My great-grandmother--the only one I knew--died when I was 9 years old. She was in her 70s. To a young child, as I was, she was very old. She was a very short woman, standing only 4'9" tall. She also was, by ANYONE'S definition, fat--she couldn't have weighed much less than 200 pounds. And she spoke only Finnish, as she had been born in Finland. (But why she didn't learn English is a mystery--she lived in the US for about 60 years!) For some reason or other, she was my true example of an old lady--as if I didn't KNOW any others. (For all I can recall, maybe I DIDN'T know any other women as old as she was.)
As a child, I believed that every woman, when she became 'old', would suddenly become short, fat, and speak only Finnish.
I was a strange child. :)
