My Grandparents were all born in the 1800s. I remember all of them well except my Maternal Grandmother who died when I was 3.
They grew up in a time before there were automobiles, airplanes. Electricity was known but not available anywhere except maybe New York City.
Before they died, they saw jet airplanes, computers, television everywhere and so on. They were around during earthshaking times. WWI, WWII, Communism, atomic warfare. My Grandpa McDuffie who I remember well was born the year the War Between the States ended.
I had a great-great grandmother who was born in 1849 in the days of Upper Canada (she was from King County, north of Toronto) and she lived until 1947. Her husband (my great-great grandfather) drowned in Lake Huron in 1895. But she would have lived through the US Civil War, Canadian Confederation, the building of the Canadian Pacific railway, the Boer War, and both World Wars.
My mom died a few months before she was 103. Her cousin died a few years later at 109. They both remembered the first car, airplane, etc. my mom remembered going to church with her dad to pray for survivors of the Titanic. They both went from horse and wagon or buggy to man on the moon. They are missed.
Most of mine as well. My maternal grandfather was in the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906 when he was a kid.
I have a picture of my German grandfather in his WW1 uniform. Served as a sapper on the Russian Front. During WWII he was a construction superintendent overseeing the building of a section of the coastal defenses at Normandy. Every June 6th I think about our Soldiers wading ashore and my grandfather.
He died in the mid 1980s, at 89 years old. When he was 84 he had his leg amputated and was walking with a prosthetic and a cane within a year. My German grandmother dropped dead while cooking him dinner at the age of 75 in 1973. She still grew all of her vegetables in a rather large garden and bartered veggies for eggs and other items
My sister and I were his only grandchildren and he paid for us to fly over every other year to visit.