Oak sapling from Owens trees to be planted at Oakville

Dec. 6—OAKVILLE — The granddaughters of 1936 Olympic champion Jesse Owens will be at the Jesse Owens Museum and Park in Oakville on Thursday afternoon to plant oak tree saplings descended from a sapling Owens received for winning four gold medals.

The public is invited to attend the planting at 1 p.m.

"Each gold medal winner in that Olympics received an English Oak (Quercus robur) sapling," Nancy Pinion, director and co-founder of the museum, said in news release this week. "Jesse returned home to Cleveland and planted these trees. The only known remaining tree was planted at the James Ford Rhodes High School in Cleveland, where Jesse trained on their track."

She said the tree died last winter but the for the past seven years, John Palmer, master arborist, had been collecting and growing seedlings from acorns gathered from the tree. Now some of those trees are large enough to transplant and this year marks the 100th anniversary of Owens moving from Alabama to Ohio, she said.

Owens was born in Oakville in Lawrence County in 1913.

On hand at the planting and reception will be granddaughters Donna Prather Williams, Dawn Prather Hawk, both of Chicago, and Gina Hemphill Strachan of New York as well as Palmer, who is from Cleveland.

— mike.wetzel@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2442. Twitter @DD_Wetzel.