> Wild to think there were people who as adults lived through all of the railroad buildout, WWI, the 20s, the depression, and then WWII.

My great-grandmother was born in the late 1890s and lived until 99 years old. I knew her very well (she died when I was 17).

Her husband died in his sleep: they had a house built and it wasn't finished yet, but he was so excited he decided to sleep a first night in it, alone. Gas leak.

They had two daughters, 4 and 2 years old. My grandmother and my great-aunt, whom I both knew very well too.

I've got a letter signed by Eisenhower, before he was president, thanking my great-grandmother for her "galant service" during WWII: she was part of the resistance and hid, for months, a UK pilot that had been shot down by the nazis over Belgium. Before helping him regain the UK.

They were a though generation, really nothing like the little wussies [1] we see today and I mean it.

[1] the little snowflakes whose feelings shouldn't be hurt do comes to mind