That's right, two exclamation points because this blows my mind. John Tyler was the 10th President of the United States. He was born in 1790 and took office in 1841. His son, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, was born in 1853, when Tyler was 63 years old1. Lyon had six children with two different wives2, two of whom were Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Jr. (born 1924 when Lyon Sr. was 71) and Harrison Ruffin Tyler (born 1928 when Lyon Sr. was 75). They are reportedly both still living in their 80s.
Someone needs to come up with a term for this sort of thing (history bridges? no.). There's also this 1956 game show appearance of a Lincoln assassination eyewitness and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) shaking hands during his lifetime with both John Quincy Adams (b 1767) and John F Kennedy (d 1963), one man spanning 200 years of American history. (via ★mattbucher)
[1] Tyler actually had two children after Lyon...Robert was born when he was 65 and Pearl followed at 70. ↩
[2] Lyon's second wife was 36 years his junior and actually younger than each of his three previous children. ↩
