DATE: December
17, 1995
INTERVIEWER:
LOCATION: Edward
Couvillier’s house on Oxford Loop, Oxford, St. Mary Parish,
COOPERATORS: Agnes
Bailey, Edward Couvillier, Lena Mae Couvillier, Dorothy (Dot) Couvillier
[Talking about tying stageon loops
JD: Well, that’s what I call a tail. When you got a tail, piece sticking…[ends sticking out past the square knot]
Edward: Yeah, and I don’t, I don’t like that, I can’t stand that, never could!
JD: Doesn’t meet your professional standards, eh?
Edward: Nooo, lot of people…I’ve seen em like that, you know, you run that line every piece on each side of that knot stickin out about that far [measures one inch between fingers].
JD: When I first started tyin stageons, that’s how mine were. Yall laughed at me so bad I didn’t…I had to stop.
Edward: Mine…sometime you might get a lil knot, lil
one on the side but not often. [he leaves
JD: No tails on em either.
Edward: No tails. Now, Agnes will have a tail on most of hers about that long on each side [about ½ inch].
JD: Well that does one thing, the way she does it, it keeps it from comin loose. From pullin through.
EC: Yeah, but mine don’t…
JD: But if you burn [melt] em…
EC: Now, if you buy that nylon already tarred, you cut you stageons, if you cut em with a knife, and tie em, well, they’ll come loose. I did that.
JD: You have to burn em [melt them in half].
EC: Burn em, you burn em it leaves that burr on the end and they ain’t comin loose.
JD: Won’t come through.
Edward: That’s why I don’t like…don’t like em, uh…anyhow you buy em already tarred they don’t last long, they get limber, limber. They get just like this right here [holding white line] when, when you knock that trash off, it take forever to get um untangled.
JD: Yeah, they all tangle up.
Edward: I don’t…I don’t like that.
JD: [showing
a transcript] This is what it looks like
when I’m finished with it, in case yall noticed. This is a, this is the tape, uh, fourth tape
which is Agnes
Edward: They built the retention levee after the 1927 high water.
JD: Yeah, umhm. I have here that I have two half-sisters to Myon.
Edward: More than that.
JD: I guess we could look that up, eh?
Lena Mae: More than that. Myon had four half-sisters.
JD: OK. Somebody’s grandfather had five wives. Myon said he had a bunch of em, whoever that was. And, aw, here he is. His name was say, say, [pronounced sayodd] [?] Daigre.
Lena Mae: Yeah.
JD: That’s Myon’s grandfather, eh? No?
Lena Mae: Uhuh.
JD: That’s the half-sister’s grandfather?
Lena Mae: That
was, uh,…musta been. Musta been gr
JD: Apparently Ike was collecting a lot of information…Ike? Ike Daigle?
Lena Mae: I don’t know.
JD: Apparently
he was collecting a lot of information.
He had an aunt in
Lena Mae: I believe that’s the way they might have [said?] it.
JD: No.?
Lena Mae: They don’t have Marie in their name.
JD: I have Marie Alberta Daigle. That’s not right?
Lena Mae: Marie Alberta Daigle?
JD: That’s what, that’s what this person says…
Edward: You writin this like a coonass, then, hunh Jim? [reading a transcript]
JD: How’s that?
Edward: “They work them, they work on them pullboats” [laughs]
JD: You know…you know why I did that, because sometimes it sounds better. It sounds better. That’s how Agnes would talk, of course, and it sounds…I like the way that sounds sometimes. Now, I’m not gonna quote anybody to make em…to make em one way or the other. Isn’t that the way it sounds?
Edward: Yeah.
JD:
Lena Mae: Build just like that campboat cabin right there. [pointing to the one Myon and Agnes lived in, next door]
JD: Three rooms? Three rooms on a cypress barge?
Lena Mae: No, had two rooms, a kitchen and… In fact the one when it was just me and Milton [the first two kids], it was all in one, they didn’t have no partition.
JD: One room? One big room.
Lena Mae: The kitchen was on one end, the bedroom on the other.
JD: And yall had…yall had what? What kind of beds did yall have?
Lena Mae: Momma had a regular bed, a double bed, and they built a trouble [trundle] bed that was on rollers, that was under that bed. Me and Milton would sleep on that.
JD: OK. So they had rollers on the trundle bed that went under the big bed? What happened when you got more and more of yall?
Lena Mae: Well, that’s when we traded this camp for that camp. [indicating Myon’s house next door]
JD: This is the cabin you actually spent a lot of your young life in, too, right here, Myon’s…
Lena Mae: This here was a big camp [the one Agnes and Myon brought over the levee]… we swapped that, that lil camp I’m talking about, we swapped that when Albert [Boy] was born, for uh, for this. This had a flat cabin on it. And it was, uh, three bed…three rooms. Two bedrooms and a kitchen. And it had partitions in it. And Daddy [Myon] started repairin it, put a hip roof, and the whole thing collapsed. So, he had to tear all that off and start from scratch, from the floor on up. He rebuilt it like that [present day form].
JD: And he rebuilt it as three rooms, like this is right now. And then once it was three rooms, how did yall have the beds in there?
Lena Mae: Momma
and them had the front room, had another bed for me and
JD: Was it a full size bed?
Lena Mae: Yeah,
yeah a double bed. And they had another
smaller bed on the other side the room for
JD: How many beds did yall have in…that’s not big rooms.
Lena Mae: There’s three of us slept in that one bed.
JD: Three girds slept in that one bed, and Myon and Agnes in one…
Lena Mae: In
the front, and
JD: That room must not have had much room to, uh, walk around, hunh?
Lena Mae: Shore didn’t.
JD: And the middle room was used for what?
Lena Mae: Middle room was our room [girls], where we slept.
JD: Oh, yall weren’t all in that front room, you sayin…
Lena Mae: No, Momma and Daddy had the front room and the children had the second room. And then we had the kitchen.
JD: And everything took place…all the sitting around or whatever, evening and everything, was all in the kitchen? Ever feel kind of crowded?
Lena Mae: Aww, three of us sleepin in one bed? When I asked Daddy if I could get married, me and Alberta and Dorothy was still sleepin in [the same] bed.
JD: And how old were you when you got married?
Lena Mae: Eighteen.
JD: You were 18? And three of yall were still sleeping in one bed. [to Edward, just finished reading some transcription] Whatcha think? Makes sense?
EC: Umhm.
JD: You didn’t see anything wrong?
Edward: I can’t…that’s before my time. I don’t know if they was telling you the truth or not [laughs].
JD: Well, I’m gone let yall go take a nap and I’m gone try to get back home without takin one in the car.
Lena Mae: You better not! Better not take one in your car!
EC: I don’t think that’ll work.
JD: You don’t think? No, I can’t waste all this stuff [interview]. This is gonna end this session, I’m gonna stop
JD: OK,
we’re gonna continue like I was goin at Edward’s house, I’m at Dot’s
house now [Dorothy Couviller, Lena Mae’s sister] and, uh, talking to Agnes
[Bailey] and Dot, [same date]. Let me show you what I found. Who told you it was water on both sides of
the road? [Talking about the
Agnes: My grandma used to tell us that. And that, that, she say that road would come way out into the lake, like that. Water on both sides the road. . I don’t remember that, me, but they used to tell us that.
JD: It went way out into the lake you said?
Agnes: That’s what they used to say, would come way out into the lake.
JD: Well,
[map] here’s the road now. This is what
it looks like now in blue. Here’s
Agnes: No.
JD: OK,
well all this white is water, that’s Lake Verret. Here’s Fourmile Bayou, that’s where Myon’s
people all lived right on Fourmile Bayou.
Right there. Here’s Grassy
Lake, right below that. You cross
this water right here across this lil arm of, of a,
Agnes: Yah, right da.
JD: Now, the…this, is that road Myon was talking about that goes, and you too, that goes all the way to Napoleonville. There’s Napoleonville right there. There’s Bayou Lafourche. Right there. Um, the funny thing that I found on this was, this is a highway, highway 401. [it] has nothing to do with water anymore, there’s no water anymore at all. But look, right there, in the middle of it, there’s a little place called Attakaps Canal. The name Canal stayed on it, even though there’s no water left here anymore. It’s still the name Canal. And that’s where that lil church is, and that’s where that lil cemetery is. Right there. On the right side, it shows it right there, on this map. But the thing that got me excited was, after yall telling me that it was The Canal, remember? They were buried on The Canal. And I asked about it, and yall said what you said – there’s no canal? But now it’s a highway, now…
Agnes: It was always called The Canal. Why it was…with no water, no nothing…?
Dot: One time it was, Momma.
JD: It was. But let me show you…
Agnes: Probly it was, and it filled up.
JD: Let
me show you how I found out it was. I
don’t know if this is going to make any sense to you either, but this, this is
the
Dot: Umhm, Bayou Lafourche.
JD: Yeah, the lil thing off of Bayou Lafourche. Now guess what town sits right there? Napoleonville. Guess what this lil canal, bayou, is exactly like if you compare it? The highway [401].
Dot: …the highway now.
JD: Exactly the same as the highway now. See how it comes up and then takes a curve and then down and then straight? Look at this, . [compared] up, curve, down and straight. Now in 1863 there weren’t any roads, it was just water, so in 1863 this was a canal. It actually was water.
Dot: Eventually, they just made a road.
JD: How? Somehow they just filled it in, or something, because it’s not even…well, we’ll see…the reason I say I want to see. But, uh, that was exciting to me to find out that yall talking about a place called The Canal and then to find that the name is still there even though the water is not there, but to be able to show that the water was there at one time.
Dot: They had to fill that in, somehow. . As time went on. .
JD: And
the neat thing about it here is [there are] two ways to get into the
Basin, one of em is right where the town
of Plaquemine started,
Dot: Cause
it was off the
JD: Exactly, here, and Bayou Lafourche here.
Dot: Cause
that was the main throughway, then, I mean the
JD:
And then, once you got off the Mississippi, Bayou Lafourche was the main
throughway all the way down to Gr
Dot: Let’s see, we had a…[?] Momma, it was after one of the hurricanes we went and brought you up there.
Agnes: Yeah,
Dot
Dot: Lord, that was…
Agnes: Long time ago.
Dot: That was before Peanut was born, I believe.
Agnes: Oh, yeah.
JD: Now, what did yall go over there to do?
Agnes: Just to go.
Dot: Daddy [Myon] decided he wanted to go see. And it wasn’t long after one of the hurricanes. And the road, in low spots, used to have water over it [from the hurricane], we had to go thru the water.
JD: Hmph. Did yall look, at all, to see if there were any grave markers in that cemetery?
Dot: No, we didn’t get out the car. We just rode. I remember, we didn’t get out the car. Daddy just wanted to go see, so we loaded him up.
Agnes: And we went.
Dot: The girls were little, that was before Peanut was born, Peanut’s 27 years old.
JD: So, about 30 years ago.
Agnes: You
see, this is still
JD: Umhm…uh? Oh, well that’s Fourmile Bayou. Fourmile Bayou is that blue line. Lake Verret stops right there. And Grassy Lake starts right there. . So this piece right here is where Myon and his family all lived. Right along in here.
Agnes: [they had] a house somewheres right in here, there. Had build em a big house, made out of pews.
JD: Made out of what?
Agnes: Made out of pews. [pieux = French for pickets?]
JD: Pews? Church pews?
Dot: [she is] Talkin about the lumber.
Agnes: Pews. Split…you know how they’d split them pews?
JD: Uhuh. I don’t know what that is.
Agnes: They’d make a board out of it. They’d split that, that lumber [pieces of cypress stump?] and then they’d take one of them knives. They had two handles…
JD: Oh, yeah, a draw knife.
Agnes: And they’d, they’d plane that with that. They had made um a great big house. They had no, no partitions or nuttin nowheres.
JD: No partitions? Just one great big room?
Agnes: Just one great big room.
JD: And it was Myon’s family you talking about?
Agnes: Yeah.
JD: The Baileys.
Agnes: And they lived in there. But [it was]the Daigles [Myon’s stepfather, Charles Homer Daigle], then, his daddy [Bailey] was dead. But that was his grandma Daigle, and grandpa Daigle.
Dot: [and]His momma.
JD: OK. So that’s what I’d like to do, if you have [it] in mind. We can…Dot if yall would want to come we can…we can take two cars or something like that…I mean its…whatever would be fine. But I would like to go and see that, I would like to see if there are any markers that you can still read in that cemetery.
Dot: That ought to be interesting.
JD: And,
uh,
Agnes: Yeah. That skidder camp…let’s see, we crossed the, uh, we’d paddle me and Monug and Tootsie would go. Right in here [map] must have been the skidder camp because we’d leave from here, or maybe from here,
JD: There’s two canals.
Agnes: And, uh, well yeah, we was livin in a lil canal. We had the campboat in there. And it was…they had hardly no water in it, when the water’d come up they had water, when the water’d go down the campboat was dry [on the bottom]. But we’d paddle in the pirogue to go to that to that dancehall, me and Monug and Tootsie.
JD: You and who
Agnes: Me and Monug and Tootsie.
Dot: Her brothers.
JD: Monug was his name?
Dot: No…Preston was his name.
JD: So, what she’s pointing to for the tape is she’s pointing to, either Concienne Canal or several small…there’s something called Floton Bayou and Norman Canal.
Agnes: I think it was that Norman Canal, that was the canal that would go further in the woods, and they had a skidder pull in there. They had a railroad track for the lil skidder…
JD: That’s
where yall lived…that’s where yall lived when all this was goin on, was inside
this canal …inside
Agnes: Yah, lived there, went to school there, and we used to paddle across there.
JD: Yall went to school?
Agnes: Yah, yah they had school and all over there, at that skidder pullin place.
JD: Well, it must have been kind of permanent from what I’m hearing you say.
Agnes: Right along the lake.
JD: Right on the lakeshore?
Agnes: Right on the lake.
JD: You could see the lake from it?
Agnes: Oh, yeah.
JD: You could? It was on dry land?
Agnes: Yeah. I remember that skidder pull …they pull the, uh, they drag the timbers out of the woods on a lil…like a boxcar but there wasn’t no, no shell around it...was flat. And they’d pull that to the edge of the lake, there, then boom em dare.
JD: And you think, you think the skidder camp was down here? If yall lived up here, you think the skidder camp was down there?
Agnes: It was right in…in that corporation there, and that canal would go way back…
JD: The canal where the skidder camp was?
Agnes: Yeah.
JD: No, yall didn’t live in the same canal where the skidder camp was?
Agnes: No, uhuh. We lived further down. The skidder pullin was, was…let’s see we musta been somewheres around here, somewheres around this corporation. . And the skidder pullin was somewheres in here. And this go way back in them woods here.
JD: OK, so yall lived down here somewhere and the skidder camp was up here somewhere. Because when yall left where yall lived the skidder camp was between yall and the restaurant? And the dancehall?
Agnes: Yah. Yah, we’d pass at the end of the canal like right in here,. and we’d go straight…
JD: Paddle to it? That must have been something, yall paddle a pirogue to the dance?
Agnes: Umhm. We’d go, we’d go out over in the daylight
JD: How?
Agnes: In the boat. Tow the pirogue back.
JD: You said on the tape earlier that you went to one dance over here on the end, before you and Myon were married. You only went to one before yall were married, or did you go to …?
Agnes: Yah, and after that we moved back. That was, uh, 1927. 1928 we got married. It musta been…about a year before…it might a been 1926.
JD: When…when what?
Dot: They moved away from there.
Agnes: We moved away.
JD: You
moved away from Lake Verret? Where
did yall move when yall left
Agnes: We left Lake Verret we went right to Lil Pigeon.
JD: Cauu, that was a long ride.
Agnes: Right to Lil Pigeon.
JD: Yall left Lake Verret, then you went from Lake Verret right here, went down thru Grassy Lake, thru Lake Polourde, picked up Sixmile Lake and went all the way up Grand Lake all the way up to Bayou Pigeon. Lil Pigeon or Big Pigeon yall lived in?
Agnes: We lived on the lake end, of Big Pigeon, and Lil Pigeon, both. We lived in both places.
JD: That’s the mouth of Big Pigeon right there, and that’s the mouth of Lil Pigeon.
Agnes: Well, that’s where we used to live, right there.
JD: And Blaise’s Canal is down here, a lil bit below Big Pigeon.
Dot: They lived there when we was little.
JD: When you were little? In Blaise’s Canal?
Dot: Umhm.
Agnes: We lived a long time [there].
JD: It’s neat to be able to go back and figure all this stuff out.
Agnes: That was pullboat pullin when we was livin…first at the Canal.
JD: Yall worked with the trees, hunh?
Agnes: Myon worked, and the two boys worked. My daddy never did work there with…[timber]. The two boys and him workd.
JD: What’d your daddy do while that was goin on?
Agnes: They’d boom them timbers, they’d tow em out to the canal and they’d boom the timbers and make a crib with em, and…
JD: So, you’re sayin there was a difference between workin in the pullboats and boomin the timbers?
Agnes: Yah. The pullboat would pull em out to the canal, and then they’d drop em and the others’d boom em, you see?
JD: And, the others, that’s what Blaise did was boom the stuff. How did they do that? What did they…how did…?
Agnes: With, uh, they’d pull em out to the canal and then they’d float em and pull em together and…they’d start they boom like this…
JD: [she gestures with her two hands making a triangle] With a point on the front?
Agnes: With a point on the front, like that. And then they’d…would like this and then when they’d stop this they’d go straight. On the other end, they’d do the same thing.
JD: It’d be pointed on both ends?
Agnes: Yeah.
JD: OK, and fat in the middle, kind of long and skinny.
Agnes: Yeah.
JD: I need a couple of names on here that I don’t have for some reason. I copied all this stuff down when we talked some time back and I have some notes that I can’t find, so if you don’t mind I’d like to, to have it again. Um, Myon’s daddy was called Rudolph.
Agnes: Uhuh.
JD: No?
Agnes: His brother. Was his brother. That was his brother named Rudolph. His name [father]…his name was Albert.
JD: Was that his whole name, Albert Bailey?
Agnes: Umhm, far as I can remember that was his daddy’s name… Albert Bailey [actually it was Wilson Jean Bailey].
JD: And his mother’s name was Ernestine Daigle? Now, do you remember who Albert Bailey’s parents were, Myon’s grandparents?
Agnes: Gr
JD: What was her last name, you remember?
Agnes: Uh, lord, I don’t remember Jim.
JD: How about…how about his grandfather?
Agnes: His
gr
Dot: His daddy had an uncle…
JD: That must have been Catherine’s brother, then. If Albert…Albert Bailey, if he had a…if he had an uncle named Victor, then that would have had to have been Catherine’s brother.
Dot: Yeah, cause his daddy’s already named Victor.
JD: You
must know who Myon’s daddy’s brothers
Agnes: I remember, uh, he had a uncle named Ivy. And a uncle named Victor , and that’s the onlyest ones that I know of.
JD: So, he might have had only two…two uncles then. His momma’s side, did he have some Daigle uncles?
Agnes: Oh, yeah. He had, uh, Pat, and let’s see if I can remember the other one’s name. …Ernestine’s brother, she had two brothers. .
JD: Those weren’t big families, then, either one of em. So, this would have been a Victor junior, his brother would have been a Victor junior.
Agnes: Yeah,
because his uncle on his daddy’s side was a Victor, but he had a, a cousin who
lived in
Dot: Now most probly you go to Napoleonville, at the courthouse, you could find all that.
JD: I have a lot, I have a lot down here now. I have for you [Agnes]…I have you and I have, I have that you have five brothers and sisters. You have Ida, Cleo, Ophelia, Robert and Preston. That’s your brothers and sisters. I have…I know that your daddy had 14 brothers and sisters, including him, there was 14. But I don’t have all their names, do you happen to remember any of their names?
Agnes: Aaah. Let’s see.
The oldest…the oldest girl is Matille, then they had, uh, Taunte
Nini, her name was Florence, Anna,
Dot: What was her name, that can’t be her name.
Agnes: I
don’t know. That’s…I knowed her by Chouki,
that’s it. [pronounces it] Aunt [Cadie?] was Philimena,
JD: [I have] eleven, there’s three more somewhere. Let me tell you who I have right here. I have Joe, that was his brother, Milton, Bill, I have somebody called Guyon, is that his nickname or his real name?
Agnes: His real name , Guyon.
JD: And then I have those that you gave me. So, you gave me all women, and I had before all the men. I don’t see how they kept track of their own families.
Agnes: They
had my daddy [Blaise], Joe, Guyon, Suelfried , his name…used to call him
Plot. And, uh, Milton
JD: Suelfried, was that a boy? So, we have five boys. Six including your daddy.
Carolyn: Cadie.
JD: Wait a minute, what was that last one? Cadi?
Agnes: Her name was Philomena.
Carolyn: I guess Alberta was named after her?
Agnes: Probly. And, Aunt Lucia, that was the last one. I believe that’s it…
JD: Ok, ok, that’s plenty!
Agnes: Yeah, [laughs] 14 kids!
JD: And to think that they all lived, that’s the thing, she probly had…she probly had some that didn’t live too, uh? Ophelia Simoneaux. That was their mother. She came from Spain.
Carolyn: One of his [Blaise] aunts died about five years ago, Taunte Nini.
JD: One of whose? One of these?
CD: Yeah.
Agnes: That…
JD: Are you the youngest? You?
CD: Of what?
JD: Of the children that Blaise had.
Agnes: I’m the oldest.
JD: Was his real…his middle name was really Blaise? Was it Felix Blaise?
Agnes: Felix.
JD: But not Blaise, that was his nickname…[no, it was his real name]?
Agnes: We never knew…nobody knew him by Felix.
CD: It was mostly a nickname.
JD: You have any idea how he got that name?
Agnes: I don’t know.
JD: It’s an interesting name; you don’t see that too often.
Agnes: Well, that’s just like Myon.
JD: How did he get that name?
Agnes: His momma say he was so cute, when he was little, [says something in French, Myon means cute].
Carolyn: He had black hair
JD: And what does Myon mean in French?
Carolyn: Cute.
JD: It means cute? And he lived with that name all his life? [laughs] He must have had some fights about that name, eh?
Carolyn: No, no Jim. Not the confidence daddy had. Uhuh.
Agnes: One day somebody from the front [front is toward the higher ground, in this case Bayou Teche ridges] we had been knowin for years. It was, uh..
JD: That’s interesting, you said the front…?
Carolyn: Front of what?
Agnes: Well,
you know, at Oaklawn over there. When we
moved at, uh, from the levee, we moved across the levee, from in the canal,
Dot: He was looking for Albert Bailey.
JD: He didn’t even know that’s who he was lookin for.
Agnes: No. [laughs] And after we moved at, uh, over here, uh, he come. Now, he say, I know where Albert Bailey lives.
JD: He was lookin for some fish?
Agnes: Yeah. And he know we was still buying fish. So, he come for some fish.
JD: Where did he know Myon from?
Agnes: Just around here, I guess. We been around here for, lord, for 50 years.
JD: According to what I learned so far, yall moved across the levee…yall moved to Myon’s Canal in 1945…about. And yall moved off the canal across the levee in 1946 [or] 1947. Is that…that figures about right with what yall figure?
Dot: Umhm, cause I started school at eight.
JD: You started school at eight years old? And how does that…is that when yall moved to the canal?
Dot: Yep. When I was eight years old daddy moved us to the canal. And we started goin to school then, he’d bring us all the way to where the old hay barn used to be.
JD: The hay barn?
Dot: At the end of the road, from the levee, …had a big hay barn.
JD: There was a hay barn there, at Bayou Teche, close to Bayou Teche?
Dot: Umhm. And, uh,
JD: Umhm. So, we got the dates from two different
directions, that’s good. One of the
things I’m goin to do in this book is I’m tryin to figure out where the
families came from. All the families, I
think I have em all listed. All the
families that ended up in Myon’s Canal.
Cause what I’m calling the title of this thing is “The Linefishing
Tradition of the Myette Pt. Community” So it’s important for me to be able
to describe what the community was. And
the community is all those families that ended up in Myon’s Canal,
Dot: Had a school too.
JD: I didn’t know there was a school.
Dot: Oh yeah.
JD: At Myette Pt. there was a school?
Dot: Yeah we had a school there. Um, we had started school in town… it was so hard to get there…
JD: Because [of] having to go to the road and then…
Dot: Yeah, umhm, so the government decided they put an old barracks out there. And we went to school there…what Momma? About three, four years?
Agnes: Went about four years. .
Dot: And we’d have church on Sunday in it.
JD: Oh really? And who taught?
Dot: Miss Hazen [sp?]. That was her last name. Claudia, Claudia Hazen. Young, beautiful lady.
Agnes: Oh, she was pretty!
Dot: Uncle Jesse fell in love with her.
JD: He did? Seriously?
Dot: Very seriously. Oh yes, he kept her picture in his wallet till he died.
JD: Is that right? Ida [Jesse’s wife] knew that?
Dot: Yep.
JD: She did? Was she jealous?
Dot: Not really. But he was in love with her. But she was some pretty!
JD: She lived there?
Dot: Yeah. She lived…
Agnes: They had fixed her two rooms…
Dot: Yeah, in the back…
Agnes: In the back, and she lived there [back of the school building].
JD: Where was she from? Did she get along with everybody OK?
Dot: Oh yeah. Everybody loved her, really, you know?
Agnes: ….from Baton Rouge, eh?
Dot: No
no, I think she come around…from around
JD: Oh, she was from out of state, away from…she wasn’t a Cajun…
Dot: No, uhuh. And then after she left, that’s when we…the roads were better then…
Agnes: They fixed the roads.
JD: Why did she leave? Uh, was it because the roads got better and yall could get to town, or…?
Dot: We could get…yeah.
JD: So, the government decided not to pay her to be there cause she wasn’t…?
Dot: Yeah, after they kind of straighten up the levee and everything, well, we could travel good on it.
JD: I’m amazed, they actually put a schoolhouse there for yall. How many kids were in the school? One room I take it? Two rooms?
Dot: …a big room.
Agnes: Some of us got a picture.
JD: Ohh, if yall have any pictures yall can find, I mean for this whole project I’m talking about. If yall have pictures, old pictures, you would let me have that I can copy, I’d appreciate that.
Agnes: We got…I don’t know who’s got it but we…somebody’s got a picture of the…
JD: What do you call that? Not a Quonset hut. Like an airplane hanger? What…
Agnes: You know…you remember them old, uh, they used to call em a barracks.
JD: Round buildings?
Agnes: No, like a regular building. And they had carried that there on a truck, with big old [?]…
JD: So it was like prefab, like, they built it up and . from pieces when they got it there. Well, this is all new to me, I had no idea.
Agnes: And the kids went to school about four years.
JD: And you say a lot of yall were in the school Dot?
Dot: Oh yeah.
Agnes: Oh yeah. Gloria Ann, Hester, Harry, …
Dot: There was Hester, Harry, Gloria Ann, Ira
Lee, Carlin, George was too little, Me, Alberta, Ann, EJ, Russell,
JD: That’s, uh, that’s amazing, I didn’t know that.
Dot: Oh yeah, and I got a picture somewhere…
JD: How many different grades do you suppose there was…to get it all in?
Dot: Uh, they had four.
JD: Four grades? And starting from grade one? One two three four?
Dot: Umhm. And she taught us all in that building. And then on Sunday they converted it to a church.
JD: What kind of church?
Dot: Baptist.
JD: How about that…I had no…
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