Nan Gorman was born in Memphis, Tenn., on St. Patrick's Day. She moved to Hazard in 1929 when her father, James Hagan, a recent medical school graduate and aspiring surgeon, went to work there.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Deep in the heart of Kentucky's rugged Eastern Mountain region, there lives a woman who has fascinated and inspired me for two decades. She is known locally these days as 'Mayor Nan' - the octogenarian chief executive of Hazard and advocate for its 5,467 residents.
I was born in 1970 in Illinois, but all the life I remember I've spent in Chapel Hill, N.C.
My parents were working in a hospital in Memphis. But I didn't live there for any length of time that I remember. The first thing I remember is the town in Mississippi that I live in now, Charleston.
I was born in L.A. County Hospital, but I grew up in Pasadena. I married my 8th grade sweetheart, Marcia.
I showed up in October 1946, part of an early surge that would become a great nationwide baby boom. My sister Kathy was born a year later.
He was a manager, one of the singers, I guess talent coordinator for the local talent in Harlem. His name was Lover Patterson. He was living right across the street from where my dad had his restaurant. I guess he saw a lot of kids come in, a lot of my buddies.
I was born in Evanston, about three blocks away from the Chicago border. My mother, at the time, was finishing her Ph.D. in African History at Northwestern University. Soon after my birth, my parents split, and my father moved to Wicker Park, which is on the north side of the city.
I was in Charlotte, N.C., when they launched the NBA team there, the Charlotte Hornets. And the first guy to roll into town was Carolina native Michael Jordan.
My mom was born in Korea - Seoul, Korea, during the '50s, '51. She was abandoned; her and my uncle were abandoned. My grandfather was a Seabee and adopted my mom and my uncle, and brought them to Compton in the '50s. That's where she was raised.
My mother was born in Baltimore, and before her marriage, she was an artist and teacher of art.