Maybe I’m missing something but wouldn’t Mr. Ludwig have been using that Social Security for longer than four years? If he came here in 1924, and worked here, he would have gotten a Social Security number in 1930s or 40s like everyone else at that time.
Wouldn’t he have been collecting Social Security payments for 25+ years if he died at 91? I can see how Toots could have removed his name from the death reports in Hawaii and transferred the number to her grandson but I don’t get the part where the number didn’t exist before 1977.
Good questions. Unless, he wasn’t the one who applied for the SSN. Isn’t that how illegals do it: apply for a SSN under the name of someone recently deceased, or who died as a child?
Heck, I don’t know.