I was born on January 6, 1943 in our log and framed house that was built at a log raising in 1936, helped by kind neighbors. The front 2 rooms are log and the rest of the house was added on as framed rooms. It would be done when the crops were harvested and had time to cut the trees -- dried and peeled.

The old house is still standing and is my present residence. I sleep in the same room that I was born in. At birth, I was basically born dead. The old country doctor (Dr. Vines) had two neighbor ladies who had experience in birthing, etc., and he handed me to the ladies and told them to do what they could while
he was trying to save my mother. The ladies would dip me from a tub of cool water into a tub of warm water to get me to breathe. After some time, one lady told the Dr. that if he could fix half an adult heart shot, that they believed I would come around. The story is one of a miracle that only God could work.

My mother-Lola Travis Evans- lived to be 91 years and 5 months old. She was a tough worker and farmer. She could outwork most men and my dad-
Clarence Leroy "Roy" Evans who lived to be 88. My dad's parents lived to be in their mid 80's and my mom's mother lived to her 80's but her father was killed by an AWOL soldier 2 months after I was born. He was 70 years old. Along about the age of 60, my mother fell and hurt her hip and it pained her the rest of her life but it didn't stop her from farming. She travailed the rest of her life with a crutch under her arm, and even drove the pickup to church and town. One of my parents had a 3rd grade education and the other had a 3rd or 4th grade education. They were always reading whatever they could get their hands on and would always get me to pronounce a word and sometimes what it meant.

There were 6 children born to them-5 boys and 1 girl and two born dead or lived for a short time. I remember my mother telling me that when my oldest brother was about 7 or 8, he would take a slide and load the plows he would need and pulled by the mule and travel about 4 miles to plow a field all day and come home when finished. He'd take his dinner meal consisting of leftover biscuits and bacon in a gallon can that we used to put home-grown sugar cane syrup in.

My parents share-cropped different places until they bartered for 40 acres by swapping a yearling calf and so many pounds of smoked pork. No money was to be had back then. People who had any money could have hired help to farm their crops for 50 cents a day. Many times, I heard my parents tell me so. In the winter time, after the crops were harvested, my dad would hew crossties from the hardwood trees that we had plenty of. One time, he missed the tie and split his foot wide open in the instep. He had a big scar and bothered him for the rest of his life. The next 40 acres they bought was connected to the first land and paid off by my dad cutting and hauling the timber to sawmills to sell.

They were married in June 1923 and celebrated their 60th anniversary before my dad had to be admitted to a nursing home and one year later, my mother was admitted. Dad was in there from the time he was 82 until he was 88 and died. Mom was in there (to help take care of Dad) from age 77 until 91 when she died. The last 2 years my dad was at home, he could do nothing much but go to the
table, the front porch, and then to bed. Mom took care of him even if she had to do everything else on the farm. Out of the six living children, I was the "baby" of the family and learned almost everything the others knew-even some of the bad things. My sister was the next oldest and my second "mom" and taught me my ABC's and numbers before I started school. She was born in 1930 and still thinks she can boss me around (HA). I lost my oldest brother in 1994 at the age
of 64. I lost the second oldest brother to a helicopter crash while he was working offshore on the oil rigs. It happened in 1975 in the Gulf of Mexico, about 20 miles offshore. He left a wife of 20 plus years and a married daughter, teenage son, and 1 granddaughter about 2 years old. He was very close to me.

My health has always been poorly, because of the birthing. In my first 12 years, I had pneumonia and double pneumonia every winter. I have been diagnosed as hypopituitarism. The pituitary gland controls every organ in the body. In 1978, at 35 years old, I married and grew up. We never had any children because of my problem and her problems. She died in 1994 after being married 16 years,
2 months, and 3 days. I married again in 1998 to a woman who had a grown son and a 14 year old daughter whose sperm donor left when she was 3 years old and never paid child support, along with being married to 2 women at the same time. When I asked my wife to be my wife, I also asked her daughter to be my daughter, and believe it or not, they both said "YES".

 I am also the only child of my parents who went past high school. I received a B.A. and a Master of Divinity degree. The Lord has been good to me through all my years. I am also a minister presently out of a pastorate-voluntarily. I write inspirational poems and help less educated preachers out sometimes along with helping people understand the Scriptures better. I still preach sometimes in my local church. I live in west central Louisiana. I hope that some people may enjoy and appreciate what the pioneer families went through and that, without the pioneers, there would be no "sea to shining sea" in the United States of America. 

If Americans could/would rethink their beginnings, I believe that they would act a lot more respectable and responsible than most of them do in today's American society. It seems that most Americans only think of what they can have or achieve for themselves and not care about what happens to others and to our American nation and society. They will pay for their selfishness one day when they wake up and find many of their privileges and rights faltering by the wayside and others will tell them more and more what they can and will do. WAIT AND SEE! We need to appreciate what our ancestors did for us so that we could have the rights that we have today. Hopefully, our nation will still be around when its citizens finally wake up. I believe that looking at the lifestyle
of most today is like being on a fast moving locomotive with no one at the controls. However, GOD IS STILL GOD and is STILL in control of ALL things even though HE LETS us make our choices. All we have to do to see all of this is to look back and see what happened to the Israelites when they went their own way and did their own thing.