Anyone live in/near Kanto Mura 1970-73?

This is a long story, but I'll try to make it short. My father was in the US Air Force and during the early 1970's he was stationed at Chofu. My family lived on Kanto Mura Family Housing Annex and at some point during 1970-73 I had the opportunity to stay off-base with a Japanese family for a few days as part of a cultural exchange. I was a very young child at the time, so I can't recall too many details. I remember the family consisted of a mother, father, grandmother and male child. They lived in a 2-story home with a garden in the back. They also had a pet cat. I don't know how far they lived from Kanto, but part of the trip to their town involved a ride on the bullet train. Many years have passed, and although Chofu Air Base and Kanto Mura FHA no longer exist, I was thinking it might not be extremely difficult to locate the still-living family members since there probably weren't too many Japanese families who had little blonde American girls staying with them in the 1970's. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might begin my search? I live in the U.S. so I'm sure my options are a bit limited. What would be the best way to have my story reach as many people as possible in Japan? Or is this just a silly idea and I should forget the whole thing?

I can't really say that your story sounds extremely unusual, so I don't know how much luck you'll have, but I do understand how you feel. I was a little Japanese black-haired girl in the U.S. during 1970-73.

Probably the best thing to do to have your story reach as many people as possible is to write letters or emails to nation-wide newspapers in Japan. Here is a list of English websites.

http://www.asahi.com/english/
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/

There is a great web sight about Kanto Mura, I think it is CHofu.org , try posting there. We were there 65 thru 68, what a great time we had.

Thank you, Uco. I'll try those links.

As for www.chofu.org, I've been a member of that site for several years, and while it's open to anyone interested in the long-closed Kanto Mura Family Housing Annex, it's primary focus is Chofu High School alumni. I attended Chofu Elementary School, so I'm quite a bit younger than most of the other members of chofu.org. It's fun to reminisce with them about daily life on Kanto Mura FHA, but I've never found any former classmates or childhood friends through that site.

I lived at Kanto Mura , from 69 thru 74,.. we left in may of 1974,. i attended chofu elementary as well,although I have older brothers & sisters that went to the high school.. it is pretty cool to see the pictures,. dont know about staying with family off base, but i remember playing minkos,. i remember buying candy from the the hole in the fence,. we lived at 444D, i'd love to take my children back to japan sometime,.

lived on base from 69 to 73 went to elem school there. bought minkos from kennedy thru hole in fence. remember tony reed who later played in the n.f.l

Thanks for adding your comments! It's great that all of us who lived on KMFHA have the common memory of the fence hole. I didn't know the shopowner's name was Kennedy. The road he had to cross was always quite busy, so I hope he knew how much we appreciated his efforts. He risked his life on a daily basis just to collect our pocket change and deliver candy and treats to us! BTW, the card game we used to play was called menko, just in case you were interested in rebuilding your collection. I used to have a shoebox full of those cards, but I had to give them away (along with most of my other toys) when we were transferred out of Japan. There was a weight limit on what we could take with us, so of course toys were not high on the list. I'm not familiar with the NFL player Reed. Are you saying he's a Chofu Brat too? I'll have to look up his biography online. One other cool note: I recently located my best friend from Kanto Mura! We lived in the same courtyard (her family was in unit D and my family was in unit A...can't quite remember the exact number but I think it was 325 or 355). Anyway, it turns out we now live in the same State! I finally found her (after a few years of searching online) through Reunion.com. I highly recommend it if you're trying to find any old friends or classmates...including Brats!

I'm in regular contact with some other Chofu Elementary alumni and I'd love to contact you both through private email, but I'm not sure how we can exchange email addresses unless we post them here. It would be awesome to share more memories and photos with you guys, so if either of you have any ideas on how we can do this, let me know.

sure,. although im sketchy on memorys of exact people & names,... my older sister is a bit better,... i was only 8 when we left in 1974,... my best friend was keith wood, he had an older brother roger,... my email is danzilla@pacbell.net .

Hey hope I'm not too late to respond, we lived in Kanto Mura and went to the elementary school while living there. Would love to get info on people that lived there. Email me back if you get the opportunity. KLSScrappy@aol.com. I remember Tony Reed who played for the Kansas City Chiefs.

In my response above, I forgot to mention the childhood friend I recently located was the girl who went with me when we stayed at the Japanese family's home! She says she has photos of the family, but she hasn't been able to scan and email them to me yet. Since we live only a couple hours drive from each other, I expect we'll be meeting up in person at some point. As it is often said, it really is a small world!

So cool! My older brother attended a CHS reunion, recently. I'm 5 years younger and attended the elemetary school. My father was the Cub Scout leader for Pack 8. I think there were 100 boys. I remember going toi the pool next to the school. I remember Kennedy and his store. Going off base and to Fuchu. I have a lot of fond memories of that time.

Hi. I lived in KM during that time and I was also thinking about writing a book. I was in Mr. White class, in 6th grade, in 1969 and we went on KEEP and Kyoto-Nara trip which was a good experierce. I fell in love with ANN Daugthy on the bullet train. KEEP was fun and on the bus ride up Steven Gee threw up. We walk on a Groge and ate sandwiches. It was a blast.

I eighth grade I was in Mr. Asmir art class and we watch the Ali-Frazer fight. Tom Keller, Otha Morgan, Nokoson, Lisa Gaga and Dick Belt were in my call. I pointed out Ann Daughthy to Dick during your Guitar class at the teen center the Ota Morgan screwed Amy Jacob 34 time in the back. Dave Jacob was Amy's brother and he set behind me in Mr. Walkers class. I couldn't quite beatup Roger Ram-jet. He would call me Funky chinese. The worst thing that happen was Hide Brown but she was very cute. There was also Betty Nixon and Tom Keller copulating and Keller raping "girl with big breasts" with a sock with Nokason. All this while we were bombing the hell out of Vietam and us children used as human shields. I never quite got use to that.

My older brothers and sisters were either at Chofu High or in junior high when I was in kindergarten. We lived in KM housing '70-'72; my parents have a large number of slides from those days...my oldest sister Barbara has been to a few of the Chofu High reunions and has encouraged me to come as well. That would be great if we could get a group of us elementary kids together!

I'm in the process of setting up a website devoted to those of us who attended Chofu Elementary School and the Kanto Mura Dependent Housing Annex. It will be a great place for us (who were much younger than the Chofu Jr. and Sr. High Schoolers) to connect and share memories about the good old days. I'll let you all know when it's up and running.

I was a brat and moved to Kanto Mura AFB in 02 72. We were at Hong Kong International School when pop had been transfered to Kanto Mura. I became a very successful model/actress in Tokyo after graduating. What is your name and what yr did you grad?

Hi,

My father was stationed at Fuchu from 1970-73 and we lived on Kanto housing during that time. What a wonderful time in our lives. Myself and my 6 sisters had the times of our lives. I went back last year and very few memories remained, but there were a few. I was in the boy scouts as well and we spent a lot of time at Tama camping.

I can go on and on.

God I wish I could get those days back.

I'm so excited to have "tripped" onto this area today! I lived in Japan from 1963 to 1965. My family first lived in Washington Heights, but that complex was in an area needed for the 1964 Olympics. The Americans living in "Wash Heights" were moved to Kanto Mura as soon as units were readied. We moved into 401A (painted blue!). I attended 6th grade at Chofu Elementary '63-64 and Chofu Jr. High '64- to '65. My maiden name is Pam Teel. I remember with fondness the hole in the fence, and riding bikes up there for a great candy purchase, and hoping the MP's didn't catch us! I also remember the fun in riding my bike down the circular ramps on the ends of the Jr. HS while it was being constructed! Major John Grabowski, his wife Jean, and their children Janet, Joan, Jeri and John lived next door in "B". They were great and I'd love to reconnect with them!

Hey Pamela S.,I lived went to Chofu Elem.from 1968-1973,
my e-mail address is mc200747@gmail.com
hope to hear from you soon ....
Mike Caliguire

We lived in Kanto Mura while I was a kid. We lived in 134A Fuchu Ave, right across the street from the school. I remember going to the back gate to buy minkos too along with riding my bike and skates down the elementary school ramps. Some of you may even had my Mom as a substitute teacher one time or another.

I developed a love of rice candy during that time and can find it sometimes still at a local oriental market.

Over at Chofu.org, it is asked if the snow in 68 caused school to be closed for the day. The answer is yes. My pops was gonna walk to Fuchu that day but got a ride instead.