Back in 2011, I noted here the surprising fact that 10th US President John Tyler (a man born in 1790) had two living grandchildren: Lyon Tyler, Jr. (b. 1924), and Harrison Ruffin Tyler (b. 1928).

This is, of course, only possible because President Tyler had many children between two wives; his oldest schild was born in 1815, but his youngest wasn’t born until 1860. The surviving grandchildren are sons of Lyon Gardiner Tyler, his fifth child from his second wife. Lyon Sr. was born in 1853 — when Tyler the elder was about 63.

Further, Lyon Sr. had these surviving sons quite late as well: he was about 71 and 73 for their arrivals. But that’s the kind of age spread you need to have living people with grandfathers born during the Washington Administration.

Lyon Jr. sadly passed away only about a year after that post, and just now I read that Harrison died this past weekend at the age of 96.

Over at Kottke’s site, he has a page devoted to The Great Span — cases where the scale of consecutive human lives put us in closer mental proximity to the events of the past (like, say, when we realize Tyler still had living grandchildren until last week). It’s a good read. On post, about The Betty White Timeline of Human History, discusses how far back certain events were using White’s lifetime (99 years) as a unit. For example, the fall of the Roman Empire was only 16 Bettys ago. We’ve only been writing for about 52 Bettys.

This same page points out the story of Daniel Smith, a DC area man who was the son of a slave and yet was profiled in the Washington Post in 2020.