Many thanks to Karen, Gina and Shawn Martin for sharing your memories. Your stories also took me for a stroll down memory lane. My story is about Evergreen Community and Union Gin School. Are any of you old enough to remember Union Gin? God said "Let there be life" and I was born. It was a Wednesday afternoon, the twentieth day of May in the year nineteen hundred thirty-six to be exact. I think my two older sisters thought the stork got their baby mixed up as my parents had promised them a brother. They did decide they better keep me so I became a full fledged member of the Gresham family. As a child I felt very close to Aunt Lillie Gresham Rea. She lived nearby and took care of Grandfather Marcelleous Allen Gresham. Each afternoon when my sisters and I got off the school bus, Aunt Lillie would have a nice hot baked sweet potato waiting for us. Grandfather always had a warm fire going in the fireplace. We use to sit and talk to them and they seemed personally interested in us. My sisters and I attended the Union Gin country school which was near the Evergreen community in Bernice, Union Parish, Louisiana. It was a long walk uphill to catch the bus each morning. I wore long socks to keep my legs and feet warm. On the night before Christmas my socks were draped across the rocking chair on Mother's treadle sewing machine near the tree in hope Santa would find them. Christmas morning, as soon as it was light, my sisters and I would ask permission to go into the room with the Christmas tree and socks. Every year there would be an apple, an orange, some nuts, and almost always a doll. I still have the doll with the aluminum eyes which I received in nineteen hundred forty one. My grandfather, L.C."Clevy" Bagwell also lived nearby. He had a sand yard which was swept every day. I remember well the fun we had as we played under the spacious wisteria vine. I faintly recall walking through the virgin pine forest behind his home. I enjoyed visiting with him as he was a very kindly soul with so many wonderful memories to share. I still remember most of his stories. In nineteen hundred forty-two, Union Gin school had an outhouse. The school children would line up and wait their turn. This outhouse gave us a much better picture of typical examples of outdoor plumbing. Mrs. R. E. Jernigan, formerly Miss Edna Tabor, was my first grade school teacher. I can still picture her face and the wood burning stove we shared with the second graders. In my memory book, there are reading, penmanship and spelling certificates awarded to me while attending school at Union Gin. They were signed by Irene Clark, Seth Tanner, and Mrs. R. E. Jernigan. Mr. Tanner was our principal. It was also in January, 1942 when my Mother was awarded a certificate for meritorious achievement in having grown seventy-five percent or more of the food necessary for the family, & for leadership in better living in the community and state as was awarded and signed by Sam Jones, Governor of Louisiana and H.C. Sanders, Director of Agricultural Extension and Harry Wilson, Commissioner of Agriculture. "..............And this community of Evergreen's hilly red clay countryside, fertile and beautiful the tallest trees grow that I had ever seen and my wonderful memories so bountiful." I was born and grew up the descendent of the original settlers who moved to the state about 1811 to survey and clear the land, work the soil, grow their crops and raise their families. Margaret Pear and George Feazel settled in the area of Downsville, Louisiana at the edge of what is now Lincoln Parish, Louisiana. All that remains is a small cemetery which is often refered to as the Feazel-Frazier/Frasier Cemetery. The Frazier or Frasier (spelling questionable) family inherited the land from Hale Feazel, son of Christiana Ferguson and John O. Feazel. John O. was the second son of the original settlers.