Jeff and Polly's Migration Generation

William Jefferson and Polly Margaret Runyon Hatfield had 30 grandchildren, whose births were bunched from the late 1930s into the early 1950s. Estil's children, Josephine and Pauline, and LeEttie's daughter, Arlene, were exceptions on the front end of the generation and Katherine's daughter, Sheryle, was the last of the generation.

For the most part, Jeff and Polly's children lived and worked in Pike County, Kentucky. Earl, TC "Clyde", and Robert had taught school, but soon moved to more lucrative employment. Estil, Clyde, Bill, Anthony (Jeanette), and Dovil (Katherine) were in the construction business, although

Earl taught younger sister, Melda, in a local school.

often their work was in tangent with the coal industry and its cycles. Earl, Adam [LeEttie], Robert, Orville [Melda], and Guy all worked in the coal industry, although Robert and Orville moved into other pursuits later. Bill, Jeff and Polly's youngest child, worked on major projects in more urbanized areas and moved out of Pike County earlier than any of Jeff and Polly's children. In 1961 Clyde and Opal also moved out of Pike County into southern Indiana.

Guy returns from the coal mines in the early 1960's.

For the most part, Jeff and Polly's grandchildren were educated in Pike County and in Kentucky universities, primarily Eastern Kentucky, Morehead, and Berea. At the time that Jeff and Polly's grandchildren were being educated and beginning careers, the industry that dominated the Pike County economy was coal. The limitation of careers outside the coal industry motivated Jeff and Polly's grandchildren to migrate out of Pike County during the 1950s and the 1960s. This was part of a larger pattern of urbanization and suburbanization occurring across the country in those years.

Jeff and Polly's grandchildren became teachers or administrators in down-state Kentucky (Paul Morris, Polly Breeze, and Margaret Rader), Ohio (Janet Bowe), Tennessee (Greta Helms), West Virginia (Josephine Anderson and Pauline Morgan), and Indiana (Marlene Adams and Gary Norman); a doctor in Louisville (Ted Hatfield), a PhD in organic chemistry in Indianapolis (Lowell D. Hatfield), and a lawyer and government executive in Columbus and Washington, DC (Nina Rose Hatfield); a part of industry or business in Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Florida, Kentucky, and West Virginia (Arnold Norman, Robert Hatfield, Don Hatfield, Phyllis Blackburn, Bruce Hatfield, Lyle Hatfield, Leslie Hatfield, Jim Hatfield, Larry Scott, and Sheryle Sullivan); and an entrepreneur in Iowa (Quentin Hatfield).

Polly, Josephine, Janet, Margaret, Phyllis, and Pauline

Ted, Don, Lyle, Bruce, Jimmy, Paris [Phyllis] Blackburn, and Lowell D.

Bill Morris, Paris [Phyllis] Blackburn, TJ Hatfield, JB [Janet] Bowe, Steve Hatfield, and Joy Kay Hatfield all had careers in parts of the AT&T organization, and they were all at the Columbus Works at the same time. (Jeff Hatfield, Tom Hatfield, and Kim [Rodney] Blackburn, Jeff and Polly's great-grandchildren, have also been a part of the AT&T organization in Columbus for some parts or all of their careers.)

TJ and Joy Kay enjoy a project well done in 1990.

The twentieth anniversary of Monday Night Football provided an opportunity for collaboration among two of Jeff and Polly's grandchildren at AT&T. The project presented challenges because of the short time Joy Kay, a project manager, and the project team were allotted to install it. The system was opened minutes before actual calls were to be received. It functioned perfectly and handled over 52,000 calls during the first evening--a record at the time. TJ, who was the department chief assuring customers received their parts and service on time over most of the eastern US, could be at the other end of the phone if Joy Kay needed something sent overnight to where a system was being installed. TJ noted that he could not escape Joy Kay because she had his home telephone number!

At the end of the day, Josephine Hatfield Anderson and Pauline Hatfield Morgan, Estil's daughters, worked in the Mingo County, West Virginia, school system before retiring to Georgia. Arlene Norman Huffman, LeEttie's daughter, moved to Pikeville, while most of the generation moved further away. Now, only two of Jeff and Polly's grandchildren live in homes on Blackberry Creek. Leslie Hatfield, Robert's son, moved away and came back. Sheryle Scott Sullivan, Katherine's daughter, except for going to school, never left the home base area.

As a result of this migration pattern, Jeff and Polly's descendants have left Pike County and are concentrated in down-state Kentucky, California, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Virginia.