nineties when I was in my early twenties.

[Crystal Clarity]

10. Took care of a woman (no relation to me) born in 1905, just last spring.

She celebrated her 105th B-Day in July. Amazingly, and despite no living close relatives, she still lives in her own home, but requires 24/7 care. Fortunately, she can afford it due to some wise investments. Her attorney hired a friend of mine to supervise the help. That's where I came in, but only briefly for 3- eight hour shifts until my friend was able to find a replacement permanent caregiver... (this is just not my line of work)

Anyway, in the total 24 hours I spent w/Dee, I learned some incredible things about her life. Dee has advanced dementia but her memories of her childhood and young adulthood are so vivid that listening to her is like going back in time.

She was born in Maine but spent her first 12 years of life living in a log cabin home in BC, Canada. Her father, she said, moved the family there because of his work on the trans-Canada railroad when that part of it was still being built! At the age of 13 her family moved back to Maine in order to take care of her sick grandmother. They had a had a good sized family farm about 4 miles out of town, so in order to attend school she and her sister had to ride a horse to get there.

I got the impression that she had/still has jealousy issues w/that sister who has been gone now for over 20 years. She often spoke of Marian's "beautiful, shiny, long, black hair w/ringlets" and how all the boys liked her; or how Marian was her "mother's favorite".

She had about 10 very detailed memories that she would tell and re-tell, and hundreds of little fragmented pieces of things that sometimes could be pieced together and sometimes not. That was the eerily weird thing about her dementia, some of her best stories were easily ten minutes long and happened 90 years ago, but the more recent memories were very confused and disjointed. And never mind what has happened in the past 10 years! She still thinks she has cats that died over a decade ago. She'd get very P_od about those cats and would accuse me and/or her other caregivers of taking them. She'd also argue about whether she had lunch of not (among other things). I learned pretty quickly that it was best to steer her back into one of her stories when she got wound up like that.

My friend tells me that they recently got her a kitten and it has calmed her down considerably. I don't know why no one thought to do that earlier. BTW, that cat has a good home to go to after Dee is gone (in case anyone has bothered to read all of this and was wondering... I asked the same question ;-))

[Arkansas Granny]

35. My great grandmother had times when she was in her 90's where it

almost seemed that she was reliving days at a time from her younger life. She was living with 2 of her daughters at that time and they said it wasn't like she was just remembering it, she was living it again.

[Crystal Clarity]

36. That's exactly how it seemed with Dee.

Exactly! She'd get talking about her mother, father, Marian, ect. and her whole demeanor would change as if what she was talking about was in the here and now. Sadly it seemed as if the only time she was happy was when she got caught up in one of her memories.

My friend says that she's very good with the cat though. She calls it 'Baby' and fortunately this kitty is the type that loves to be held. I've got to get out there to visit sometime. I'd like to see her happy and holding her Baby.

[sarge43]

11. My grandfather, born 1870

Interesting man. Canadian, did survey work in the Northwest Territories in the 1890's, involved in the Alaskan gold rush, served in the US Army during the Spanish American War, town probation officer. His idea of a great summer vacation was taking my mother and uncle camping in Michigan's UP. The only time they'd go to town was to get coffee and sugar, otherwise they lived off the land. Thanks to this my mother was a crack shot with a rifle.

My most vivid memory of him was watching him crop wood - in his eighties, during a MI December.

[Swede]

12. My paternal grama was born in 1899.

She died in 2001. She was a firecracker to the end. My maternal grama was born in 1897,she had 8 kids,so I have tons of cousins.

[MorningGlow]

13. Oh sure

My maternal grandparents and my paternal grandmother (all born in the 1880s and 1890s) and sundry great-aunts and uncles, their siblings. They all came to the States from Sicily--the quintessential huddled masses through Ellis Island and all that.

My maternal grandparents lived the longest--my grandmother died in 1981 at 94 and my grandfather died a year later at 96.

[raccoon]

14. My grandparents were all born in the 19th century. nt

[av8rdave]

16. My cousin's grandfather, born in 1896

He passed away at the ripe old age of 96.

An incredible man. He was a dairy farmer until he retired well into his 70s. He wasn't actually my cousin's grandfather, though my cousins referred to him as such. He and his wife had only one child, who was killed in an accident as a young boy. Not long after that, they took in my aunt and raised her, saving her from an abusive home. She still regards them as her parents.

His wife passed away in the early 1970s, after which he sold his farm and retired. He lived with his niece and her husband until his death in 1992. He remained cogent and independent until the moment he passed.

He had an older brother I never met. Sometime in the mid 1920s, they were sitting on his parent's porch together. A train was passing on the adjacent tracks, still moving slowly from it's passage through town. His brother looked at him and said, "I have to get going." He crossed the street, jumped the train and was gone. He was never heard from again.

He smoked unfiltered camel cigarettes his entire life. The last time I saw him, about a year before his death, he told me he had just had his annual physical. "The doctor told me I should quit smoking. I asked him what smoking would do - stunt my growth?"

He's been gone 18 years. I still miss him.

Edited for extra details.

[madinmaryland]

17. My grandfather was born in 1895, and an aunt was born in 1898 and married

a man in 1970 who was born in 1896.

I met (but don't remember) my great-grandmother who was born in 1869.

[CBGLuthier]

18. I knew both of my maternal great grandparents

They were both born in the 1890's. My great grandfather was named Ulysses . He seemed to be made of leather. I remember in the 1970's when he started talking about his own grandfather being blacker than any black man he ever met. The women folk hushed him up as we were supposedly white people.

Years later one of my uncles found a picture of my great great great grandfather. He looked a little like a balding Redd Foxx.

Sadly, I can not remember my great grandmother's name. She died in the 70's and the whole time I knew her she only had one arm having lost the left one to cancer. She cooked three meals a day on a wood stove with only one arm. Their house was in the bottom of the holler across from my grandfather's house. The front porch was ten feet in the air while the back door was level because they built it on the side of the mountain.

This is a video someone made driving from one end of the holler to the other. The roads weren't paved back when I went up there and people did not have lawns. Place really has changed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkGrr5pc_bk

Around 2:09 on the right side is my grandfather's old house and then behind it the road leading across the valley to my great grandfather's home.

[laylah]

19. My maternal gram

was born in 1888.

[GoCubsGo]

20. My grandma was born in 1898.

My grandpa was born a little before that, but he died before I was born, so I can't say I knew him. I miss my grandma.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. My mother's mother was born in 1899 and lived till 2000

and my mother's father was born in 1884 and lived till 1962.

I also knew my mother's grandparents, who were born in the 1870s and also lived long enough for me to remember them. My great-grandfather died in 1963 and my great-grandmother in 1970.

One day in the 1990s, my grandmother remarked that she remembered when Minneapolis had wooden sidewalks and horse-drawn streetcars, and now she was heating things up in a microwave and taking trips by airplane..

[Lindsey]

22. My precious Grandmother was born in 1899. .......

Somehow, I ended up w/her driver's license and I keep it w/some sentimental things of hers. I have the driver's license right here and sure enough - D.O.B. '99. Wow....

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. When my grandmother got her driver's license, you didn't even have to take a test

You just had to go to the county courthouse and pay 25 cents. Driver licensing was considered a revenue enhancer instead of safety measure.

[Rambis]

23. All my grandparents born 1890's

My parents born 1922

Family reunion pic

[Brickbat]

24. Yes, my great-grandmothers. One of them we thought might see three centuries.

She was born in 1894, and died in 1995.

[TZ]

25. I vaguely remember my great grandmother Rosie

I think she was born around 1895 or so...She died in the mid 1970's. I remember visiting her in a nursing home. She never spoke anything but Yiddish to us.

[meow2u3]

26. My maternal grandfather was born in 1896 (or was it 1892?)

Grandpa was born in Italy, outside of Naples. He came to this country when he was 16, with only 3 years formal education, but he ended up speaking English like an American (that's where I got my talent for languages from). He was a WWI vet (that's how I think he got his US citizenship). He was the only one of my grandparents I knew; we used to take regular trips to visit him until he could no longer take care of himself; that's when my mom decided to move him in with us. Pretty shortly afterwards, he collapsed from a stroke, was rushed to the hospital, and died in October, 1968, at the age of 72 (or 76?). I was 8 and in 3rd grade. May he rest in peace.

Both my paternal grandparents died before I was born. My maternal grandma passed away when my mom was pregnant with me.

[hunter]

28. I clearly remember three of my great grandmothers.

They were women of the Wild West and tough as nails.

One of my great grandmas lived almost ninety years in a two room log cabin with no plumbing and a wood stove. Her son and daughter-in-law lived nearby in a similar house. They were Idaho ranchers. In the winter their homestead could be snowed in and entirely inaccessible. The last years of her life she moved to town, a place of a couple hundred people, a school, a church and not much else.

As kids my siblings and I thought our great grandmas were mean. What they were was survivors. In their lives if you didn't have a stash of food you'd canned yourself and a pile of wood for the stove you simply died. Some of your kids got sick and died. Some of the women in your family died in childbirth; your sisters, your aunts.

All three of them dismissed much of the modern world as frivolous nonsense.

My great grandma in the log cabin was still resentful that my deceased great grandpa had signed onto rural electrification and bought himself a radio. There was a major family fight when her son & grandson conspired to waste money on an electric water pump. She did not let them run a pipe to the old house. About the same time I asked her what she thought about the moon landing, thinking maybe I'd hear a story about how things had changed in her life and how amazing modern technology was, but she simply snapped at me, telling me it was all an utter waste. I remember feeling quite wounded.

In all three women I see the same dynamic. They all married dreamers, the kinds of guys who messed with telephones, radios, electricity, and engines. It was their sacred duty to keep these guys grounded. The great grandma I never met married a guy who she couldn't keep grounded, and she wrote about her family's frequent miseries. The family bounced around from success to failure, living in mining shacks, to living in large expensive houses, to living in shacks again, as her husbands engineering, inventions and prospecting either succeeded or failed.

[bluedigger]

29. My great-grandfather was.

I'm not sure when exactly but I'm pretty sure it was pre-1900. He built his own home and worked in a wood mill most of his life. I remember going to visit him as a child in the 60s. His house had a 'two-holer" outhouse in the back of the attached carriage barn. My grandfather had to clean it out once, and I remember him shoveling the waste into a wheelbarrow.:puke: My grandfather's brother bought him all the bath fixtures about the same time, and when he died in the mid-70s they were all still in boxes in the barn. He never would install them. :rofl: He also had a wood burning stove/oven in the kitchen, a slate sink, and always had a six pack of Moxie in the fridge (which was electric).:woohoo: As a consequence of his work in the mill he was missing three fingers on his right hand. I wish I had the house - it was awesome.

[Withywindle]

30. Yes, both my great-grandparents on my dad's mother's side.

They were both born in the 1890s, in Baltimore. Pop was a WWI vet. I was so lucky that I got to hear a lot of their stories growing up, as they passed away just a few years apart in the 1980s, when I was well into my teens.

Their daughter, my grandmother, is still very active and sharp and healthy at 90.

[jg10003]

31. My grandmother

My grandmother, 1895-1999

[Bertha Venation]

56. Welcome to DU, jg

:hi:

[GreenPartyVoter]

32. My Nene was born in 1900. That's the closest I can get.

[HS News]

33. OOh so close- 1900!

My grandpa was born in 1900 and lived to the ripe age of 108!- RIP Gramps!

[meow2u3]

51. 1900 WAS the last year of the 19th century-contrary to popular belief

...and the media hype 10-15 years ago, with all that millenium 2000 crap.

Your grandpa was indeed born in the 19th century, albeit the final year.

[Arkansas Granny]

34. I knew several family members who were born in the 19th century.

My great grandmother was born in 1866, but I never had a chance to really sit down and talk to her about life when she was young. She lived out of state and I was not very old when she died. My grandmother was born in 1890. She and my great uncle used to tell us kids sometimes about how things were when they were growing up in SW Missouri and NE Oklahoma in mining towns.

[InvisibleTouch]

37. Great-grandmother.

Not sure of the exact dates, but she died in the late 80's, and was 99 years old at the time. She was born in a covered wagon on its way west.

[trof]

38. Both sets of grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles.

Too numerous to mention.
I'm a geezer born in 1941.
Great grandpa Worrell was in the War of Northern Aggression.
:evilgrin:

[WolverineDG]

39. Three of my grandparents & several great-aunts & uncles

If my maternal grandmother hadn't died, I would have known 1 more.

dg

[SPKrazy]

40. My Maternal Grandfather, and my Paternal grandparents

My maternal grandfather was a very stoic staunch Catholic who married a staunch Methodist after he was in WW1. The children were raised Methodist so he was excommunicated and yet he still attended Mass every Sunday. He worked for the postal service until he retired. During WW2 my mother told me that that due to their last names they worried that they would be rounded up and put in a camp. (German immigrants x2 generations) That never happened.

On the paternal side, I didn't know these grandparents as well, but they were farmers in Oklahoma, had 7 kids who all worked the farm. They survived the dust bowl and depression without moving to California and were very proud not to have taken any "welfare". I'm sure it was a big struggle with so little and I know my dad talks about how they all worked the fields. My dad was the first in his family to have gone to college.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

41. I'm led to believe that my great aunt was born in the 1880s or 1890s

When I'm not sure but she was significantly older than my grandmother, who was born in 1906

She died in 1989, when I was eight years old. I used to visit her on quite a few occasions (although she lived in a different country) and have some quite good memories of her. She was a lovely person

I think one of my great uncles may also have been born toward the end of the nineteenth century, although I don't know for sure. He lived in the United Kingdom and I only saw him once in 1989 but can remember him vividly because he was such a larger than life character -a merry old Englishman who had us kids enthralled by teaching us lots of card games and board games when we visited him in the Lake District. He died the next year

Our next door neighbour had a father whom I think may have been born in the 1890s. My neighbor used to give us music lessons and we'd sometimes sit around and talk with him afterward. He was a nice, sweet, gentle man. He died when I was nine.

Considering I'm only 29, I seem to have known quite a few people from the nineteenth century

[pitohui]

42. yes this makes me feel old

not up to posting the story right now altho it's colorful...some of these fine ladies lived to be over 100! women who refused to make babies lived as long as we do...or at least in my family they did

[DebJ]

43. 1875; My mother, who is still with us at 82, knew her great uncle

who was born around 1875.

[Odin2005]

44. When I was little (early 1990s) I knew an elderly lady born in 1898

She lived across the street from me in a apartment building for old folks. Quite lucid right up until she passed away in 1999. Very kind, sweet lady.

[femmocrat]

46. My grandparents were born in the 1890s.

I don't know the exact years.

[csziggy]

47. All the 19th century people I knew have passed away - the last around 1990

I barely knew my step-great-grandmother, who was born in 1869. She was feisty old lady and even confined to a wheelchair did more work than most people a quarter of her age. She passed away in 1959.

And I had a whole group of great-aunts and -uncles born between 1882 and 1904 (a dozen aunts and uncles, thirteen children counting my grandmother!). Mabel, who was born in 1901, passed away in 2001 and she was not the first centenarian in the family. There were five registered nurses in that family and many of them worked until they were in their seventies. Most of the men were farmers or worked for local industries, some in the early telephone company of that region.

I used to correspond with another great-aunt who always commented on the changes in the country during her lifetime. She was born in 1885 and lived to see the landing on the moon. Think about being young when horse drawn vehicles were the norm and living to see the beginning of trips into space!

All my grandparents were born between 1886 and 1891. They were all independent, hardworking people who were active right up to their deaths. They also lived through the same transition, but they did not seem to appreciate the progress as much as that aunt, maybe because they had less leisure.

Of course, being in my late 50s gives me a big jump on knowing people who were alive in the 19th century over some of the young squirts here.

[rug]

48. I knew a man who was born a slave.

He was born in the South toward the end of the Civil War, but was still born a slave.

I grew up in Manhattan in a walkup in the 1950s and 1960s. His grandson was the super of one of the neighboring buildings and he lived with him.

I was friends with his great grandson.

At the time, there were a lot of stories about the centennial of the Civil War and he was in his 90s, nearing 100. A really nice man, very short, very alert. He had no memories of the war itself but remembered growing up in the aftermath. He died in the mid 1960s.

Thanks for the thread. I hadn't thought of him in a long time.

[old mark]

49. My father was born in 1917, in Germany during WWI. My grandfather was

a corporal in the Imperial German Army, and was killed in 1918. My dad and grandmother came here in 1920, to Brooklyn.

He is now living in Texas, near Galviston. He will be 94 on January 1st.

mark

[Darth_Kitten]

50. My grandpa.

He was born in 1895.

He was "older" when my Mom was born. :)

[bif]

52. All my grandparents were

And my grandparents on my dad's side were born in Poland.

[Brewman_Jax]

53. My maternal great-grandparents

great-grandfather in 1890, great-grandmother in 1899.

[Glorfindel]

54. Lots of them! My father's parents were born in the early 1870's

and both of my mother's parents were born in 1877. My oldest uncle was born in 1894, and I knew several great-aunts and great-uncles who were born in the 19th century. I even knew a lady who lived in three centuries. She was born in 1898 and died in 2002 at the age of 104.

[bikebloke]

55. I met him, but was too young to remember.

My great-grandfather born in 1872. His parents came over from Ireland and drowned in the Rappahanock River.

[applegrove]

57. My grandmother was born in 1898 and died at 103 so she is one of the rare people who lived in three

different centuries.

[laundry_queen]

66. That's pretty neat. nt

[kwassa]

58. My grandfather was born in 1882

His father was born in 1840, and fought in the Civil War.

[FarLeftRage]

59. Yeppers...

My maternal grandparents, Grandpa born in Nov. 1888 and Grandma born in Oct. 1894. Also a great Aunt on my Mom's side who was born in 1893.

My Paternal Grandfather, who emigrated from Italy in 1913, was born there in March of 1895.

[Skittles]

60. my grandfather was born in 1895

yes INDEED

[Canuckistanian]

61. My grandfather, born in 1899

Died in 1990.

He was born in Scotland, died in Canada. Never went to war. Too young for WWI, too old for WWII, although he volunteered to be a guard at a warworks plant in WWII.

I could always remember his age - he was always one year older than the last two numbers of the year.

[whistler162]

62. Great grandfather and both my grandfathers....

all three emigrated from Sweden. One was even a draft dodger, from the Swedish military.

GGrandfather was born in the early 1880's and both grandfathers where born in the late 1890's.

[Hardrada]

63. All my grandparents and all my great-aunts and uncles

and, yes, I knew them well. Oldest person I knew as born in 1872. A woman who lived down the street. Oh, and two women born 1879-1880. I used to mow their lawn. Miss 'em all.

[Awsi Dooger]

64. My terrific grandfather, 1898

Papa. I've been thinking about him a lot lately. We recently found some audio tapes he made during the early to mid 1970s.

[laundry_queen]

65. I may have

My grandfather, still living, was born in 1909. He had 13 siblings, all older. I know I met quite a few of them, but I'm not sure of all their ages. Surely a couple of them were born before the turn of the century. Most lived to be quite old. I think the oldest was 102. My grandfather has about 10 months until he gets there. He broke his hip a year or so ago and is wheelchair bound, but is very spunky. My other grandfather was born is 1913 and he's still alive also. There are many stories I've heard about what life was like back then, and I have looked through many photos. Very interesting stuff.

[LeftishBrit]

67. I think the earliest-born person I've known..

was my next-door neighbour when I was a child in the 1970s. She was over 90 in 1974, so would have been born in the early 1880s.

[annonymous]

68. I'm not sure when my paternal grandmother was born.

She was from Poland and record keeping wasn't very good back then. I believe she was born in 1898 and she died in 1974 when I was 11. My greatgrandmother died when I was 3, so I don't remember her at all. I know she was born some time in the 1890's.

[Nikia]

69. I had two great grandmothers born in the 1890s. Died when I was in HS

They were both born in rural areas and high school graduates, which wasn't that common back then.

[progressivejazz]

70. I had two uncles born in 1894 and 1895.

One lived to be 100.

My second grade teacher was born in 1885.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

71. All my grandparents

The oldest was my Dad's father, born in 1880

[WCGreen]

72. Grandparens...

Grandfather 1890, Grandmother 1896...

Several great Aunts and Uncles in the 1880's through the 1900...

There was a guy who lived on he street I lived for three years who was born in the 1870's. I can't remember his name but he was well into his 80's. He would sit out on his porch and talk to everyone who came by.

My great grandfather's older brother fought in the civil War on the Union side at Getysburgh...

[IDemo]

73. My grandmother was born in 1896 and died in 2002

She wound up in charge of caring for her younger brothers and sisters after her mother died in a snowstorm, trying to get help for a difficult childbirth.

She and my grandfather, who sang in a Vaudeville act, toured with the Houdinis and Harry Blackstone, among others. She and Bess Houdini wound up as friends. She also served as a stand-in for silent film star Nell Shipman on one of her productions in northern Idaho.

[madrchsod]

74. my maternal grandmother was born in 1883

the rest of my grandparents were born before the 1900`s

[Silver Swan]

75. All my grandparents

One grandfather was born in 1881, another 1886. One grandmother was born in 1888 and one in 1893.

But what amazes me to think about is my great aunt, who is still living, was born in 1910, and is now 100. She was my grandfather's much younger sister. Her parents, my great grandparents, were born during the civil war.

[Turbineguy]

76. 1887

My Grandmother. She died in 1969. She saw the earliest automobiles and saw a man walk on the Moon. She survived WWII, her house was shot up in Operation Market Garden. She always looked for the best in things.

[nolabear]

77. Visiting my great-grandparents when I was very small was a trip.

I don't know exactly when they were born but my grandfather was born in 1909. They weren't really his parents, but an aunt and uncle, because his mother died when he was three months old and they "adopted" him. They lived way out in the country in Mississippi (which is the definition of "way out in the country") and I remember bits and pieces of things--they literally had an outhouse and chickens that pecked your butt when you sat on the seat, and a chamber pot in the house (I was probably still young enough so that stuff really stuck with me). We called them Mammy and Big Dad, and my father had fond memories of being on their land, catching and riding the mules he plowed with, hiding in the back seat of the old car and him pretending he didn't know they were there, swimming in the quarry, very Southern Boy. I remember Mammy's rolled-down stockings and that she, like lots of old Southern country women, dipped snuff. I was a sissy girl and caught a lot of teasing for it, but I still love the stories of my apparently very tough women ancestors who... but that's for another time.

[MissHoneychurch]

78. My paternal Great grandmother was born in 1898

she died in 1993. So she was around most of my youth. She was a wonderful person. She lived through so much and still didn't let it pull her down. She lived through WW1 and WW2, she had to leave her home (she lived in Bohemia what is now Czech Republic and had to flee with her daughter and granddaughter after WW2). She lived in 5 different political states: Monarchical Empire, Weimarer Republic, Nazi regine, GDR, Re-united democratic Germany.

[cynatnite]

79. In 1992, I met a woman who was born in 1887...

She was in the hospital where I worked. When I had my break, I spent it in her room and she told me about where she grew up. It was a fantastic talk.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

80. The landlord of the house I lived in my childhood... but I'm not 100% sure.

i remember him turning 80 and I thing that happened before 1980. Probably.

[Bluzmann57]

81. My grandpa was born in 1896

He got married relatively late in his life and I never got a real chance to know him. But I still remember him a little bit. He died in 1973 when I was 15.
Mom's dad. Maternal Grandpa.

[Hayabusa]

82. Closest I got was my great-grandmother

Martha "Nanny" Keeling was born in 1903.

[OmahaBlueDog]

83. My Great Aunt Jesse was born in the 1890s (1896, I think)

She attended the University of Nebraska in the 1920s and SHOCKED her 7DA family by bobbing her hair. She spent most of her adult life in the LA area. She had one son who she fully supported in his self-chosen conversion to Catholicism (over the howling objections of the rest of the family). She had a beautiful Knabbe grand piano, and was generally fun to be around.

She survived a heart attack brought on as the result of a rape attempt in the early 1980s. She passed away in the early 1990s (around 1991, IIRC).

[struggle4progress]

84. All my grandparents were born in the 19th century