I know at least three people with a first name of Oliver – Oliver Twist (from the Dickens novel about poverty and crime), Oliver Stone (the movie director), and Oliver Barrett IV (the heartbroken widower from “Love Story”). I know only of two people whose last is Oliver but they are remarkable people indeed.

Our Bulletin newspaper has done a wonderful job of tracking the sufferings of involved Hyde Park residents for a long time now. The Oliver in that section of town – first name Joy – has been duking it out with Boston Parks Department and Boston Police Department for years. It seems that area residents abutting Ross Field have been subjected to noise and parking issues from a softball league utilizing the field way beyond their allotted night-time ending. Their tribulations do not seem to have diminished.

A retired Boston Public School principal, Joy Oliver is one of several members of the East River Neighborhood Association trying to get the police to act and overcome their laissez-faire attitude toward obvious violations. Meanwhile, the Parks Departments, it seems, has not curtailed much of the softball league’s activities during recent years, as the nearby residents have to put up with much that certainly infringes on their quality of life.

But the old adage “You can’t fight City Hall” does not resonate with Joy Oliver.

The other Oliver, Bette Lou, was a 20-year-old elevator operator preparing to spend her last day of work at the Empire State Building. On a Saturday, July 28, 1945, a B-25 bomber crashed into the 78th and 79th floors during heavy cloud coverage on a training exercise after leaving Hanscom Air Force Base on its way to LaGuardia when it swerved to avoid the Chrysler Building only to hit the North side of the Empire State Building.

She had only two hours left on her schedule when the accident happened. The B-25's wings sheared off, as its gasoline tanks exploded. Eleven in the building died as well as three in the plane. The right engine of the plane smashed into the elevator shaft, crashing down and severing cables on its way.

Badly burned by the blast and fire, she holds the Guinness World Record for surviving the longest-ever elevator free fall – a harrowing nearly 1,000-foot plunge straight down in the country's then most famous skyscraper.

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Some accounts say she was then placed into another elevator for evacuation to get medical aid. However, in a 1977 interview she claimed that she was trapped in her own elevator car as it began free-falling down.

All six cables attached to the car had snapped and the automatic braking cable was destroyed, allowing the car to fall without any braking system at all. The only thing which might have slowed the descent was air pressure in the shaft.

The elevator ultimately had crashed against an oil buffer at the bottom of the building – a kind of emergency fail-safe meant to stop falling elevators – and the buffer's piston smashed through, except for eight inches in one corner, where Oliver was standing. The concrete floor in the bottom of the shaft was crushed like an eggshell.

Oliver had to be cut from the mangled wreckage of the elevator. Given a toe tag, she was given Extreme Unction (renamed as The Last Rites, now renamed again as the Sacrament of the Sick) by a priest even though she was not Catholic. She spent four months in the hospital as she recovered from the burn injuries and a broken neck, back, pelvis and two legs. And she recovered to marry and have three children.

Yeah, two people whose last name is Oliver showing true grit in two different cities.