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Over the Back Fence By HANK HENRY In some families, marriage hits late Most Americans marry in their early- to mid-20s, and turn into grandparents somewhere around their late 40s, but there are plenty who don't fit the pattern, and my family has its share. When Nora and I married, she was 19 and I was 31. We did not have our first child until almost five years later, and our other two children followed about two years apart. We were living in Central Point when Melody, our third and last child, was born in 1963. Not long after she was born, I was out with the baby in our front yard when my next-door neighbor came out with a baby boy who appeared to be just a little older than Melody. "Good morning," he said, "This is my grandson, Jimmy. What's your granddaughter's name?" My granddaughter? "No," I said, "this is our daughter, Melody." The man apologized for his error, and we made some light conversation before going our separate ways. For a few minutes I felt a little like I was out of step with the world, but then I decided that being out of step, age-wise, was no sin. Defining moments can happen to people across a wide span of years. Nora and I know a lady who had her first child when she was still a teenager. Her child grew up, married young, too, and presented our friend with her first grandchild at the tender age of 36. Researching my family history I learned that many of my family members didn't fit those marry-in-your-20s stereotypes. Just the other day, I was looking through my filing cabinets and came across some facts I had collected about our family tree that show how different life was not so long ago. Take my mother, for example. She was raised on her family's farm and went to school through the fourth or fifth grade at a little country school. At the age of 22 she won a scholarship to complete both high school and college. That put her in her 30s by the time she completed her education. Meanwhile my father and his three brothers were growing up in Oklahoma on a ranch near an Indian reservation. He, too, received only a very sketchy education. When he was in his late teens he made a deal with another rancher to work for room and board and tutoring from the rancher's wife. This arrangement went on for several years, and he received a fairly broad education based on the classics. Feeling the call to be a preacher, Dad moved to Los Angeles where he passed the exam to enter a seminary. Some time later, he transferred to a graduate school in Fort Worth, Texas, where he met my mother. They married in 1920. He was almost 40; she was 33. When I was born in 1923, my mother was 36 and Dad was 43. Their decision to start a family so late set them apart from most people in those days. A woman over the age of 30 was thought to be taking a high medical risk, Some people were probably shocked when my brother, Lee, was born almost three years later. Talking with relatives on my father's side of the family, I learned that marrying late went farther back than I knew. My grandfather, Samuel Henry, married a woman who was half-Cherokee somewhere around 1872. He was 42 when my father -- the youngest of four sons -- was born. On my mother's side, things progressed at a more normal pace. Her father and mother were married in their early 20s and produced seven brothers and two sisters, (plus one boy who died in infancy). Families were large in those days because farming and ranching took lots of manual labor, and much of the work on the farm was supplied by the children of the family. Anyway, I come from "a long line of long livers," as folks used to say. Grandfather James, on my mother's side, lived to the age of 85, and grandmother Mary Jane made 90. (Hank Henry is a retired Jackson County commissioner and a former radio and television announcer. Call him at 772-9055.) Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA