How many people in this world are lucky enough to know their great great grandchildren? There was a time when it would have been impossible. People didn't live to be very old and they were lucky if the lived long enough to raise their own children. Today this is not the case. As longevity has improved, it's common for multiple generations of a family to co-exist. But how common is five generations, even today?
In our family, Claire met her great great grandfather Joe Lawrence, Rick's great grandfather. Sylvie and Caitlin, our granddaughters, know their father's great grandmother, Elizabeth Davies.
Elizabeth, born in England, started school when she was four and continued until she was fourteen. She left and did a trade in dress making. You could leave school if you had a job.
The third woman in her family to see five generations, which is most unusual, Elizabeth is older than either her mother or grandmother before her when they achieved that milestone. For Elizabeth, the five generations reach from the early half of the last century to this one. If her great great grandchildren live as long as she does, they will live into the twenty-second century, a span of almost two hundred years for that family and possibly as many as ten generations.
Mind boggling!
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