Well, I know they at least met. All four were at my parents’ wedding. I doubt they got much of a chance to get to know each other, though: my parents knew each other slightly less than a year before getting married, and my paternal grandmother died nine months after the wedding.
I suppose it’s *possible *that when I was born my paternal grandfather visited Mom and me in the hospital the same time as her parents did, but I doubt it. He more or less wrote off all six of his kids when their mom died (well, four of the kids’ mother: theirs was a he had two, she had two, and they had two more together later type of second marriage), remarrying within months. I only saw him a handful of times growing up.
I presume three out of the four at least met, though both my Dad’s parents died when I was little, and I don’t remember them at all, and my maternal Grandmother was totally out of the.picture long before my parents met. I don’t believe they really socialised aside from big family events, but Grandpa was friends in later years with my paternal Great Aunt.
I definitely know about my Grandpa’s relationship with my cousins’ other grandparents though, due to a bit of a mishap; Grandpa gave his daughter’s new FIL a rather expensive bottle of whiskey when they first met. Unfortunately, it turned out that Grandpa’s former lodger had actually already drunk said whiskey, and refilled the bottle with tea to approximate the colour. Given Grandpa’s love of practical jokes, and his known obsession with tea, apparently said new FIL never quite believed that it wasn’t intentional.
Grandpa did replace the bottle and apologised, but made no secret of the fact that he thought the whole thing was hilarious, and the relationship between the two was somewhat strained for years afterwards.
Mine never met. My mother’s parents were from Michigan, my father’s from Belfast, Northern Ireland. I’m told that the only time mom ever met her in-laws was when they flew to America for my baptism (which my father’s father performed, being a Methodist minister). But at the time we lived in Philadelphia, and the Michigan grandparents weren’t there for the event.
My father’s father died fairly soon after, and grandma moved to Australia to live with my dad’s sister, dying when I was 10 or so. So my mom’s parents were the only grandparents I ever knew.
Yes, but not until after the fall of the Berlin Wall. My dad was from West Germany, my mom from East. She escaped East Germany in the trunk of a car.
I didn’t see my maternal grandparents until early 1991, when I was 4 going on 5. I don’t remember much about the reunion, except that my mom, dad, and both sets of grandparents were crying heavily. I didn’t know why until I was a bit older.
Yes. Both my grandfathers were farmworkers, and in those days there was a circut of farmhands that would winter in South Texas and then follow each other as the various harvests happened around the year. So they knew each other back in Texas. They seperately settled in eastern Washington State in the 60s, and since newcomers to a region tend to hang out with fellow newcomers from the same area they became quite close friends.
My first reaction, on reading the subject line - was DUH… they were married and had a bunch of kids, including my Mom. Then I realized what you meant.
My paternal grandfather died in a construction accident long before my Dad met my Mom. I know my maternal grandfather died before I was born. I’m not sure if he was around when my parents met, but my parents married less than 6 months after they met and I was born a year later.
I think my grandmothers may have met at some point during the courtship and marriage it I’m under the impression that my Mom didn’t really care much for my Dads mom and vice versa. I think the families on both sides were suspicious because of the whirlwind courtship. My parents stayed together, though and had a good life and a good marriage.
My maternal grandmother died when I was 6, so I’m not sure if this was ever smoothed over. My paternal grandmother had a long life, she died when I was 45. She was 96 and had several great-great grandchildren at the time of her death.
Oh, do you mean did my maternal grandfolks know my paternal? Well yes, yes they did. Met a few times at birthday parties etc. All of them are long gone now.
I had posted earlier in this thread that my grandparents did know each other and were friendly at family gatherings. I remembered something about my grandmothers that I wanted to post here. When I was a kid we always spent Thanksgiving with my Dad’s family. Grandma always made a huge dinner and then we sat around watching football.
My senior year in high school Grandpa had a stroke in October and was still in the hospital on Thanksgiving. Grandma wasn’t up to cooking dinner that year so Mom decided to host dinner that year and invited both sides of the family. Gran (Mom’s mom) was in the kitchen puttering around and she noticed that Grandma seemed a little out of sorts. Grandma wasn’t used to having nothing to do on Thanksgiving. So Gran brought Grandma into the kitchen and had her start peeling potatoes. Mind you, we already had plenty of potatoes, but Gran understood what Grandma was going through and wanted to try to help take her mind off of things.
I still get a warm fuzzy feeling thinking of both of my grandmothers together in my Mom’s kitchen peeling potatoes. We had enough mashed potatoes to feed a football team that year!
My grandparents lived in France and the US West Coast, and to the best of my knowledge neither ever did any intercontinental travel, so no. They knew of and saw pictures of each other, though.
Thanks to advances in technology, and my folks being more amenable to long-distance flights, my son’s grandparents (the ones that were alive when he was born) see each other regularly, and have met in person on several occasions, despite being separated by even longer distances than my grandparents.