Bio-Miner, OlliePlants

Ollie Margaret (Miner) Plants was born on June 22, 1902 in Washington, Washington County, PA, the daughter of Harry O. and Armena V. (Cain) Miner.

The photo seen at right shows Ollie as an adorable young girl. She loved to wear large ribbons in her hair.

Ollie suffered throughout her life with high blood pressure. This was due, some said, to the fact that her mother nursed her older sister the entire time leading up to Ollie's birth.

In the summer of 1919, her father died unexpectedly of a stroke, when she was only 17 years of age. Despite the obvious pressure to go to work, she remained in school, and worked part time as a teacher and a bookeeper. In 1921, she became the first member of her family to graduate from high school.

On July 14, 1921, at the age of 19, Ollie married John Leonard Plants (1900-1983). He was born on Jan. 14, 1900, the son of Leonard Abraham and Mary (McClelland) Plants of Dallas, Marshall County, WV. Prior to marriage, John was a student, and had resided as a boarder with Ollie's great-uncle and aunt, Stephen W. and Mime Johnston, in Claysville, Washington County.

Ollie (with large bow) and her elder sister Grace (Miner) White are seen at left in dark dresses, perhaps at the funeral of their father in July 1919.

They had seven children – John, Robert, Donald, Edward, Richard, Margaret and Barbara. Sadly, their firstborn, John Lewis Plants, died at age three months in Washington.

They lived in Claysville, then in West Virginia and in Martins Ferry, OH, before settling in Ashtabula, OH. They worked as farmers and as industrial laborers.

During World War II, Ollie and John saw three sons go off to serve, including Donald, seen at right with his parents.

On Jan. 17, 1946, Ollie died after a long illness, and was buried in Ashtabula. At the time, sons Bob and Ed were in the Armed Forces in the South Pacific, and Don was stationed in the Army in Georgia. They were unable to get home for the funeral.

After Ollie's death, John married Hazel Luke. They spent their remaining years in Ohio and Florida. John died in April 1983. He is mentioned in Louis Thomas Farabee’s undated book, Genealogy of the Farabees in America.

Son Robert Lloyd Plants has been a freelance photographer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and also an Ashtabula County Bee Inspector for 11 years. He has been featured in numerous newspaper stories over the years, including a 1999 issue of the Star-Beacon. Bob has graciously contributed honey products as door prizes at the Minerd-Miner-Minor Reunion.

Donald (left) and Jeanette Plants

Son Donald Lawrence Plants was a guest speaker at our 1998 reunion. While serving in World War II, his hearing was damaged by gunfire. As an "amphibious engineer," he was involved in the D-Day landing at Omaha Beach and the Battle of the Bulge, and was captured as a Nazi prisoner of war (POW). After the war, he entered the ministry and started the Centre Lakeside Assembly of God Church in Centre, AL. According to the Cherokee County Herald, "Their first service was held Easter Sunday 1976 with only the Plants family. Attendance increased from the family to eight and then on to a record attendance of 42 persons.” Jeanette, active in the “Clowns for Christ” ministry in Centre, was pictured on the cover of the Gadsden Times’ "Mountain Lakes Magazine," in 1998. He was profiled and pictured in a July 9, 2001 article, "Veteran's Survived More than War," published in the PolkOnline.com website.

Son Edward Plants (seen at left) was married and had three children. Ed taught and/or coached sports at schools in Bowling Green, Liberty Twp., Richfield and Akron, OH; and JFK Middle School in Clearwater, FL (1953-85). He is said to be one of a group of teachers who opened the JFK school for the 1963-1964 year. He is honored on a plaque at Memphis St. Jude's Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, for his decade of work promoting Math-A-Thon. Ed passed away in 1985. He was laid to rest at the Bay Pines National Cemetery in Bay Pines, FL, between St. Petersburg and Seminole.

Son Rev. Richard Plants married Winifred Brookover and, after her death, wed Joyce Whittemore. As a collegian at Taylor University in Upland, IN, Dick was a cross-country runner, set school records and in 1978 was named to its athletic hall of fame. His plaque, seen here, hangs in the school gymnasium. He later was ordained as a Methodist minister in the former Northeast Ohio Annual Conference and went on to serve these churches: Marengo/Fulton and Canal Fulton, OH (1955-1964), DelNorte/Bowen Charge and Glenwood Springs, CO (1964-1972), Newcastle, WY (1972-1978), and Highlands and Hotchkiss/Crawford, CO (1983-1990). Said the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference Journal, during their tenure at Gillette, “Dick and Joyce led the newly developing congregation from an initial 27 members to 244 members with their own new facility and a fully supported congregation." Grandson Mark A. Plants, an English-Spanish translator, has his own family history website.

Dick Plants' Hall of Fame plaque

In 1986, granddaughter Sandra (Alkula) Boda published family stories in The Plants Family: Grand-children and Great Grand-children of John, Ollie and Hazel Plants. At one time, she was Executive Assistant of Steve Dale Motorsports. Today she serves as Executive Officer of the Home Builders Association of Mid West Georgia and has been pictured in a Professional Grade newsletter article for her work as 2005-2006 president of the Home Builder's Association of the Georgia Executive Officer Council. She was pictured and featured in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Nov. 24, 2005) when she was named president of the Council.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution story about Sandra (Alkula) Boda and the Home Builders Association of the Georgia Executive Officer Council

Grandson Rev. Dr. Charles J. Alkula (seen here) has been a US Navy chaplain who served at the Naval Hospital of Camp Lejeune. In 2004, he was transferred to Newquay, Cornwall, England for a three-year tour of duty, and in 2007 became the parish pastor in Sidney, Nebraska. He received his doctorate of ministry degree from the global on-line program at Drew University, and his thesis was "Out of Many, One: An Understanding of Religious Diversity and the Formation of a Community of Faith in the Sea Services." In 2005, Charles was pictured in an article in the Cornish (UK) Guardian newspaper, "Day World Saw Terror Attack on the US," leading a memorial service at RAF St. Hawgan in England. Charles and his wife Belinda maintain a blog on their thoughts and travels.

Grandson Dale Alkula is a music teacher in the city schools of Columbus, Franklin County, OH. In his work, he has developed a junior-high rock band at Dominion Middle School and has performed in downtown Columbus as part of the Ohio Youth Arts Month Noontime Concert series. Said a feature story in the Columbus Dispatch, "His classroom looks more like a teenager's basement, plastered with posters of Jimi Hendrix and Kanye West. He has played in dozens of rock bands but now focuses on the Proxies and Guilty Bystanders, which he manages and with which he performs."

Article featuring middle school teacher Dale Alkula from the Columbus (OH) Dispatch