Contributed by Mary Margaret Selig-Trahan ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ I too, did not live in Union Parish. My mother was Emma (Maria ) Ophelia Heard, daughter of Ephraim Q. and Mary Webster Heard. She was born February 3, 1887 at the family home about 3 miles north of Bernice and the Pisgah Church community. Here, in Stuttgart, Arkansas - Mama would speak of going home - never to Bernice..so we children always referred to Bernice/Pisgah as "going home". I do not remember my grandfather, as he died when I was 3 years old. He had suffered strokes and was not allowed to smoke his pipe, but they said that he would get some of the kids to find it and bring it to him. Well, I was there and my turn came and he set his long beard on fire, so when the division of the household came - Mama brought home the shirt they had cut off of him with all of the burn holes that I as a toddler had caused. I kept this for many years. They had a dogtrot house that I thought was the best thing I had ever seen....breeze coming thru all the time. I also remember the outhouse and coaloil lamps, many ropes hanging down in the well to keep butter, milk cool. Heaven help you, if you tipped one over, causing the well having to be cleared. Aunt Annie had a claytiled well on the back porch which made her! "uptown" as she did not have to get out in the weather to draw water. Our Heard family came to Shiloh Landing, Union Parish December 1859 from Perry Co. AL. Grandpa was the baby of the family and his father (Joseph M. Heard) had fallen from a horse and was buried at sunset the nite before Greatgrandma (Mary Edmonds) along with the rest of the wagon train arrived. Grandpa was only 10 years old. Our Webster family came 1840/41 from Kemper Co. MS. Grandma was the baby of her family of four girls, all born in Union Parish. Grandpa & Grandma Heard are buried in the Webster Cemetery north of Bernice. Aunt Martha (Mrs. Sam) Fitzgerald lived across the cotton patch from Grandma and Aunt Annie (Mrs. Dan) Senn lived at Spearsville. Uncle Charlie Heard lived at the homeplace. The other family members; Aunt Brooksie (Mrs. Victor) LaFave lived at Chanute Field, Rantoul, Illinois and Uncle Johnnie Heard lived at Epps, La. I am also related to the Grafton & Tucker families as Great Aunts Martha & Victoria were sister of Grandma Heard. When I was just 6 weeks into first grade (October 1929), Mama took my little brother Pat and I to Bernice, as her mother was in a dying condition and Mama was a nurse......not long after we were there, Aunt Annie came over one nite and told Mama to pack up my clothes, as there were too many people at Grandma's and that since she was taking care of Grandma, Aunt Annie would take me home and put me in school, therefore I moved to Spearsville and the next day was taken to school. When we knocked on the first grade school door and the RED haired lady came to the door, I dug my heels in the floor and refused to go in....(my uncles in Arkansas had told us kids that red haired women were MEAN and I believed them). Addie Pryor ( family connection ) taught the 4th grade and heard the commotion, so she came out of her room and took me in there. I learned to spell before I could read by writing the words in the air, also do arithmetic problems the same way. Ms. Addie said that we were not to waste chalk by writing on our slates for practice. There I stayed until going home in January. Later in life, Ms. Vera Cole (the RED haired teacher) and I became very good friends. One summer at Spearsville, I wanted to go to the cotton patch with Uncle Dan and the boys Tommy, Daniel Webster, Lloyd and Cull Senn....this field was a long way from the house and they did not need to fool with me all day, so Uncle Dan had Aunt Annie to fashion a cotton sack out of a flour sack for me and took me out back of the house and showed me how to pick cotton. I worked all day and picked 26 pounds, which he paid me for and then hung the sack in the sideroom. It hung there until the sack rotted and the residue fell on the floor. He had 8 children and only 2 girls. I was 4/.5 years younger than his youngest, and was the apple of his eye. Also, I remember playing with Rosemary Cherry who lived across the road. As a teenager, I would go to Uncle Charlie's and have the time of my life with my cousins, Elaine Heard Elliott, Mary Alyce Heard Roberson and Virginia Ann Heard Tucker as they were Uncle Charlie and Aunt Pinkie's girls. Also, Aunt Martha had Boyce, Vaughn and Jack Fitzgerald still at home and her grandson Luther Lois Farrar. My 2nd cousins Roy (Hoover), Dean and Donald, sons of Odie and Carrie Kelly Fitzgerald. My cousin, Blanche Heard Hughes and her children Thesta Lee, Gwen & Hughey where we had play parties. I remember Protracted Meetings at Pisgah and the fact that at noon time we would go to a different house each day for lunch and fellowship in the afternoon and then back to church that nite. This lasted 2 weeks at "laying-by" time. On a Sunday evening after having company all afternoon we walked to church barefooted with friends and neighbors. Just before getting there - we would sit on the side of the rode on someone's handkerchief, put our hose and white slippers on. We did this to save the slippers from being scratched by the sand and rocks. At other times we rode in the wagon with Uncle Charlie & Aunt Pinkie. Church was what held the community together and still does. My family still worship at Pisgah Baptist Church each week. I also remember "Blue Hole" and sneaking out and going there one day and getting caught. After Uncle Charlie and Aunt Pinkie talked to us about what we had done and their not knowing where we were and what could have happened to us.....we could have walked under a door standing straight up...we were so ashamed of ourselves. I also remember being taught how to smoke cross vines by the older boy cousins and burning our mouths and getting sick from it. I remember riding Mr. Otis' bus for a nickel to town on Banknite and seeing the show. This was during the great depression and my folks had given me $2.50 and it had to pay my tithe at church, bus fare, show money, treat if I could afford it. This had to last me the whole time I was there, and it did as I was very careful with it---I knew that I could not expect anyone else to pay my way. The foods I remember are home-cured ham and Uncle Charlie's red-eye gravy over biscuits; Aunt Pinkie's fried chicken (fresh caught out of the yard); Aunt Martha's custard pie; Aunt Annie's teacakes, great grandmother Webster's pound cake. a bowl of field peas of some type every day (which was my job to do every evening - pick peas and shell them for next day's dinner) eaten with "hotwater" bread and peach pickles; watermelon that Uncle Charlie had cooled in a net dropped down the well. This all makes my mouth water for those tastes again. I mostly remember the close fellowship that my cousins and I had with of the rest of the community. I had lots of cousins in Arkansas, but we did not live close therefore this meant a lot to me. We never went home that we did not pick up some of the red/brown rocks with pockets in them to take back to Arkansas with us and put on Mama's rockery, where we live on the great Grand Prairie - flat and few trees. It is always so peaceful walking in those rocky/ piney woods where our forefathers had trod and labored so hard. A "Union" Reunion was held a couple of years ago at Shiloh, and for those of you that did not get there you really did miss something that was very good. Sharing, fellowship and oh! the food......had a tour thru the cemetery..... I promise that if a "memories thing" comes about again, I will not go on forever..........love all of you Unionites, whether we are related or not..... Mary Margaret Selig-Trahan # # #