Chief Accountant of a Palo Alto Company and Her Children Murdered by Russian Troops in Ukraine.

[DFW]

9. My mom in law was born when her mother was 48, and her brothers were already almost grown

Three of them were killed in World War II, the last one while about 5 KM from his home on the way retreating to home. She was 17 when the war ended, "city folk" who had nothing to eat in 1945, but got some help from her future husband, who lived on a farm. He got a leg blown off at age 18 near Stalingrad, but still had access to food. He eventually studied banking and worked the rest of his life at a rural bank extending loans to other farmers. Despite their traumatic experiences, none of them had any ambition to invade a neighboring country, or seize for themselves five per cent of the wealth of their own country.

Her mom survived, obviously, although she and her schoolmates had to regularly jump from the road to school into ditches on the sides, while planes regularly went on strafing runs from above. My wife and I are actually the first generation of our family since the 19th century that was not called into, or involved in an armed conflict of some kind.