[tan]Generation Gap

[Cho Da]

From the age of parents thread:

What was the average age of your grandparents when you were born? Assume none of them had died yet.

Comment if one set was significantly older or younger than the other.

[MG]

Originally Posted by Puck

Assume none of them had died yet.

Actually, that's still a safe assumption in my case. All four grandparents are still alive.

My grandparents ranged in age from 38 (going on 39) to 44/45 (not sure of my oldest grandfather's exact age) when I was born.

[Cho Da]

Originally Posted by MG

Actually, that's still a safe assumption in my case. All four grandparents are still alive.

One of mine died 8.5 months before I was born. The oldest at my birth was 73, and the youngest 53. Sadly, all four are now dead.

[Franchise]

One of my grandmothers had passed away before I was born, but my grandfather remarried (also before I was born). Now, my step grandmother and other grandmother are still alive, but both grandfathers have died.

[Loner]

Originally Posted by MG

Actually, that's still a safe assumption in my case. All four grandparents are still alive.

My grandparents ranged in age from 38 (going on 39) to 44/45 (not sure of my oldest grandfather's exact age) when I was born.

Wow.
My mom was 38 going on 39, and Dad was 42 going on 43. They had another three years later too. My father said nothing to keep you young like having a four-year-old when you're 50.
My mother was aghast to be approached at a PTA meeting by a mother who had gone to school with my older sister.

My grandparents were born in 1893/1896, and the last two made it to 1970 and 1972. So they saw horse and buggy as a regular mode of transportation AND the moon landing in their lifetimes.
At least one great-grandparents born before 1850 too.

I'm not sure what this says about my clan's attractiveness that it generally takes the members so long to reproduce(though in fairness, my mother had 4 kids before me, she was a fourth child, and HER mother was one of 11 or so)...But the Irish typically marry quite late.

[Loner]

I went to college with a guy whose father and mother were 17/18 when he was born, and his DAD's parents were 16/17 when HE was born. So one set of his grandparents were both under 35 at his birth. Yet both the guy's parents managed to finish college and get master's degrees(I think it helped that they were all geniuses, except when it came to figuring out how to use birth control). This guy went on to have a son at 22, and be the first in the family to actually get married before the kid was conceived.

[Ozric Tentacles]

No significant gap between *sets* of GPs. On one side the wife is 9 years younger. It made more of a difference when they were 19 and 28 than it does now, at 81 and 90. Both are pretty much on their death beds, though.

The other set are ~5 yrs apart, though, and seem to be in pretty good health, at (I think) 78 and 83. I have one step-grandparent left, but his brain is stuck somewhere in the late 1980s...

[Polly Nomial]

Jeez. I had to guess on all of my grandparents' ages. I remember only one grandma's birthday and she never discussed her age.

[Mr. Penguin]

I used only my paternal grandparents. My mother was orphaned at an early age and I really have no idea how old they were at the time.

[wally world]

I had never really thought of this before....

The only grandparent that is still alive (my dad's mom) celebrated her 80th birthday a few months ago, and I just turned 31, so she must have been 48 going on 49 when I was born.

My mom's mom and dad were born in 1908 and 1909 respectively. They had the same birthday and were exactly one year apart. And their birthday was actually the day after mine. So they would have been 62 and 61 when I was born, but turned 63 and 62 the next day. Sadly, my grandfather passed away about six months after I was born.

My dad's dad, even more sadly, died when my dad was only 12 and while grandma was pregnant with number 7. So I never knew him. I don't know how old he was, but I think he was quite a bit older than my grandma, who I believe was 17 when they got married. I think he was like 10 years older than she was.