Lillian Carter, "More Fun in Old Days", Winn Parish, LA
Submitted by Peggy Chandler Beaubouef, 2656 Hwy 1232, Winnfield, LA 71483

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>From a late 1980s Winn Parish Enterprise newspaper article, exact date not
known.

Mrs. Lillian Carter:
IT WAS MORE FUN IN OLD DAYS

by Sherri Taylor, Contributing Writer

Mrs. Lillian Carter of Calvin, Louisiana, is a tall woman with bright eyes
that no longer see very well and a voice so soft a recorder beside her catches
only a whisper of her velvety tones while she speaks with Mrs. Rudell Hattaway
of Ward 10 about days long past.

The community is familiar with the log structure called the Sullivan Place,
one of the oldest houses in North Winn Parish, where Mrs. Lillian was reared.
Once the road was a main thoroughfare from Monroe to Natchitoches and traffic
consisted of ox teams and traveling families in the unmistakable Conestoga
wagons.

"My great grandpa bought the land in 1857." Records show a small house on the
property purchased from William Lucky by Daniel Anderson Marion Walker, Mrs.
Carter's great grandfather. Walker added hand hewn logs to the small house and
built a large comfortable home for his family a monument to the workmanship of
those days.  It was built in the double-pen style with 24' x 24' rooms on each
side of an open hall, surrounded by porches.

"It was two big rooms, a log house. Two side rooms and an eight foot wide
porch. Mama used one for a kitchen and another for a bedroom...it was just
logs, no ceiling and you could see through the board roof overhead."

Sitting in a modern recliner inside her nice home, Mrs. Lillian brings her
stories to life with the descriptions and gestures of a natural storyteller,
carrying all within earshot flowing back in time with the soothing current of
her words.

"The Iron Bridge was built in 1910.  The man who built it was named Cummings
and he boarded with Mama and Papa, John and Ada Sullivan, and Grandpa lived
with them.  Mama sent that man's lunch to him every day and I was right at
Grandpa's heels," as he took the lunch to the construction site.

"What I remember so well is the big posts that go down in the ground... and
they was letting a man down in that to dig the dirt out. They'd draw that man
out and that caught my eye."

This bridge was part of the public road in those days and travelers would camp
at the well across the road from the house and go on the next day. Most drove
oxen teams and these teams were fed free by the Walker-Sullivan men. 

It was also the route for mail. "Mama said there was a post office at the end
of the lane, that was the other side, like you're going to the creek. Uncle
Marion Walker kept it... After that was done away with we didn't have any way
to get mail. We had to go all the way to Mr. Ed Weeks to get mail. When we got
a mail route, it was from Goldonna. He drove what I call a hack, like."

"A buggy," Mrs. Rudell explained. "Yes, it was green" she recalled.

Mrs. Carter's father was a farmer who raised cattle and hogs, butchering and
curing his own meat. At one time he had more than a hundred hens.

"Daddy raised sugar cane and he made syrup for everyone around." The cane mill
was powered by horses or mules hooked to a long pole. The syrup was strained
through tow sacks or flour sacks to purify it. At times he made as much as 20
gallons for his own family alone.

"Back when I was little, they cut these big, old trees, they wasn't worth
nothing. They'd just cut them when they wanted to clear up the land. My daddy
always cleared him a new ground in the summer to have a fresher place to plant
cane. It growed better in fresh land."

When the trees were cut, the families from round about would be invited to a
log rolling. The women would cook and the children would play while the men
worked at rolling the logs into a pile for later burning. Some of the
straighter timber was cut up and used for wooden shingles, lumber, or split
for rails, especially the cypress. Some were "rhived up" for pickets that were
fashioned to fences.

"They called it 'waddling'. You put a picket in the wire and twist it and then
twist it again and that was a picket... all done by hand." Both ladies agreed
it was hard work. Some of the old fences still stand deep in the woods around
the area.

"People enjoyed theirself then better than they do now," asserted Mrs. Rudell.

"Yes we did. My daddy loved to dance and he called the sets. Uncle Bill Gibbs
was a good one to play," music for the dances. "Sometimes there wouldn't be
enough women so I'd get to dance while Daddy called the sets and he'd say,
'Take care of the baby', meaning me," Mrs. Carter said.

"Sometimes we'd get a wagonload of people and we'd all go to church," Mrs.
Rudell said. The ladies recalled trips to the Antioch, Bethlehem, and Yankee
Springs Churches.

"We'd get together and play games and sing all the old songs." Mrs. Lillian
sang one of the songs with her lovely smooth voice.

While Mrs. Lillian painted a picture with her words, the old log house with a
crib full of fresh peanuts and the pecan and pear trees in the yard and the
old dinner bell standing there were perfectly clear. It was almost as if that
bell, used to announce dinner, was calling us home when the old clock on the
wall struck the hour and our time was up. Our trip back in time was ended for
the day, but the memories will always remain to draw others along the same
road another time.

(Submitted by Peggy Chandler Beaubouef, granddaughter of Lillian Sullivan
Chandler Carter.)