Contributed by Maradee Liggin Cryer



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I grew up in Union Parish. We lived about seven miles from Bernice, 
Farmerville and Dubach. My roots are deep there as most of my ancestors came 
into Union and Lincoln Parishes in the years between 1844 and 1892. Exactly 
100 years after my Liggin ancestors moved from Alabama to Union Parish I was 
born. Our house was just a couple of blocks from the old one-room school 
house called Union Gin School. I remember as a child walking around the area 
and being told about the school that had been located there. My mother and 
father and my father's father attended this school. I also remember an 
African-American one-room school that was located closer to Bernice. My 
mother often said this should have been preserved because of the history 
associated with the school. Unfortunately it was torn down.

A few miles down the road was Shiloh Church. We attended church there every 
Sunday morning, night and Wednesday night. There were also the revivals in 
the summer and Vacation Bible School. I remember George Moore and his wife 
Mary Maude Moore.  George Moore was one of the deacons in the church and 
was well thought of. My mother and father are buried in Shiloh cemetery.

To reach Dubach we drove down a dirt road through Middlefork Swamp. My roots 
are really in this area as this is where my Liggin and Wynn ancestors lived. 
Most of them are buried in the Fellowship Church cemetery that is located 
along this road. Also along here is a private family Liggin cemetery that 
contains my great great grandfather and grandmother, James G. Liggin and his 
wife Elizabeth Peters Burton Liggin. He was born in Virginia in the 1700s. 

My Tabor ancestors lived between our house and Bernice. Somewhere near Shiloh 
Church, I believe. My grandmother Laura Tabor Matthews Lewis Smith moved back 
to Union Parish after her husband died, leaving her with 3 young children. 
When my mother, Edna Matthews Liggin married, Laura married a widower (Mr. 
Lewis). He did not live long and she later married the grandfather that I 
remember, "Pop" Smith. Pop was a character...a carpenter with unlimited 
energy. He repaired and built many houses in Union Parish.

My mother's brother, John Matthews, lived across the road from us. He was 
known in the area as the "butane" man. He drove a butane gas truck and 
delivered gas to the area homes. Some of you may remember this....everyone 
burned butane in their space heaters to heat their homes. There was a tank 
buried in the yard that had a lid that lifted for the "butane" man to take 
his hose from his truck and refill the tank. John was always getting early 
morning calls from "widow-women" in the area who had put off calling him to 
have their tanks filled...until it was too late and they were out. (Many of 
these elderly women had little money and were tight with what they had.) He 
never complained...just got out of his warm bed and drove out to refill their 
Butane tanks so they could have a warm fire in the mornings. My grandmother 
(Douglas Liggin) used to sit all day in a rocker in front of her space heater.

My mother, Edna Liggin, was known as the "bookmobile" lady. She worked on the 
Union Parish bookmobile and visited all the area schools. She would take an 
interest in each child and often set aside books she knew they would enjoy. 
She was also the Parish genealogist and wrote many articles for the Bernice 
and Farmerville newspapers. Another of her interests was bottle collecting. 
She would go to all the old home sites and find their garbage dumps. Everyone 
was responsible for their own trash and garbage disposal and usually buried 
it in an old ditch or roadbed. From these "trash" areas she found memories 
from the past in the form of bottle and old trinkets. She would research 
these bottles and write about their history in the local papers. We had a 
large barn beside our house. On this barn she started hanging the bottles she 
had found (not the valuable ones) and soon it became known as the bottle 
barn. I remember a Monroe newspaper sent out a reporter to interview her and 
take pictures. The article later appeared in the Monroe paper.

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