Entry 1 23 Sept 1987

     My name as it appears at the beginning of this journal may perhaps require some explanation. The name that I knew and was addressed by when a child was Quincy Dalton Sanders. When I volunteered for duty in the United States Navy in 1947 I discovered that I was listed on my birth certificate as Wentsel Dalton Sanders. Therefore, I suppose the latter could be considered to be my legal name.

    I was born 13 Dec. 1927 to Alonzo Washington Sanders and Mary Wiley Sanders, on or in a cabin on a log raft at the confluence of Little River with Catahoula Lake, Rogers, LaSalle Parish, La.

    I would like to interject here that there is a class of people considered "dirt poor." There is another class of people below this stage in life that, due to their sociological standing cannot, cannot measure up to dirt poor. This latter category we fell into. Growing up in the particular area in which we lived,  and the specific period of history known as the post Depression era, we had very scant opportunity to progress to a stage of existence that might classify as poor. No money, no property beyond a shot-gun & a few shells, a fishing net and no opportunity to remove myself from this level of non-society, constituted a trap from which there appeared to be no escape. Nevertheless, we had pride. And oh, how that pride hurt me in all my formative years. I could never accept my status in having less than nothing, while all around me my friends and cousins, at least being in the class of "dirt poor", could have a little meat; pork or beef, while I took to school for lunch a piece of corn pone with a hole punched in one edge and a few drops of syrup poured into it. Fortunately however, I never correlated my status in life with that of my parents, or that of my brother's, complacent attitude about work. I say this is fortunate because in not doing this, I had no barrier placed in my way that might prevent me from loving them. More on that a little further along. 

    Not long after my own birth; I have at this time one brother older than I;  perhaps 3 yrs,  I also have a sister 3 years younger; my mother came down with a kidney ailment known as "Bright's Disease". She suffered long and hard from this disease and finally passed away on a Sunday, October 16, 1932. What more appropriate day than the Lord's day to pass back through the veil, since from all reports that I've heard in later years, my mother must have been a dear, sweet soul. I myself never knew her, although I have vague memories of her bedridden existence. I cannot pull up though, even the minutest memory of ever being held in her arms or by the hand. I've no doubt that she did, in the earlier years before her illness progressed to the point where she was unable to care for her family or herself. I lacked 2 months almost to the day, being five years old when my mother died. Therefore there are only vague memories of her. Two however, stand out in my mind very vividly. The first involvIng my mother, and the second, not. 

    Standing ata the edge of a great expanse of open range land and frog ponds, known as Holloway Prairie in the north eastern corner of Rapides parish within a few yards of an old sawmill