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Note: Custom Field:<_FA#> Buried at Holly Grove Cemetery, Anacoco, LA Custom Field:<_FA#> Source: WFT - SSN#438-78-4194 issued in LA. Address:<ADDR> Anacoco Louisiana Rodolphus Augustus Brown and his wife, Nancy Laverne, worked hard on their farm following the civil war and finally built a cotton gin. At that time, there was no electricity, gas, butane, gasoline or other fuel of any kind to run machinery. This cotton gin was operated by a number of horses. Someone had to be in the driver's seat at all times to keep the horses going at an even pace. Their granddaughter, Lula Mellie Brown, was often asked to relieve the regular drivers. From her account of the matter, she never quite appreciated being asked to help drive the horses even though she dearly loved her Grandfather, Rodolphus Augustus Brown. OLD UNION SCHOOL (Written by Sybil Jones, daughter of Lula Brown) My mother was born at Hawthorne (just outside Leesville); her name was Lula Mellie Brown and she was the youngest of the six children of James D. Brown and Malinda Mason Salsbury. Her father was the oldest of the nine children of Rodolphus Augustus Brown and Nancy Laverne Guess. James Brown operated a store just across the road from his father's cotton gin. From one to ten years of age are the years most children seem to love and adore their grandparents most and my mother almost idolized her grandparents. During that time my mother attended Old Union School. The benches and desks in this school were made of split logs cut in half and smoothed down and set together with wooden pegs that also made the legs. There was a mud chimney and in the winter, wood must be brought in to keep the fire burning in the fireplace so that the school room would remain warm. I imagine that the older boys had to take turns chopping and bringing in the wood. The children had to carry their lunches to school. Very often there were fried peach and apple pies to go in the Lunch pails but when there were no pies or cake, the children always liked to carry a little bottle of sugar cane syrup. At noon they would pour their syrup into the lids of their dinner buckets and eat it with their corn bread or biscuits. Grandfather Rodolphus Augustus would always store his sugar cane syrup in barrels every year. Each morning that my mother and the other children would want syrup for their lunches they would run across the road and Grandmother Nancy Laverne would tell her youngest son, Tom, to go out and fill their syrup bottles for their lunches. On real cold mornings the syrup would be thick and it would take ages to fill their bottles because it would run so slowly. Tom would quarrel and say, "I'm getting awfully tired of filling syrup bottles on every cold morning we have." However, he never refused this chore and they always had syrup in their lunches when they wanted it. Quite often the McRae children would walk to school along with my mother and her sister, Annie, and brother, Alvah. Sometimes on their way home in the afternoon they would stop by Aunt Mary and Uncle Bill Howard's (Mary Antinette Brown and William H. Howard) for a little visit. Aunt Mary was a sister to Rodolphus Augustus Brown. Aunt Mary still cooked on a large fireplace even though she probably had a stove. By this time, in my mother's life both her grandmother and mother had about quit using the fireplace for cooking. My mother always loved and respected Aunt Mary and Uncle Bill Howard and she always talked about the good food Aunt Mary cooked in that fireplace. NOTES: See Nancy Laverne Guess Notes See James D. Brown Notes Funeral services for Mrs. Lula Brown Jones, 86, were held 3 P.M. Methodist Church with the Rev. John B. Heard officiating.
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