Who Lived the Longest (ovaries, cold, dental, heart)

[Sonny3]

Your mother or your grandmother?

My grandmother lived to 95 and my mother died at 77.
My husband's grandmother until 85 and his mother 79.

[irootoo]

My grandmother died at age 85 and my mom died at age 94.

[suzy_q2010]

My mother died at 79 and her mother at 87.
DH's mother at 97 and her mother at 88.

[terracore]

I found it interesting doing genealogy research that life expectancy on the side of my family that has data has been fairly consistent the few hundred years that records exist.

But to answer the question, my grandmother died as a passenger in an auto accident, so my mom outliving her isn't a surprise. My great grandmother lived into her late 90's. She was born in the 1880's in Germany and survived poverty, malnutrition, two world wars, and never had any form of health or dental care to speak of. After the second war she did eventually experience the comforts of electricity and running water, but never used a telephone.

When she found out that we were visiting from America she said that she was going to live long enough to see her great grandchildren. When I met her at about 5-6 years old I was terrified. She was the oldest thing I had ever seen and not only did we speak different languages, she spoke an old German dialect that sounded even more emotional than regular German is perceived by a young American boy. I wish I could go back in time and smack my little kid self and tell me to appreciate meeting her. She died soon after we left.

[djmilf]

Interesting thread, but IMO would be better if the parameters were better defined.

I'm nearing retirement age, and the question for me is figuring out roughly how long I'll live. It would not be a good thing to run out of money when I'm 80 but live to 100. It would also not be a good thing to retire at 70 and die at 71.

Over the past few months I've been playing around in one of those "family tree" web sites, so I have good documentation of the lifespans of my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. My father's side of the family has an average life span of about 86.4 years, my mother's side about 71.7. That's roughly a 15 year difference between the two branches.

Social Security says I'll have about 83.6 years, other online calculators from insurance companies roughly agree, but family history across both branches comes in a little less at 79.6.

[Parnassia]

Originally Posted by djmilf

Interesting thread, but IMO would be better if the parameters were better defined.

This. There are deaths that have nothing to do with unrealized hereditary longevity. The traumatic accident, etc. One of my grandmothers died in her mid 80s of nothing specific..."old age" if you prefer. The other died of some rarer form of leukemia before my father reached adulthood. Both of my grandfathers died in their mid 80s as did my father. My mother died in her early 50s from complications of ALS. I'd call that a statistical outlier.

[KaraG]

My mom is still alive at 85, her mom died at 90.

My paternal grandmother died at 103.

[Travelassie]

My paternal grandmother died at age 73, back in 1960, of complications of emphysema after she got a cold that was going around. I believe she would have lived longer had the medical interventions available these days been available then. My maternal grandmother died in the 1930's at age 42 of cervical cancer.

My mother died at age 93 of pancreatic cancer. It was discovered at an advanced stage, between that and her age, all agreed ( including mom) palliative care, not treatment, was indicated. She died less than a month from the diagnosis. She'd had a pretty healthy life before that.

I'm currently 76, and just feel as though I won't live as long as my mother did. One of my sisters died two years ago at age 73 in her sleep, the cause unknown. My personal belief is that it was likely a pulmonary embolism, which might have been discovered and treated had the hospital where she went to the ER to get treatment for her pneumonia ( it was the weekend, hence the visit to the ER instead of her PCP) admitted her instead of discharging her with a prescription because she didn't have covid.

I have two other siblings that are still alive at ages 73 and 72.

[Sonny3]

I started this thread because with my family and also friends families the grandmothers were living quite a bit longer than their daughters. Often almost a decade longer.
I am quite surprised by this and it may be just a fluke among people I know.

[saibot]

Let's see. My paternal grandmother lived to be 97 and her son, my father, died at 94. I consider that a stastistically pretty insignificant difference and both died of what you might call old age. My father had treatment for several cancers (melanoma, prostate, colon) but they did not kill him. He did not have any sisters to compare their lifespans with their mother.

My maternal grandmother died at 81 from what was probably ovarian cancer, and my mother at 74, of breast cancer and Lewy Body Dementia.

I've already had breast cancer twice--hereditary, confirmed through genetic testing--and am looking at soon having my ovaries removed prophylactically (I'm 54). So with any luck, I hope not to die of either of the cancers that killed my mother and grandmother.

Originally Posted by Parnassia

My mother died in her early 50s from complications of ALS. I'd call that a statistical outlier.

My sister died at 67 of ALS. Until she got this disease, she was the healthiest and most active person I knew. My heart goes out to you with the loss of your mother; it's a terrible way to go, or to see someone go.

My uncle (father's brother) and his wife died in their 60s in an awful car accident.

There's just no way to estimate how long you'll live. You can only guess, based on the often faulty assumption that nothing unexpected will happen to you.