Lex Anteinternet: I had always thought my grandfather on my mother's...: but it turns out, he died in 1958. He was, therefore, about 67 years of age. Still not ancient by current standards, but not 58 years of age...
Carrying this forward, or over, or whatever it would be just a bit, my father's father died on October 9, 1949. He was 47. I'd been told by one of my aunts that it was on her birthday, but it was the day after her birthday when he died. Close enough to burn in an indelible mark, I'm sure.
That aunt was born in 1931, which would have made her 17 or 18 at the time of his death.
His youngest son, my father's brother, was born in 1936, which would have made him 12 or 13, which is a bit older than I recalled. It's still pretty young, however. My father was born in 1929, which would have made him 19 or 20, older than I recalled, but it makes sense in context. In both these instances, I think it's the younger age, 12 and 19, that would be correct. My father would have just completed junior college, as they called it at the time. His oldest sister, born in 1926 (the same year my mother was born) had been married three years and was living in Nebraska. She was the only married sibling, naturally enough, at the time.
My married aunt would come back to Casper when her husband graduated from dental school. He'd grown up at least partially in Nebraska, but had strong Casper family connections, but I'm not sure how that had come about.
My other aunt would go on to the University of Wyoming, something unusual for the time. She didn't graduate. I never thought much of that, but as the family story developed following her death the rest of us ultimately learned of a trauma that would have been about the time of her senior year there, so her failure to graduate, surprising for an extremely intelligent women, make sense.
My father's mother died in 1973, she was 71 at the time. That'd definitely older than I recalled (I had thought it was 65). Somewhat unusually, both she and my father's father were born in the same year, 1901, making them about a decade younger than my mother's parents. They married in 1923, when then both would have been 21 or 22. It's interesting that the oldest of their children wasn't born until 1926, which at that time was a little bit of a delay.
I would have been ten when she died. I can definitely recall it, and having been up at the hospital while she was ill.
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