Did/do your grandparents know each other?

Mine couldn’t have. My dad’s parents were both dead before he met my mom.

How about yours?

Hell no.

Long story.

They did. They didn’t get together often, just on the very rare family gathering that brought them all together, like the wedding of my parents, and maybe a birthday or two of mine.

I was the only grandchild for my mom’s folks, but one of 36 grandkids for my dad’s folks.

Do you mean before my parents met? Then, no. After my parents met, then yes. They were all alive until I was in my mid-twenties.

They would have met each other, but they lived in different states, and my parents weren’t together for very long, so they certainly wouldn’t have met each other often.

My dad and my mum lived on the same block in Estevan Sask, with just a back alley between them, and went to the same schools, so yes. :slight_smile:

However, the grandparents didn’t socialise much, because one set was Anglican/wet/Conservative and the other set was Presbyterian/dry/Liberal. Those distinctions meant something back then! :smiley:

no. my mother’s parents lived in Germany, and visited the US once, in the 60’s.

My dad’s parents were from rural Mississippi and never left there, AFAIK.

Incidentally, I have 2 sets of grandkids. I knew and loved the grandparents of one set, but they are both deceased now. Of the other set, one grandparent is deceased ( I adored him, seriously, so much), but I am semi-friends with the survivor and her new husband. I’d be better friends but she thinks I am beneath her social status, but, you know, whatever.

My mother’s father died before my mother and father met, but the other three grandparents met?

I’m not sure if my mother’s parents met my father’s father (who died soon after my parents got together), but they knew his mother and stepfather. Got along fairly well, although they probably wouldn’t have socialized without the connection.

Doubtful. My parents got married in 1935. By then, my father’s father had been dead for 20 years. His wife died in 1936, so may have met the in-laws.

Pretty much the same here. I don’t think there was any ill will between my maternal and paternal grandparents; they just didn’t have much occasion to get together after my parents’ wedding.

Both sets of my grandparents lived in Wisconsin, about 100 miles apart – my paternal grandparents were in Green Bay, while my maternal grandparents were in Port Washington, north of Milwaukee.

I know that they met at least once, because all four of them are in the pictures from my parents’ wedding. But, by that point, my paternal grandfather was disabled (the result of an auto accident several years earlier), and my paternal grandmother didn’t drive. As the wedding was in suburban Chicago (about a 4-hour drive from Green Bay), I’m not sure of how they got to the wedding (I’m guessing that another relative drove them down). As they didn’t generally travel by then, I don’t know that they ever met my other grandparents other than on that one occasion.

My dad’s parents lived in central Louisiana. Mom’s parents lived in southern Arkansas, 35 miles from the Louisiana border.

They met a handful of times. My paternal grandfather was 16 years older than my mom’s dad. Oddly, they died with a few years of each other in the early 1970’s.

My dad’s mom was the oldest surviving grandparent. She was a 102 and died in 1997.

In the case of my own children, the first family, the grandmothers became very good friends, lived 100 miles apart, paid visits all their lives. Second family, the grandparents lived inn different countries, met before we were married, were house guests during a week long visit. But never saw each other again, but I think kept in touch with greeting cards.

I think the only two times they crossed paths were at my parents’ wedding and then when I was born.

They knew each. They were not friends. It’s not like they hated each other or anything. They just lived in different towns and had no reason to see each other except at the occasional large family gathering.

My paternal grandfather died before my parents met, but my paternal grandmother and my other set of grandparents all attended the wedding. It was the only time they met, living in different parts of the country as they did.

My maternal grandmother knew my Dad’s parents quite well. (My maternal grandfather died when my Mom was very young, and never got the chance to meet my Dad’s parents.)

Mom may not have been “the girl next door,” but she was certainly “the girl five doors down.” The families were neighbours on the same street, and Mom’s mother and my Dad’s parents were on a first-name basis, as neighbours were in those days. They always got along well at family gatherings.

Mine were. Mom had been buddies with Dad’s younger brother in high school and both sets of grandparents had met at school activities.

In later years, whenever my maternal grandparents drove out to visit with us, they would pick up my paternal grandmother and bring her along. (My paternal grandfather had passed away by then).

Not only did they know each other; two of them actually married each other.

Years before my parents’ marriage, my maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather died. Years after my parents’ marriage, my paternal grandmother and my maternal grandfather married. They were the only grandparents I ever knew.