# How old would the oldest person you knew well be if he or she were still alive? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 9, 2008, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773 "2008-03-09T22:24:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JimOfAllTrades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@JimOfAllTrades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimOfAllTrades)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/21 "2008-03-10T01:52:47Z")
My maternal grandfather died in 1976 shortly after his 88th (and my 20th) birthday. He’d be 120 if he was still alive. ---
**Author:** ![VernWinterbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c67d28/32.png) [@VernWinterbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VernWinterbottom)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/22 "2008-03-10T02:35:48Z")
I’m turning 50 in a month or so. My great grandfather, born in 1874, died when I was six. He’d be 134 this year. Because my parents were both oldest children, married at 20 and 21, and I was their firstborn a year later, I was fortunate enough to have three great grandmothers and a great grand father living when I was born. I have memories of all four. I was almost nine when the last of them died. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/23 "2008-03-10T03:38:16Z")
She still is. My great aunt is almost 101. She was the second eldest of her and her siblings, and her older sister died before I was born. I never knew any of my great-grandparents. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/24 "2008-03-10T03:39:23Z")
My great-grandmother was born in 1875 and, as a young girl, crossed from Minnesota to Oregon in a covered wagon (or so she said). So she would be 133 this year. She died in her late '90’s, so sometime after 1970. I was already an adult by then. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/25 "2008-03-10T03:44:08Z")
My paternal great-great grandfather was born in 1887 and died in 1991. I met him once when I was too young to remember and once when I was 9 or 10. He was quite a guy. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/26 "2008-03-10T05:00:15Z")
I’m 25. My great-grandparents all died before I was born, as best I can tell. (One of my maternal GGMs died in 1982, but I don’t know what month; if we suppose she died after I was born I guess she would be in her eleventeens or 120s.) So the answer is probably my still-living maternal grandparents. They’re both 87. ETA: I had a great-uncle on my father’s side who I actually did meet a few times. He must have been older, but I don’t know how old he was offhand. Supposedly he played for Boston or Baltimore in one of the pre-NBA basketball leagues. EATA: Holy crap, it’s true! He played for Boston in the 1930s, and died in 1998 at age 85. So Uncle Sam would be about 95 today. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/27 "2008-03-10T05:14:58Z")
Wow, am I glad I happened on this thread. I found a 20-year-old New York Times article about his team! [Sam was the center.](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEFDA1539F93BA25750C0A961948260) He must have been six feet tall at most, and an obit from the Miami Herald said he was a passer and not a scorer. I can shoot pretty well, but unfortunately I didn’t inherit the height. > [@](#): > > Only Sam Kaplan, the center, went on to play professional ball on teams like Kate Smith’s Celtics, sponsored by the popular radio singer, that were dominated by Jewish players from the urban centers. > > […] > > Over near a pushcart-like stand from which real teen-agers dispensed egg creams, charlotte russes and penny candy, Sam Kaplan, the host, held forth on why this year’s reunion was important. > > Their stretch of Stone Avenue in the old neighborhood is now Mother Gaston Boulevard, the name changed to honor a black community worker and organizer, Mr. Kaplan said. Therefore, he was dedicating a dirt lane on his three-acre property south of Miami and naming it Stone Avenue. With the other old teammates looking on, he sank a street marker in the grass and dirt beneath tall pine trees and a lush live oak tree. ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/28 "2008-03-10T05:27:42Z")
Like Sampiro, I have been intrigued by generational overlap. My maternal grandfather was born, as he used to say, on 9/9/90, that being 1890. He lived to until March 1986, at age 95. He ran cattle on his place until he was 90. He would be 128 in September. But it was his mother, my great-grandmother, that I also remember. I’ll be 59 next month, and she was born in 1861 and lived to be 98, clear-minded until the end. It’s amazing to me that I knew someone (though she’s been gone for nearly 50 years now) who was born when Abraham Lincoln was still alive and the Civil War was raging. She would be 147 this year. I named my daughter Amanda after her. And one more that boggles my mind, though it goes beyond the OP. Thanks to the 19th century development of photography, I have a photograph of my paternal great-great-great grandfather, who enjoyed the given name Hubbard. He was born in 1804. Though he died in the 1880s, before my grandfather was even born, it is fascinating to me to have a portrait of a relative born when Thomas Jefferson was president, Napoleon ruled France and Lewis and Clark set out on their journey. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/29 "2008-03-10T05:42:36Z")
Our family has a history of having children _very_ late in life, which makes this an interesting exercise for me: My paternal grandmother (who lived to 107 and who I knew well when I was a child) would be 127 today. (Born in 1881.) Her father was a Confederate veteran, who had been wounded and disabled in the [battle of Gaines Mill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaines'_Mill). ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/30 "2008-03-10T06:02:15Z")
My maternal grandfather (who was also my paternal step-grandfather) would have been 128. My paternal grandmother (who was also my maternal step-grandmother would have been around the same age. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/31 "2008-03-10T06:19:53Z")
My great-grandmother was born in 1895, so she would be 113 now. She passed away at 101, after living in her own house until she was 99. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/32 "2008-03-10T07:46:00Z")
One of my grandmothers was born in 1888–so she would be 120 this coming September. She taught school in a one-room schoolhouse when she was a teenager, and after that, eventually married the man who was to be my grandfather. It doesn’t sound so unusual to us today, but my Dad was born when my grandmother was in her 40s. He was a healthy baby; she was a healthy Mom. Way to go, Granma! She remembered reading in the daily papers about such things as the Titanic sinking and the growth of the telephone (at one point, her brother lived next door and he had a telephone, so obviously she had no need of one in her house). Of course, she was an expert on WWI (her brother-in-law–my great uncle–was in the thick of it), and WWII–her relatives and mine are commemorated in war cemeteries in Canada and Europe. She enjoyed radio programs, but television wasn’t very popular with her. Yes, it was nice to see the stars she had heard for years on the radio (like Bob Hope, for example), but television wasn’t as much fun as the picture that radio created in her mind. My own memories of her are precious. She loved to bake cookies for her grandson, and I loved eating them. As I got older, she shared more “confidences” with me, most involving my Dad when he was a kid. Granma and I laughed a lot as she would tell me these stories; my Dad laughed too, but not always happily. Never mind, he was, I think, secretly pleased that I was learning family lore from the expert. I still have the photo of my Granma’s last Christmas. She must have been about 92 at the time. She was constantly in a home at the time and we had given her a shawl that she could use to keep warm as she went about her activities in the home. The photo shows her proudly wearing her shawl, with a devilish little grin on her face. What were you planning, Granma–I can only guess, but I’m sure it was fun. That was about December and she would pass away the following October. But that’s the Granma I remember best. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/33 "2008-03-10T07:55:28Z")
I’m 41. My great grandmother was alive when I was a little kid, her father had been in the confederate army and she was born some time after the war. She would be somewhere around 130ish if she were alive. My dad was born in 1929, when he was a kid there were still some civil war veterans in veteran’s day parades and the father of the family on the farm next door had been born a slave. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/34 "2008-03-10T14:28:51Z")
My main caretaker until she died when I was eight years old was my great-great grandmother. There are any number of pictures around showing five generations of us. She died in 1950 at age 98, which would make her be 156 this year and also makes me 65 :eek: . “Granny” hid on a sailboat departing from Germany when she was 16 years old and traveled to the US alone to seek her fame and fortune. Or so the story was told. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/35 "2008-03-10T14:46:05Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] Our family has a history of having children _very_ late in life, which makes this an interesting exercise for me: My paternal grandmother (who lived to 107 and who I knew well when I was a child) would be 127 today. (Born in 1881.) Her father was a Confederate veteran, who had been wounded and disabled in the [battle of Gaines Mill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaines'_Mill). [/QUOTE] I should add that _his_ father was a veteran of the War of 1812. So I am only four generations away from the War of 1812. Our family is still a little pissed at the British. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/36 "2008-03-10T16:15:05Z")
[QUOTE=John Carter of Mars] My main caretaker until she died when I was eight years old was my great-great grandmother. There are any number of pictures around showing five generations of us. She died in 1950 at age 98, which would make her be 156 this year and also makes me 65 :eek: . “Granny” hid on a sailboat departing from Germany when she was 16 years old and traveled to the US alone to seek her fame and fortune. Or so the story was told. [/QUOTE] Wow – these stories are so wonderful! Mine is less dramatic. I remember my great-aunt, who was born in 1900, so 108 I all I can muster. My grandmother, her sister, was 16 years younger … and the two of them had older sisters who were grown and had families of their own when my grandmother was a girl. I never met any of them, but I used to like to think of them … my relatives, who my grandmother knew, born in the 1800s! A marvel to my young mind. I _feel_ like I know, through geneological research, my husband’s great-grandfather, who served in the Confederate Army. He was the first of five generations with the same first name (which is very unusual, so I won’t list it here!). The fifth one is my son. So if I’m of a historical mind, I think of that Confederate soldier when I look at my little 3-year-old son. ---
**Author:** ![beanpod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9adbd/32.png) [@beanpod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beanpod)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/37 "2008-03-10T16:48:09Z")
My great grandmother was born in 1910, so she would have been 98 this year. She died at 85. I was 13. (My family breeds quickly.) People called her “granny” to irritate her, until they taught _me_ how to say it, and from then on, of course, granny she happily was. She buried two husbands, one to TB when she had a toddler, the other to stomach cancer with a house full of half grown kids. My mom says she remembers when granny would get up at 4am, kill two chickens and fry them and bake bread from scratch, all for breakfast (a family of 10 farmers). The mind boggles. I just about manage to cook dinner 4 nights a week. I remember her helping us play ball in her living room, and I remember how she cooked. Not the taste, but the way she used her ancient butcher knife for everything and gestured with it in her hands, flinging pieces of cabbage around the kitchen. Never saw her cut herself, even though she was legally blind for her last 15 years. We bought her a Salad Shooter once, but it sat on the shelf and collected dust. (Scared the crap out of all of us. She was on blood thinner!) By god, her homemade coleslaw was gonna be _homemade._ Now when I’m cooking and talking, I catch myself gesturing with the knife… ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/38 "2008-03-10T17:16:41Z")
Mine are similar to yours, **Sampiro** - I’m 28, my grandmother was 91 when she died during (but not related to) that very exciting flood Albany, GA had in 1994, so she’d be 101 now. Her husband was born in the 19th century. She certainly had known plenty of people who held the Civil War in living memory. My dad is 76 and he and his older sisters remember quite well when the lights went _on_ in Georgia. ETA - when we watch shows like _Deadwood_ we’re always amazed just to think about it - you know, Richardson’s dad probably remembered the Revolution. Those people who went to the _Gone with the Wind_ premiere wore their grandmothers’ hoopskirts. The pyramids were as ancient to Cleopatra as she is to us. ---
**Author:** ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/39 "2008-03-10T17:47:40Z")
I have never really had contact with anyone in my family-- I believe one grandmother lived to be nearly 100, and I was alive when others who were similarly old were about… but I have no proof of having met them. So… My mom used to take me to visit a woman named Elsie when I was a kid. Started out with Elsie living alone in her own home, ended with her living alone in a nursing home, with a cardboard fold-together “dresser” in the corner of her room, holding the few possessions she still had left. And, at the time, I was a little kid and just would hug Elsie and sit there while my mom talked to her, wonder about her scratchy face, and not really think about the situation. I still don’t know exactly who she was in relation to my mom-- an old family friend, a godmother, someone from church. This thread made me wonder a little about her, though I’ve actually thought of her a bit over the years… I just did a little searching. I knew how to say her last name, but not how to spell it. A couple of educated guesses later, and I think I turned up a record. Born April 17, 1898, died April 11, 1992. The bits of detail with her record look right. I think it’s her, and I sit her a little sad: I knew someone born in the 19th century, and I was just too dumb at the time to know, care, or ask questions. Damn. She’d be about to turn 120. Still, in retrospect, I guess that’s not terribly old; I’d thought she’d died much earlier… she was around when I was living on my own. God… I should have visited. I think I’m going to call my mom tomorrow, and ask her just who Elsie was. Ought to be an interesting conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773/40 "2008-03-10T18:12:02Z")
My great-grandmother on my mother’s side died at age 100 in 1976, making her born in 1876, meaning she would be 132 today. Supposedly she was born on a boat on the way over from Ireland. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-would-the-oldest-person-you-knew-well-be-if-he-or-she-were-still-alive/440773.md?page=3)