My Midwestern Roots

If I didn't know something about Aurora, Illinois I might let it go when Bruce Weber refers to it as a place the same as nowhere. (see John Oros's obituary) The only trouble is my mother spent time growing up in Aurora, which is Gotham City compared to where she was born, Tampico, Illinois.

And the thing about Tampico is it is the same place that Ronald Reagan came from. And growing up, even before he was governor of California, I heard the stories of how my uncle, her oldest brother, Howard and Reagan went to school together in the same school house. And how they had spitball fights in class. The picture that appeared one year in Life Magazine showing the class outside the school house shows Reagan in the lower left portion and my uncle somewhat in the middle, with light hair.

I still have some distant cousins who live in Tampico. One, Don, painted a mural on the wall of a building showing Nancy and Ron. And not a bad rendition for something on brick. Don's address in Tampico completely belies what the town's size is: 29965 35 E Street. I kid you not. You have to think they're assigning numbers to rows of corn. It's been over 50 years since I was in Tampico, but if I had a Bucket List I'd want to go back just to see what's on either side of Don's address. And then the even side of the street. I wouldn't mind seeing Don, but he hasn't answered in years.

I suspect the population of Tampico is somewhat bigger than Willie Nelson's home town, Abbott, Texas. Or, at least it grows. Willie likes to claim that the population of Abbott is the same as when he was born: When a baby is born, a man leaves town. No twins in Abbott.

At some point my mother went to live with her Aunt Elizabeth in the big city of Aurora. She went to nursing school there at St. Charles Hospital, then entered the Army during WWII. It was as a nurse she met my father, as New York as they come, in General Thayer Hospital, Nashville. He was a patient for some reason, not combat related. He was either on his way to Guam, or was sent there from Guam. It's times like these you wished you asked more questions as a kid.

Once married, they bought a house in Flushing New York, where I was born. It wasn't that long ago there was a Kitty Kelly book that described where Nancy Reagan was born. Yes, in Flushing, three blocks from our house. Her name wasn't even Nancy, it was Anne. She changed everything. The Times ran a story on it.

So, here's my mother, from Tampico, where Ronald Reagan was born, whose older brother, my uncle, played with Reagan, living in Flushing, New York, three blocks from where Nancy Reagan (Robbins) was born. The house is still there, hard by a bar. There should be no wonder why this blog is named the Onofframp.

Years ago I got a postcard in the mail for my mother that was announcing a school reunion in Tampico. She had passed away several years before but now I had the Kitty Kelly/Nancy Reagan connection added to the family history. I wrote the alumni committee that my mother had passed away, and I filled them in on the connections.

I guess I got something back because they told me they read the letter I wrote at the reunion. (I think the dinner dance was $15.) I sometimes think about that group of people who might have remembered my mother and hearing of all that history being read to them by someone reading what I wrote, from far off New York.

Thank goodness I typed it.


http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com/