PEMBROKE -- Those who knew him best say the late Willie Oliver Jr. spent a lifetime giving to others.
And on Tuesday evening, Oliver Jr.’s family and all who held him dear got something in return. From now on, August 15 in Bryan County will be known as Willie Oliver Jr. Day, after County Commissioners issued a proclamation honoring a man long known as the Mayor of Groover Hill.
Oliver Jr., who died in January at the age of 94, would have appreciated the honor, his daughter said.
“I can see him up in heaven just smiling,” said Pastor Carletha Oliver. “He would be so honored that the community thought so much of him. He loved people, he loved the community, and he gave all he had to the community.”
His son-in-law, Jason Redmond, is credited by family with petitioning Commissioners to honor his father-in-law. Redmond said Oliver Jr. was like a father not only to him, but to many others.
“You always try to allow people to receive their flowers while they’re living,” Redmond said. “It was not to be in this case, but we can honor the impact he had, and hopefully will continue to have, on the community. Our long-term hope is that not only will August 15 be important to the Oliver family, and it is important because that’s when we have our reunions, but also people will find it in their heart to utilize it as a day of service as well. Mr. Oliver would have liked that.”
About Willie
Oliver Jr.’s life story reads like something out of fiction, and it would take more than a single news story to do it justice. Born in 1931 in Bryan County, Oliver Jr. early on developed a knack for absorbing folk wisdom and for working with plants and animals, learning as a child from his grandmother Jessie.
He put what he learned to good use.
“He eventually used his accumulated knowledge to help the sick and shut-in, lift the downtrodden and to go where he was needed,” Oliver Jr.’s obituary said. “He could make a ‘toddy’ for many ailments. On any given day he could serve as your doctor, lawyer, engineer, builder and so much more.”
Oliver Jr. was also, decidedly, a family man who embraced his community as part of that family. He and his wife Estella were married for 73 years, and Oliver Jr. “was biological father to nine children, but stand-in father to so many more,” according to a list of accomplishments compiled by the family.
It’s a list that includes standing up for Groover Hill – a small, tight-knit community not far from where the Hyundai Metaplant now sits. He ran for county commissioner – twice – while also encouraging his neighbors to vote and providing transportation to the polls to those who needed it; attending county commission meetings regularly; and pushing for paved roads and safe neighborhoods.
Oliver Jr. also allowed his property to be used to host everything from summer lunch programs and tent revivals to family reunions; and, he and Estella attended countless sporting events, recitals and performances over the years “to support the children throughout the family, neighborhood and community,” the list of Oliver Jr.’s long and varied life said.
He gave people rides who needed them, taking neighbors or family members to work, to the doctor, or shopping. He also stood bond for incarcerated neighbors; co-signed on loans; gave shelter to the homeless and provided jobs in his nursery, which stayed open from 1960 to 1994, and “provided a fair wage to all,” the document noted.
And the list goes on.
Oliver Jr. farmed his land, growing everything from fruit trees to berries to crops, and made sure he grew more than he and his family needed so others could share in the bounty.
For Redmond, if there was one thing about his father-in-law he would want those who never met him to know, it would be that he was generous with the fruits of his labor.
Literally, in fact.
“I would want them to know that no one around him would ever go hungry,” said Redmond, who is married to Yolanda, a soon-to-be retired teacher. “He grew a lot of food on his land, and he fed the community in doing so.”
Born with a green thumb
Oliver Jr. was a genius with trees, according to many. North Bryan landowner Bob Floyd recalled a story in which a neighbor had a fruit tree in need of some help.
“My neighbor Jesse Butler, gardener extraordinaire, had a grapefruit tree that despite Jesse's best efforts did not make fruit. He called Willie Oliver to diagnose it,” Floyd said. “Mr. Oliver took a shovel and cut almost every root around the tree, beat most of the limbs off, made cuts in the bark, poured Epsom salt or talcum powder and some other things I don’t remember around the base, sang the whole time and declared it fixed.”
It didn’t look fixed, Floyd recalled.
“The tree looked like it’d been run over by a train,” he said. “I won't repeat what Jesse said, but he firmly believed the tree was done. Next fall, he came to my shop to pick up all the sticks of galvanized pipe and two-by-fours he could borrow because the tree was so full of grapefruits he thought the limbs would break off.”
Floyd’s son, District 1 County Commissioner Alex Floyd, said he still goes by around Christmas to pick grapefruits off that tree.
A man of faith
Carletha Oliver said her father was also a spiritual man whose example led her to become a pastor.
“The leading thing about my father is he was God-fearing,” she said. “Faith was very important to him. He raised us up in a Christian home, and he treated people and loved people the way God said we should treat and love people.”
Oliver Jr. was a member of St. Paul AME Church in Black Creek all his life, and a church steward and Sunday school superintendent for 74 years. He raised money to move St. Paul from “a dirt floor with a potbelly stove and kerosene lamps,” to a modern building and regularly read the Bible, but especially loved the Psalms.
“Dad was a great man,” Carletha Oliver said. “The way he taught us to love God, love our community, love our family, he did that. He did that, and it really touches my heart, because he is so worthy of this honor.”
She said her father was a natural teacher and counselor who “loved people right where they were and took the time with them, and he took the time with me, too, to teach me about the devotion of the church.”
Oliver Jr. also worked hard over the course of his long life doing everything from picking various fruit crops up north to dipping turpentine locally, where he once was paid $10 for a full three weeks work, his obituary said. He also worked full time for Union Camp for 30 years and operated a nursery from 1960 to 1994.
“Most of his adult life,” said the list of Oliver Jr.’s, accomplishments, “Willie worked before sunrise to after sundown (doing) a mix of his hired job, plant nursery, landscaping, farming, church duties, Bible study, visiting others, etc.”
It’s a life worth emulating, those who knew him said, and among those Oliver Jr. visited were Billy and Rose Mock. Billy served on the Bryan County School board for years. Rose served with Oliver. Jr. on another county board.
“Willie and I go way back,” Rose said. “We were members of the Planning and Zoning Board. We agreed on some issues, but once in a while we respectfully disagreed. Later we were neighbors in Black Creek. Willie was knowledgeable, willing, and available when I needed advice on what to do when I planted something. He would stop by the house now and then to check on Bill and me. He and Bill would talk about the changes in Black Creek.”
Redmond, who works in recreation and serves as a volunteer youth coach in the Atlanta area, said he lost his father at an early age, and Oliver Jr. taught him the importance of working with youngsters who don’t have a father figure in their lives.
“One of the mantras I try to live by is to ‘be who you needed when you were younger,’” Redmond said. “Mr. Oliver instilled that.”
And what would Oliver Jr. think of having a day of his own?
"He was a very humble man, so I don't think he'd make a big deal about it," Redmond said. "He would be very grateful for it, very thankful for it, but it was just him, doing his due diligence. It was just who he was as a person. It was his nature. We feel the positive impact he left behind, but he was just being himself."