By Willie Davis
For the Carter County Times
Fifty-seven Ohioans who can trace their family roots to Olive Hill, Kentucky met Saturday, July 26 in Mansfield, Ohio to have lunch and share stories about their family heritage.
“One Saturday every July our Olive Hill families come together for this special luncheon,” said Buttons Blevins, Olive Hill Reunion organizer. “Four generations of Ohioans unite under a common umbrella that someone in their family migrated from Carter County, Kentucky to Richland County, Ohio.”
Kentucky lost about 400,000 of its sons and daughters who migrated to the industrial north in the 1940s and 1950s.
“The pattern was that you moved to where you had family, family who had moved there previously to find work,” said Willie Davis, author of a two-volume historical novel Olive Hill. “My family migrated in 1959 to Mansfield where my Aunt Kathaleen lived and worked. Had she lived in Youngstown or Middletown, I would have grown up there.”
The Mansfield Olive Hill Reunion can trace it roots back to the early 2000’s. At every annual reunion there are family pictures from Olive Hill past generations placed on specially made place mats. New pictures are taken. And, as usual with family reunions, there is plenty of food. The oldest reunion attendee was 93 years old. The youngest was 6.
“If you were from anywhere within twenty miles of Olive Hill, you were from Olive Hill,” says Buttons. “We are already set for the 2026 reunion.”
For additional information contact the writer at willied@neo.rr.com
