Ollie Combs was born on July 12, 1904, in Perry County, the daughter of Jasper and Winnie Ritchie. After the passing  of her husband, Balis Combs,  she became known as "Widow Combs."  Most of her life way spent as a homemaker and a mother that enjoyed quilting, gardening, and raising chickens.  Widow Combs was characterized as a frail, but fearless mountain woman.  In November 1965, at the age of sixty-one, she found her place in Kentucky and local history when se was arrested.  She was carried down a mountainside by the Kentucky State Police and placed in jail for confronting strip mining bulldozers and the powerful, influential coal operators.  Her statement before being placed in jail was, "I have never been in trouble.  I just want to live my life in my hollow and be left alone. Widow Combs spent Thanksgiving Day in 1965 in the Knott County jail, accompanied by her two sons, Jessie age twenty, and Lincoln, age seventeen.  The three were fed a chicken dumpling Thanksgiving dinner prior to their release.  Mrs. Combs said, "they treated me real good in jail.  I had a private cell and good clean bed.  I didn't have any trouble sleeping."  She had climbed the mountain
behind her Honey Gap home and placed her life in jeopardy by using her body to defy the onslaught of strip mining bulldozers.  She was motivated by the fear that dirt and debris would destroy her home.  Widow Combs told the politically powerful coal operators. "We live hard; I don't bother nobody, but you have invaded my home.  I don't want my home destroyed, it's all I've got left."  She probably did more than any other Kentuckian to draw attention to the most controversial issue of the 1960's, strip mining.  The publicity of her actions led to
tough strip mining legislation in the 1966 session of the Kentucky General Assembly.  In 1977, Widow Combs was invited to the White House to witness the signing of federal strip mining law. Reportedly, seven workmen took up stations at the Mountain Top Strip Mining Project, vowing to stand in the path of the dozers.  Her the women and their husbands made camp on the Honey Gap section. The members of the camp were fired upon.  According to statement, both sides fired several hundred gunshots, and luckily no one was killed. Widow Combs, a member of the Clear Creek Regular Baptist Church died at the age of
eighty seven.  She was buried in the Ingle Cemetery at Fisty, Kentucky in Knott County.                                                                                           

Submitted by Corbett Mullins