They’re not even in-laws, really: Panache’s dad’s father-in-law and his(?) mom’s mother-in-law.
The only “great” I ever met was my great-grandmother - my mother’s father’s mother. I only met her once; I was 9 or 10, she was a tiny old Hungarian lady in a wheelchair who didn’t speak English. She did, however, give me a fig she’d grown and watched me eat it. (I said it tasted like Fig Newtons. Luckily, she didn’t understand. ;))
I never met any of my great grandparents. My father’s father’s father was still alive back in Ireland when I was born in 1961, but my other great grandparents had already passed on, and he died while I was only 2 or 3.
However, I feel very fortunate to have been close to all four of my grandparents.
My father’s mother’s mother lived to be 92 and died when I was 20. She was a regular part of my life, but she had had a stroke before I was born and although she was able to get around, she was not mentally sharp. Both her first husband (my great-grandfather) and her second husband died before I was born. My father’s father’s parents died well before I was born.
My mother’s father’s parents apparently babysat me when I was a baby, but I don’t remember them, they both died when I was young. My mother’s mother’s father died when I was young, but I never met him. My mother’s mother’s mother died before I was born.
Perhaps you should add a choice for “Never met IRL but talked on the phone”.
According to the results so far, just a hair under half have met one of their great-grandmothers, which I find mildly astonishing.
The one great-grandfather whose life story I know the best, and who handed down my surname, died about 30 years before I was born. (I have the exact date in a book, but don’t remember it off the top of my head.) He’d have to have lived to 116 to have learned of my existence. To the best of my knowledge, all the others died in that general time frame, well before I was born, even though most or all of them were a bit younger than the first one I mentioned.
I knew one great-grandmother. I visited with her whenever we went back to my parents’ hometown, so she was a regular, though not frequent, part of my life. She died when I was in my early teens.
I did not know any of my great-grandfathers.
3/4 of my dad’s grandparents were around for me. One died when I was in diapers. The other pair hung on until my teens. They were separated around retirement age. My oldest brother has a 5 generation picture with his firstborn. I recall meeting mom’s grandmas sister and brother. Mom’s dad came from Europe and didn’t bring any family. Rumor has it he was here at the start of WWI and wasn’t allowed to return.
My grandparents were all dead before my siblings or I were born. My great-grandparents were long passed.
I only ever met my mother’s mother’s mother. It was her ninety-seventh birthday and I was too young to remember the occasion.
I only knew one of my great grandparents, but Granny was a very regular part of my life. Until I was 7, my parents, maternal grandparents, and my maternal grandmother’s mother lived in different houses on the same farm. I regularly spent the day or night with her, and collected the eggs or helped in the garden or just pretended to sew doll clothes while Granny repaired hems or pieced a quilt. She was not a demonstrative lady, but in her conservative way, Granny was a very loving and indulgent grandmother. She had a stroke when she was 88, and spent the rest of her life in the nursing home, but I saw her a couple of times a week until her death when I was 10.
My other greats died before I was born - Granny’s husband in 1928, and all were dead by 1960. (Both of my parents and 3 of my grandparents were youngest children, and my father was a midlife baby for his own parents, so it’s honestly a little surprising that I knew the one as long as I did - she was 37 when my grandmother was born. But the women in my family tend to live forever. My own grandmother died last month, almost 91 years old, my other grandma was 97 when she died, Granny was 92, etc.)
I know I met one great-grandmother, but I was an infant at the time, so it really doesn’t count; all I have is one picture of us together. The rest were all gone before I was born. It’s not really all that surprising–my grandparents were mostly at the tail end of large families, and one was an orphan by the time she was 12. Most of them were gone decades before I was born.
Three of my great-grandmothers I knew quite well. One came over from Norway in 1902 and died at age 99 when I was 16, another lived until I was 20, and one survived until I was 31. However, all my great-grandfathers and one great-grandmother passed away before I was born.
This is how it was was with me. The ggf I mentioned was born in 1842, and his son, my paternal gf was born in 1890. He was the second to last child to be born in that family and there was one more child after that. When she was born, ggf was fifty-one.
Moreover, this sort of thing happened in my line, going all the way back. If I go back eleven generations, it’s 1640 and my g**9-gf is making the slow and difficult crossing by sailing vessel from the Netherlands.
To the best of my knowledge, seven of my eight great-grandparents were deead before I was born in 1956. My paternal grandfather died when my dad was three (he’s eighty-five now), and he was raised by his widowed mother and her mother-in-law. That woman had been born in 1876 in Ripon, CA, and celebrated her eightieth birthday two months after I was born.
When we went on summer vacations to San Francisco, one day would always be devoted to a drive out to the retirement home in San Rafael where we would visit the sweet old lady with the charm bracelet that had somewhere north of thirty medallions, each shaped like the head of a child in profile, and engraved with the name and birthday of one of her great-grandchildren.
Also, every Christmas, each great-grandchild received a hand-knitted pair of slippers (I loved those slippers).
She passed away some time during the first half of 1980, IIRC, at the age of 103.
I think one Great Grandmother was still alive when I was born, though not for long at all. My Dad had me in his late 20s, but he had a much older brother who had his first at 18, so she certainly lived to be a Great-Great-Grandmother to one of my cousin’s kids, possibly two, though I don’t think they ever left Australia, and she never left Britain, so they never met.
I also had a Step-Great-Grandmother who was around a while longer, but my Mum didn’t like her much, so our side of the family didn’t have much to do with her. I know I was taken to see her as a tiny, but maybe just the once.
I only met one Grandparent that I remember, my Grandad who was very much part of my life until he died in my 20s, though I still had a Grandmother until 3 years ago who I only ever spoke to once, and never met. The other two died before I was 3.
'Twas actually a whoosh, but admittedly a lame one.
Nope. Barely knew my grandparents. I could not even name a single great-grandparent. My paternal grandparents were immigrants, and I don’t even know if their parents stayed in Europe or came to the US. Maternal grandparents were estranged from their families, so never met anyone other than their descendants (my aunts, uncles and first cousins). Do not know if their parents were alive when I was born.
Supposedly I met my mother’s mother’s mother when I was an infant, and she died a few years later. Neat trivia – she was married to a Canadian business tycoon (my great grandfather) who opened an art gallery in Saskatchewan, and their daughter (my great aunt) married B-movie star Cameron Mitchell.
I never even met my maternal grandparents! My MGM (maternal grandmother) died 9 months before I was born and I carry her first name with one slight alteration.
Curiously I met and remember my paternal great great aunt who was born in 1876. She died at age 90 in 1966 when I was 8. Her death impacted me greatly and I remember grieving for a long time after she died.
My mother’s maternal grandmother died when I was 13; I knew her quite well, there is even a picture of “4 generations”; I wish my sister had had such a picture taken as well, 4 generations of women, that would have been awesome; but we lived in a different province for most of the time she was alive after my sister’s birth.
Rest of the seven were dead, in some cases decades before I was born; my father only saw 1 of his grandparents.