The 1920s was "a long time ago" and the Andromeda galaxy is "a galaxy far, far away." Maybe the original trilogy took place 100 years ago in the next galaxy over.
My dad was a kid in London in WWII. I'm only in my late 40s, but he was in his 40s when I was born, so it's a long chain.
And we have a related WW2 story. My grandfather was an air raid warden, meaning he was out in the streets when the bombs were dropping to get people to safety (I wish I had an ounce of that sort of bravery). He told me once he was inspecting a house and the floor gave way and he literally landed on top of an unexploded bomb!
They also lost four houses in the bombings. My dad had all kinds of crazy stories like sleeping on the Underground platform during a raid and getting woken up by commuters stumbling over him on the way to work the next morning.
So I guess we're lucky our ancestors made it out of there alive.
Mine told me that she was a child in her father's Model T and that lightning struck and exploded a tree right behind them as they were driving. I always loved that story.
He fled. My great grandfather came home an hour later, and found broken glass and a severed hand in his house.
He didn't find the intruder anywhere nearby, threw the hand in the nearest river, and cleaned up the house.
Police never came, and you didn't call them either, in Germany in 1918.