The place that I come from.

[Morbius]

Assuming my parents weren't lying about this, I was born in 1962 at Bunker Hill Air Force Base near Peru Indiana, which was active from 1954 to 1968. In 1968 it was renamed Grissom Air Base, after Gus Grissom, who died in the explosion of Apollo 7 the year previously. In 1991, Grissom was downsized and became Grissom Air Reserve Base, which it remains to this day. The 434th Air Refueling Wing is based there and operates two KC-135 Stratotanker air refueling squadrons. And they train people there as well, I am given to understand.

So, technically, the place that I come from isn't there anymore. This does not cause me angst but it is unsettling.

From whence do you hail? Is there a story there?

[Walleye]

1. I was born in Dover, Delaware 1949. A lot of my classmates were Air Force brats

My ancestors have been here since before the revolution on the east shore Virginia. My father and I had the same first grade teacher.

[blm]

3. Maybe our ancestors were neighbors.

Direct descendants of Capt. Gabriel Archer.
https://historicjamestowne.org/archaeology/chancel-burials/founders/gabriel-archer/

[Walleye]

16. Our colonial ancestor was colonel Edmond, Scarborough, a real bastard

Thank you for the interesting history.

[underpants]

2. Xenia Ohio

April 3, 1974 a massive tornado struck killing 32 in Xenia. Population about 25,000 at the time.
We lived in Yellow Springs at the time but were out of town.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_Xenia_tornado

[wnylib]

4. My husband and I moved to Ohio about 2 years after the Xenia tornado.

We learned that, as a result of that tornado, Ohio law required print and broadcast media to publicize tornado information throughout tornado season, from March to October.

We arrived in mid March. I soon learned about signs in the sky to watch for, the difference between a watch and a warning, and what kind of shelter to seek when necessary. Had some close calls for the 5 years that we were in Ohio, but did not experience any direct hits

[House of Roberts]

10. I remember when the tornado hit Xenia.

I was in my basement with my family here in Huntsville, Alabama as tornados ripped through our town the same night. I had just brought home a Bearcat scanner a few days earlier and we listened to the emergency services until well after midnight when the weather finally calmed down.
It was the next morning when we got the newspaper that we found out just how widespread the outbreak was.

[Bayard]

13. I remember those tornados vividly that hit all over the Midwest in those couple days

I was in high school in Indiana, coming home on the school bus with my little brother. The driver had to keep driving at angles to try and outrun a tornado that was headed at us across the cornfields. They were everywhere!

Oh, yeah--I was born in Louisville. My parents were both from South Carolina, but when my Dad got out of the Army, he used the GI Bill to go to electronics school in Louisville. We stayed, and all 5 kids were born there. I've moved around a bit, but back in Kentucky the last 12 years, and still consider Louisville my hometown.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Born in a Columbus, Ohio hospital, but parents lived on a farm about 25 miles away.

[niyad]

6. A galaxy far, far away. I am here as an observer.

[bobalew]

17. You Too?

I'm a damn hybrid, due to my father's abduction, which by the way, saved his life... which may well explain clearly why this place makes utterly no sense at all to me...
I was born at Klamath County Hospital in Klamath Falls, OR, April 18, '53....

[niyad]

18. Even as an ostensible child, with my human guardians, this tiny blue

planet's supposedly sentient life forms never made any sense to me, nor I to those surrounding me. Ahhh well, the information download at the end of this project should be interesting.

[House of Roberts]

8. It was Apollo 1 that the fire killed the three astronauts.

I graduated from Virgil I. Grissom High School here in Huntsville, Alabama. I was a member of the second graduating class to attend all four years there.

[Morbius]

11. I'm sorry. I was relying upon my memory.

You think I would know better but that would mean remembering my mistakes.

[wnylib]

9. I'm from Erie, PA. It is still there, but like other

rust belt cities, its economy has suffered and it has lost population. When I lived there 50 years ago, it was the 3rd largest city in PA, but now is around 5th, I think.

All of the schools that I attended -- grade school, junior high, and senior high -- no longer exist. The school system structure was changed so that my junior high with 7th, 8th, and 9th grades became a middle school from grades 5 through 8.

Years later, all my old school buildings were condemned as too old.

My matermal great-grandparents came from the kingdom of Prussia in the German Empire. Now, Prussia no longer exists and the German Empire no longer exists. The 2 villages that my great-grandparents came from are now in Poland, with the German names changed to Polish.

But on the paternal side of my family, I have British ancestors who were Puritans in John Winthrop's MA Bay Colony. Also on the paternal side were Native Americans who preceeded the Puritans by about 10,000 years or more. Their original territory still exists, although much smaller in size. And, of course, MA is still there.

[Morbius]

12. Back when I was in school we were required to research our family's "Roots."

I bet you can guess when this was, and what prompted it (hint: the miniseries aired in 1977). I got as far as a town in Poland from which a few of my great-grandparents came from. I was unable to find any record of the existence of the town. I imagine between two world wars and whatever transpired in the second half of the 19th century, that town disappeared along with others.

[wnylib]

14. I had a similar assignment in 10th grade, but

that was in 1965, long before the TV show, Roots. The information from that assignment only went back to a few g-grandparents and gg-grandparents. But it was useful for going back much farther once the Internet and genealogy websites came into existence.

That town in Poland you can't find might still exist. If it was a small village, it might not show up on some maps. Since Poland's borders changed throughout history, it.might have gone by a Russian or German name on old maps.

My grandfather told me the German names of the 2 villages that his parents came from, along with the name of the German district. But I was never able to find them on a map. I looked online, using a university library computer. The librarian offered to help me. She was from Germany and had learned about the various divisions of the old German Empire in her school and college studies so when I mentioned the district name and the year that they left for America, she quickly located a map for that region and time period. Voila!! The tiny villages that I was looking for were there.

Then a search for those villages in modern Poland gave me the Polish names.

If you know the general region in Poland for the village or town that you are looking for, and the time period, that will help you know whether you're looking for a Russian, Polish, or German name.

[Morbius]

15. This was almost 50 years ago.

I've lost every possession in a fire, moved countless times, my parents are long dead, and my memory is shot. This information would have been nice when I was in high school; I doubt I got better than a B on the assignment (most likely a C. I got a lot of Cs). So, I couldn't find it then; I have no clue where to look now. Not all that important to me these days, really.

[OldBaldy1701E]

19. I hail from about the most rural area on the eastern seaboard.

I was born in Ahoskie, North Carolina. That is because it was the closest hospital (at 34 miles away).

I lived in the swamps and on the coast. Since becoming an adult, I can say I have lived in every part of the state, excepting Wilmington, as I never did get to work at De Laurentiis.

I can say that, after some Google Earth searches, every single school I attend is gone. The last high school is still in existence, but it has moved, so the location that I attended is not there any more.

That is a bit unsettling, that none of the schools that I attended exist anymore (with the aforementioned exception).

One of them, however, is famous and should be always remembered and recognized.

Southwestern Elementary School is named after Southwestern High School, which was initially Nansemond Training School, the first high school for African American students in the then Nansemond County, built in 1924. (Nansemond County no longer exists as a Virginia county. It became the independent city of Nansemond in 1972 and 18 months later, on January 1, 1974, it was merged with the independent city of Suffolk.) The original building held seven classrooms and one auditorium. In 1956, a new building was constructed, and in 1968, the name was changed to Southwestern High School, which graduated its last senior class in the spring of 1970. In the fall of that same year, the school became an intermediate school serving grades four through seven and later transitioned to a middle school and then to an elementary school before closing in 2014.

(The times spent on that playground, or in that cafeteria, or waiting for the bus along that lane in front of the building... it was a long time ago. The bigger building is gone now, but the original one still stands, along with that cafeteria.)