Here's tonight's group: Claud E. Upshaw, 1972 Derward Boatright, ?? Ernest Henderson, 1972 Gordon Bryan, ?? Jack Eubanks, 1993 Mary L. Rockett, ?? Fannie Mae Abbot, 1978 C. L. Upshaw, 1995 Wesson Ward, 1990 Mrs. Ollie Watson, 1992 Mrs. Sallie Pickens, age 101 (!) 1976 Mrs. Sarah Senn, 1978 Thanks, Gina! Thanks, Peggy! And by the way, isn't this a nice way for Peggy to pay tribute to her mother? I enjoyed the story about sitting on the porch of the general store eating cheese and crackers and lemons that Shawn shared with us. I'll bet your feet were bare and dusty, too! It set me thinking - what are your roots in Union Parish? I'll share with you ---- why am I the Archives Coordinator and the Listowner for Union Parish? I never lived there a day in my life. I visited there 3 times in my life - twice as a young kid, and once as a young adult. Those visits as a kid were wonderful. I visited with my great uncles, Lucien and Lot Coplen (Copeland) - both of whom lived in a dogtrot cabin out in the woods. I got to go to a big white clapboard schoolhouse with my cousin Jeanette Long at Farmerville. It was May and it was hot, and I was wishing I was outside running down the dusty street barefooted. My southern roots run deep. My g-g-g-g-g-g-grandfather came from Ireland to S. Ca. He was a wagonmaker, and they called him (oddly enough) "Wagonmaker Billy Moore." He's the progenitor of the Moore family of Union Parish - George Washington Moore, Richard Tubb Moore, et al. Most of them buried at Shiloh. My g-g-grandfather Thomas S. Cook owned a carriage manufactory in Milltown, AL before the Civil War. One of his young apprentices was William Pierce Mabry. He built wagons, too. His son, my grandfather, who married two wives in Union Parish before moving to Texas, then Oklahoma worked with wood too. He made cabinets some, but mostly he made coffins. Most of the people in the little tiny cemetery near what is now almost a ghost town called Elmer, OK are buried in coffins made by my grandfather. I have a big old wooden chest of tools used to a well-worn sheen by him and William P. Mabry, and for all I know, Thomas S. Cook. I love to work with wood, too. It pleases my hands and my soul. That's a few of the many reasons my heart lingers in Union Parish - what are yours? Karen Mabry Rice