She started smoking in the 1930s, I guess, when smoking (especially for women) was very in and sophisticated. Both she and my dad smoked all the years we three kids were growing up (none of us ever even wanted to smoke).

She was fascinated by space travel and loved to read science fiction stories. When the 'space race' started, she followed everything and bought all the books about it, posters from the government, etc.

My son, her first grand-child, was born in June 1969; the first man on the moon/walk on the moon was in July 1969. As she watched, she knitted a blanket for my son. And then....

As she told me, she decided that if those astronauts could be so dedicated and disciplined, she could too. She decided right then to stop smoking.....and she did.

(I suspect the birth of her first grand-child also had something to do with her decision.)

My dad never stopped, although he did begin to just smoke on the porch. In the last years of his life, he had walking pneumonia every fall; his weakened lungs postponed serious surgery and possibly contributed to his later death (although he was 86 when he died in his second stay in the hospital).