Can you top this family oddity?? (sister, grandma, abuse, wife)
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We took family pictures (including extended) last night by generation and it reminded us of the age gaps in our family.
My generation involves family that ranged from ages 54 to 20. The 20 year old cousin of mine is actually the aunt of 6 other cousins. All 6 of those next-generation cousins are 21 and older. They all can hit the bar and have a drink while their aunt is not legal drinking age. A few have finished college and their aunt just started.
Furthermore, her half sister was also in that picture. She is one of the older ones in the picture... Almost 50 I'm guessing. She has two daughters. So my 20 year old cousin's nieces are about the same age as her.
The next largest gap that I recall is my brother and I... 14 years.
My grandmother was the youngest child of a large family that included five children by my g-grandfather's first marriage and nine more by his second marriage (after he was widowed) to my g-grandmother. Born in 1869, my grandmother was an aunt as soon as she was born, as several of her older half-sisters were married and young mothers themselves. Her own youngest child, my mother, was born in 1907 (very long generations in my family, and my mother followed the same pattern with me).
There were 25 years between my own eldest first cousin and me, and I had two first cousins once removed (one living) older than I am. I am the youngest grandchild and so the youngest first cousin of my generation. Sadly, we're down to just four first cousins now, after losing four of our older first cousins in the last five years. I am thankful to have first cousins once removed near my own age - we played together as kids and share lots of memories and remain close.
So - there were 38 years (my grandmother's age at my mother's birth) between the eldest grandchildren of my g-grandfather (step grandchildren of my g-grandmother and half-nieces or nephews of my grandmother when she was born) and the youngest grandchild, my mother (I think there may have been some grandchildren a little younger than my mother - there were so many that she never met all her first cousins, sadly).
My MIL, the oldest of fourteen, was having children while her parents were still having children. This resulted in a number of cases where the nieces and nephews were older than their aunts and uncles.
Her seven boys were born over a period of twenty-five years so that the youngest scarcely knew the oldest. I can't remember how long it was but once my sisters-in-law and I figured out the span of her life she had spent washing diapers (in two wringer washers.) It was enough to make you shudder.
A few examples from my family, although I'm not sure they would count as "oddities"....
- my mom has an aunt who's only seven years older than her, and an uncle who is five years older. (Grandma Jane was the oldest child in her family, and was a teen when both of her youngest siblings were born)
- my daughter's boyfriend has twin brothers who are older than I am. (I'm in my late 30s, they're in their 40s)
My father's four daughters were born many years apart. I'm the oldest, born when he was 33 (I'm 39 now). His youngest was born when he was 51 Another odd coincidence: my mother, his ex-wife, and my stepmother, the mother of my other sisters, are both 12 years younger than him.
There's a lot of remarriages and accident babies in my families. It's not uncommon to see two children playing in my maternal family and think they're siblings/cousins, but they're aunt/niece, aunt/nephew, uncle/niece, or uncle/nephew. I don't deal much with them now, but my mom's cousin is much younger than her and just five years older than me. I would just tell people she was my cousin instead of my mom's cousin. My great aunt is only 9 years older than my mom. My one direct cousin is 3 years older than her nephew, because she was born while her mom was going through menopause and her sister had a baby when she was a teenager. One of my great aunts, who has since past, had a baby after her husband died. Her daughter passed it off as her child in the early 60s.
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Another odd coincidence: my mother, his ex-wife, and my stepmother, the mother of my other sisters, are both 12 years younger than him.
