Former Resident Recalls When Plane Hit her House in 1969

The day a plane crashed into her house, Holly Manley Elkins was working at the Halle's store at Southland.

"My mom had taken me to work," she recalled. "Someone -- I can't remember who -- called and said don't even think about coming home -- they have the whole street blocked."

Holly, 17, missed most of the excitement that day in November 1969, when a single-engine plane clipped the roof of her family's home on Atlantic Road and crashed in the yard.

But for years, people talked about the crash, one of the shared events -- like the Palm Sunday tornado, the recall of Mayor William Behr and the sesquicentennial celebration --  that helped cement the growing city as a community in the 1060s.

Today, lots of Strongsville residents aren't aware the city used to have an airport, but it did -- west of Prospect Road between Westwood and Albion. 

It was from that airfield the small plane, piloted by Daniel Muranko, with his wife, Louise, in the passenger seat, took off. 

Shortly after, the plane lost power and Muranko tried to land in a vacant field across the street from the Manley home, but instead "hit the corner of our house and nosedived in the front yard," Elkins said.

Her dad, Garrett, was in the basement when he heard the huge crash.

He ran upstairs to find the hall to the breezeway blocked, but was able to get out the front door to find the crumpled plane and a huge pit in the yard.

Both Murankos escaped the crash with minor injuries.

Family Moves On

Elkins, a 1970 graduate of remembers some local fame as the family whose house was hit by a plane, but said her mother, Shirley, was already a well-known artist who used to do portraits at Strongsville Homecoming.

The family, including her brother Garry "Corky" Manley, a 1973 SHS grad, moved to Florida in October 1973.

She and her brother both joined the Air Force; Holly now lives in Vero Beach, where she is planning to retire soon from the Indian River County Housing Authority. She has a son, 29, who lives in Orlando.

Strange Coincidences

Elkins said a few quirky things seem to have followed her to Florida. When you add up the numbers in her Atlantic Road address, they total 13.

Now she lives on Atlantic Boulevard, in a home with an address that totals 13.

She used to have an airport behind her house in Strongsville; she also does today in Florida.

And her house was again damaged by a crash.

"Instead of a plane, a car crashed into our house about 15 years ago," she said.

No Place Like Home

Elkins returns to Strongsville every year for a visit, and last year attended her 40th high school reunion. 

"Strongsville was such a different world back in the '50s and '60s," she said. "You could hear the cows and chickens from Siidel's Fun Farm."

She loved her family's home on Atlantic and has nothing but fond memories of her hometown.

"I've been down here since 1981," she said, "but my heart is still in Strongsville."