GET TOGETHER — Nine-year-old Emma Helseo and 13-year-old Raymond DeFranco helped Bob Geary award door prizes at the annual Hilltoppers Reunion in Follansbee, Sunday. The Hilltoppers Reunion is held by families from the Hooverson Heights area of the city. -- Amy Neeley

FOLLANSBEE ­– The families in the Hooverson Heights area of Follansbee have been getting together since 1928 when the “Hilltop Ballteam” was first organized by Frank Janeshek and Ed Geary. The baseball team and the fields they played on are gone, but the reunions are still here.

On Sunday approximately 70 people gathered at the community house in Follansbee Park for the annual Hilltoppers Reunion.

Bob Geary, who has been organizing the potluck meal for the past 28 years, said the event is a chance to get together and remember the old days when his father, Ed, and the other men in the neighborhood played ball on their days off from the various steel mills and factories in the area.

“They used to play all up and down the valley,” he said. “They played the Homestead Grays from Pittsburgh, the coal mining leagues and even the team for the Moundsville Penitentiary.”

Geary said originally the reunions were just a few families that got together each year, but in 1979 they decided to open it up to any families in the neighborhood and things really took off.

“At one time we would have 175 people here,” he said. “It is always good fellowship.”

Rosemary Mazezka said this year some people had traveled from several hours away to come to the event.

“One woman drove three and half hours to get her,” she said.

Geary said that during its heyday, the reunion would have people coming from all over the country to attend and he can remember sending out as many as 300 reminder cards.

“There is only one person left from the original group,” he said.

Mazezka said that while the reunion was originally just the families from Hooverson Heights, they welcome anyone with connections to the neighborhood to come.

“We want to keep it going,” she said.

Sanford Harlan has lived his entire life in Hooverson Heights and he said he hopes to see those families new to the area taking part in the event in the future.

“I would like to get the people that live up there now and have never come,” he said. “There is a lot of local lore that is interesting and could be shared.”

Geary said that the reunion is funded solely by donations. Over the years he said they have come up with some interesting ways to make money.

He said that Fred “Dutch” Wendt was a member of the original baseball team. Wendt’s family business was coal and once, Geary said he remembers Wendt donating 25 bushels of coal to sell in order to make money for the event.

The group also held cake walks and dances over the years.

This year, Hooverson Heights Church of The Nazerene held a love offering to help with the costs.

The officers for this year’s reunion included Geary, Mazezka, Nancy Waugh, Carlos Waugh, Ruth Singleton and David Eddy.