By Nephertitti Gray
One day, when Bianca Moorman was six, she was sitting quietly in her family's living room and asked her grandmother, "Where did you come from?" The question ignited a fire in her grandmother, causing her grandmother to talk for hours about her family. The experience fueld Moorman's strong admiration for her family history.
Moorman, 17, and a rising senior at William Fleming High School, grew up in Roanoke and enjoys history.
“I think that it is interesting and you get different experiences from it,” Moorman said. She likes history topics that involve wars, slavery, Civil War and anything that happened before the 1970s.
Her great grandfather was one of 18 children and he had five children of his own, Moorman said. Her grandmother was the last of the five children. She grew up and went on to have 10 children. Out of those 10 children was Moorman's mother. But Moorman is an only child.
Moorman gets all of her information from her family by asking her grandmother and her aunt. Explaining her interest in learning her family history she jokes, "I don’t want to marry any of my cousins!"
She is not only interested in her family history, she said, but she likes to learn about Southern history and loves to read books such as John Steinbeck’s "The Grapes of Wrath" and Margaret Walker’s "Jubilee."
History isn't Moorman's only hobby, she said. She likes listening to music, including artists such as Trey Songz, Lil Wayne, and Lady GaGa. She also likes dancing recreationally at home, drawing self-portraits with pencil and paper and making people laugh.
Moorman's Yearbook adviser told her her writing has great potential, she said. But she said her love for history leads others to think that she has potential in teaching and keeping her family history alive.
