Nevaeh Grace Radclif will likely have a unique place to call her own as she grows older as what is likely one of the only babies born in Lawrence County in the past decade.

The newborn Nevaeh came a little earlier than anyone anticipated, actually being delivered by her grandmother at their Pedro home.

After River Valley Hospital closed its doors in 2001, Ironton and the surrounding communities lost a key element of their identity because very few children can say they were born in Lawrence County.

Of all the negative factors that came when River Valley closed its doors, and there were many including job loss and lack of immediate health care, perhaps the most damaging psychologically was the fact that we no longer had any native sons and daughters.

Although it may seem like semantics because many children are now born just a few miles away in Kentucky or West Virginia, the bottom line is that only a handful of individuals from this new generation can say they were born in Lawrence County. Most were because of emergency situations like Neveah’s.

This was once a point of pride.

Hopefully one day soon, as healthcare industry continues to grow here in the county, families will once again have the opportunity to give birth right here in Lawrence County.

That isn’t to say that there is a problem with those who are born across the river but being able to say you were born and raised in your hometown counts for something.

One day we will be able to ask Neveah.