We cannot say for certain if some people back then heard of God or not, but we do have God's promise that He placed knowledge of Himself, His laws and of good and evil in us all. As such, we must believe that He did it for a reason, not for the heck of it, and those who possibly never heard of Him were guilty of not seeking, rather than innocent by virtue of ignorance - unless back then, like today, ignorance was a virtue.
As to why you were so lucky, well, perhaps you can thank your parents, and their parents, and all your ancestors who kept the faith and handed it down from generation to generation, as you are expected to do for your children and so on.
Thanks again for your reply. I don't want to go on forever, but I just want to comment on the above.
You seem to be saying, that in the time of the old law, men could read the natural law written on their hearts by God, and at least believe in him, and serve him according to this natural law. In doing so, they could avoid ending up with Cain in hell, and therefore, be saved - without water baptism and outside the Church in the formal sense. Is the correct, or does this contradict the proclamations of the Church regarding EENS?
If this is correct, it is entirely logical to progress this forward past the day of Pentecost (the promulgation of the new law), through the ages when the pagans were not yet evangelised, and even to the present day. These may well be exceptions that God, and God alone can take care of, but one problem is that people put the exceptions in the place of the de fide teachings of the Church and use them instead.
I actually heard that the preparatory documents of Vatican II included the issue of the destination of unbaptised infants (from memory). Given what actually came out of the Council, it's probably providential that issue was dropped - the work of the Holy Spirit at the Council? :-)