Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 10

  

DATE:                        1989

INTERVIEWER:      Jim Delahoussaye

LOCATION:              Albert (Myon) Bailey’s house at Oxford, Oxford Loop, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.

COOPERATORS:   Myon Bailey, Agnes Bailey

 JD:      OK, I want to go back [some was missed switching from one side of the tape to the other], what we didn’t get on there was the names of your grandparents.  Starting with your father’s side.  His name was Victorain what?  Bailey.  And Catherine.  And I believe all we covered also was that they were small people, you said, and very dark.  Black hair and dark skin.  And they were from Spain.  Did they ever tell any stories about Spain?  About where they came from? 

Myon: If they did Jim, I sure don’t remember.  So long ago.  They died in my early times when I was a ….boy.  Nottin but a young kid, when they died.  And, uh, I never did question em about it.

 JD:      No, but I mean sometimes, some people sometimes they just tell stories.  Just to tell stories. 

 Myon: Never did, I couldn’t say that.  Be lying if I said it. 

 JD:      And how about on the other side, your other grandparents?

 Myon: That’s Daigle.  My granpas uh, what was his first name….?

 Agnes:           Joe Daigle.

 JD:      Joe?  How About your grandmother? 

 Agnes:           Leah.

 JD:      Leah?  That’s a pretty name. 

 Myon: She was a Hebert. 

 JD:      Hebert!  That was her maiden name?  Leah Hebert.   And where did they come from?  Do you know?

Myon: For as I know Jim, they was raised out there in the country – Napoleonville….

JD:      So they were born and raised in this country, the United States?

Myon: For as I know.

JD:      But that’s what you think, you don’t know that they came from France or Spain?  Or any place else [out of the US].

Myon: No.  When I was real small and my daddy died I was a year and a half old.  And they was there.

JD:      They were still alive. 

Myon: Yeah, they was still alive.  When my daddy died, that’s when my grandpa partly raised me.  That’s where I went – they raised me. 

JD:      So you knew them pretty well.

Myon: Oh yeah.  Two brothers, two sons Tead and Plat Daigle.

JD:      What’s the first one’s name?

Myon: Tead, Tead [sp?] Daigle.

JD:      And which one was your father? 

Myon: My father was Wilson Bailey.  [The two brothers seem to have been his grandfather and his grand uncle].

JD:      That’s right.  So your mother was a Daigle? 

Myon: Yeah.  Ernestine Daigle.

JD:      You, uh, so you were closer to one side of your grandparents than the other side.

Myon: Yeah. 

JD:      And the one that raised you was your father’s parents.  The Baileys.

Myon: Correct.  No, Daigles.  Daigles raised me.

JD:      Sorry, the Daigles raised you?  I guess I lost track of something right there.  So what kind of place…..what kind of living did they make?

Myon: Fishermen. 

JD:      They were fishermen?

Myon: Umhm. 

JD:      Your grandfather was a fisherman?

Myon: Yeah.

JD:      No kidding!  Myon.  Your grandfather was a fisherman! 

Myon: Living high on the point on the Bayou, that’s all he do for a livin – fishin.

JD:      He sold fish, how did they sell in those days, to boats? 

Myon: Yeah …..had fish boats runnin. 

JD:      As far as you know is that how he always made a livin?  All his life?

Myon: Far as I know Jim.  Far as I know. 

JD:      Fishin goes back in your family a long way then! 

Myon: Awww, you can believe that!  I was nothing but a small kid…..

JD:      Well even before that because if your grandfather was fishin, that’s long before you were  born. 

Myon: Them times Jim, you take when spawnin season come you couldn’t fish – three months!  Had to pick moss, or do something else. 

JD:      Why?

Myon: Well

Agnes:           They closed the season [fishing had a season].

JD:      No fish?  They closed the season???

Myon: Ohhh yeah!  Season closed. 

JD:      No kidding! 

Agnes:           Aw yeah!

JD:      Uh, was that Louisiana?  Louisiana Fish and Wildlife, or whatever?

Myon: …..Fourmile Bayou, Lake Verret…..

JD:      So what months was the season closed? 

Myon: I don’t remember, whenever spawnin season come on.  Around May I believe.   Around May? [to Agnes]  Yeah.

Agnes:           Yeah. 

JD:      So they closed the commercial season, for spawning season.

Myon: I remember we used to fish, and put our fish in – when it get close to open up – put [fish] in fish cars.  Two, three fish cars put our fish in

JD:      Why?

Myon: To have fish to sell when it open up [the season].

JD:      [laughs] So you could still sell, but you couldn’t catch em.  Now you see today they wouldn’t let you do that.  Today they wouldn’t let you sell em either, cause they couldn’t tell where you got em [I misunderstood what he was saying].

Myon: Well, we couldn’t sell em unless the season was open.

JD:      Oh, you couldn’t sell em! 

Myon: We do that, we wait till the end of the season [closed season], well we [would] fish and put em in the fish cars.  When it would open we could sell our fish. 

JD:      So you’d wait till it would be open – and they’d still be alive in those fish cars??!  [I still didn’t get it].  They’d live thru months in those fish cars?

Myon: Not months, I said the end …….

Agnes:           The end of the…

Myon: A few days before, you know.

JD:      [I finally got the idea] You always figure out a way to get around…..

Myon: Awww yeah.  That time, you talking about livin a while ago [earlier in this conversation], fish boat come we might get a nickel worth of candy

JD:      A nickels worth of candy.

Myon: And that was it, you had to be satisfied with that [the children].

JD:      Still, that was pretty good, pretty good, yall felt pretty good about that, I imagine.

Myon: Yeah, aww, [not intelligible, meaning is times were slim] livin was kind a hard.  Didn’t have no business like that.  Wasn’t easy.  I made a hard livin in my life.

Agnes:           Yeah, it was hard. 

JD:      Now that all four sets of grandparents we talked, and uh

Agnes:           Yeah.

JD:      And, one set of yours, then, as far as you know were born and raised in the United States.

Myon: Far as I know Jim. 

JD:      The other set was born and raised in Spain.

Myon: Ah, I guess so.

JD:      And came here from Spain, is that right?  The Baileys.

Myon: Yeah.  Far as I know.   Ahh,  yeah. [sighs]

Agnes:           You finished with you milk?

JD:      Yes, thank you.  We took so much for granted back in those days, I mean we take so much for granted now, compared to thos days. 

Myon: Man, you take I see right now, they go to town, they go to WalMart, them kids come back with all each a new toy.  We didn’t get that Jim.  …….people don’t know the value of the dollar today.  They don’t. 

JD:      Now, you say your father died when you were just a year and a half old.  Well, your mother was still alive wasn’t she? 

Myon: She remarried. 

JD:      She remarried?

Myon: UM

JD:      Who did she, who did she marry?

Myon: Married Daigle.

Agnes:           She was a Daigle and he was a Daigle and they wasn’t kin.

JD:      They weren’t kin?  It was a different family [name] but it was the same name?

Myon: Hm.  It was me and Rudolph.

JD:      Was that your brother? 

Myon: Yeah, it was three of em.  Rudolph,       , and me. 

JD:      Three kids?

Myon: Momma married that man, and he raised us. 

JD:      Did she have any more children with him?

Myon: Yeah, Jesse, Norman, Numa[?], Ike

JD:      So those are all your brothers, and half sisters.

Agnes:           Half sisters…..

JD:      I see, I see

Myon: Yeah.  I say I had some rough times in my life, but…….with my momma when she was married, that old man.  Well, he raised us, let’s put it thataway.   It was tough though.  Many times we had a lotta grits……stead a rice like we had [at this meal just now?]. 

JD:      Grits, eh?

Myon: Um, couldn’t afford rice.

JD:      Grits was cheaper?

Myon: Oh yeah, cheap, way cheaper.

Agnes:           That’s why he don’t like grits today.

JD:      Is that right, you don’t eat grits anymore?

Myon: I eat it, but uh, I ate so much grits in my life…….didn’t have no rice, had to eat grits. 

JD:      What’s your, what’s your, when you think of, course you don’t remember your daddy at all…

Myon: No.

JD:      When you remember your mother, what do you remember about her mostly?

Myon: Oh her….

Agnes:           She stayed wit us

Myon: She stayed a long time with me.

JD:      She did?

Myon: After she was blind.

JD:      She was blind?

Myon: Yeah, she was blind. 

JD:      How old was she?

Agnes:           She was 88.

Myon: Was 88 when she died.

JD:      But when she went blind, was she….

Agnes:           She must have been about, well, she stayed four years [alive] after she was blind.

JD:      So she was about 84 then, when she went blind?

Myon: Yeah, bout.  Glaucoma.  I say glaucoma cause I got it, you see.  We didn’t know then, you didn’t take people to the doctor like you do now – fine out see what they got.  We didn’t know she had glaucoma.  I say glaucoma, I’m not sure but I’m pretty sure that’s what blinded her. 

JD:      What did your daddy do for a living before he died?

Myon: My stepdaddy, oh, my daddy he was a fisherman. 

JD:      Your daddy was a fisherman too.  And how did he die Myon?  He died kind of young, eh?

Myon: He got pneumonia.

JD:      He had pneumonia?

Myon: He was crankin on a motor till he got overheated, he caught pneumonia and died.

JD:      Didn’t take long, eh?

Myon: That’s all I remember him, Jim. 

JD:      Really?

Myon: That day he was crankin on that motor.  I don’t remember nothing else about it [him], I don’t remember when he died, or nothing.  I remember when he was crankin that motor, they told me that’s what had happened.  And I remember seein him crank on that motor.

JD:      Even though you were a little bitty child…?

Myon: Little bitty thing.

JD:      I’ll be damned.  And then, your stepfather was a fisherman also?

Myon: At times, he worked jobs, like that.  He worked at a skidder camp a long time for Williams.

JD:      At what?

Myon: Skidder camp. 

JD:      What’s that?

Myon: Loggin camp. 

JD:      Call it a skinning camp??

Myon: Skidder camp.

JD:      Skidder camp!

Myon: They used to be able to haul timber with dummies back in the woods, laid tracks and…

JD:      Dumm…?

Myon: Dummas [their name for small locomotives?], trains.

JD:      No kiddin, trains?

Myon: Box cars, oh yeah…..had that, big camp there….

JD:      Well, it stayed dry all year around? 

Myon: Dry enough, where they had a hole they’d build it up, put a track, go back there and get that timber.  That dummas [?]  What they do, they put shaves up there in the tree and pull the tree by the tracks.  Train load em up and put right to the bayou.

JD:      Where was most of that timber, as far as you can tell?

Myon: Uh, Bayou Felix, back of Fourmile Bayou. 

JD:      So you’re talking about, around lake Verret.

Myon: Well, yeah, where it join Lake Verret.

JD:      There was big timber there?  Big cypress trees?

Myon: Whew!  All kind of timber.  Good timber.  Good cypress.  Yeah. 

JD:      So the timber industry hired a lot of people, didn’t it?  From what you’re telling me?

Myon: Oh yeah.  …that old man, he worked a long time there.  He worked hard, that old man.  But he didn’t make much money.  I mean, uh, him and her had to be careful, what they do.  …..had a big family, Norman, Jesse, Eula, me.  Well, Rudolph was on his own, then. And….was on her own [can get name from the family tree information], but the family was big enough, Momma bake out 14 loaf of bread.

JD:      14 loaves of bread!

Agnes:           And Jim that was every day!

Myon: And they didn’t last long.  That’s right, we had to be careful what we do, you see. 

JD:      Well yall all must’ve, as you grew up, you must’ve helped with the family.  Tried to ..somehow.  What did yall do?  The boys. 

Myon: Nuttin we could do Jim. 

JD:      Yall couldn’t fish?

Myon: Aw we might a done a little fishin, I don’t remember now. 

JD:      And how old were you when you started fishing for real? 

Myon: Oh me?  I was pretty young.  I couldn’t say, like that, I don’t know.

JD:      You think you were 15? 

Myon: Oh yeah!  Oh yeah. 

JD:      You were 15 or less than 15?

Myon: No, I was about 15.  Maybe 16, 18 years old, something like that. 

JD:      When you started fishin.

Myon: Umhm. 

JD:      And where were yall livin at that time?

Myon: Fourmile Bayou.

JD:      So you really were raised on Fourmile Bayou.

Myon: Mostly, yeah.  Right there where the three bayous meet.  Little Fourmile Bayou, Bayou Felix and Big Fourmile Bayou.  I used to live right thre, that point.  For a LONG time.

JD:      It was a house?

Agnes:           Yeah. 

Myon: A house there.

JD:      A big house?

Myon: The 1912 high water, the water come up pretty near at the door frame, on the house.  1912. 

JD:      How many of yall were livin in that house?

Myon: Uh, let’s see, Jesse, Norman, me, the old man, the old lady – about six of us. 

JD:      Before I forget, have you got any idea of any kind of dates, at all, about the birthday, or when they died, of your grandparents?  When they were born?

Myon: No Jim, I couldn’t come out with that.  I might have knowed, Jim, but….

JD:      How about how old they were when they died?

Myon: Pretty old….

JD:      Your momma was 88?  And she died when?

Agnes:           She died, uh, must a been about, well she died after Milton died.  That was ’32, eh?  No, Milton [was] born in ’32.  She died about  months after Milton got killed. 

JD:      That would be, that would be, that could be dated then, we could get her birthday, not birthday, but what year she was born that.  She was 88.  You have any idea how old your father was?  [Myon] your real father was when he died?

Myon: No. 

JD:      Did your grandparents, did everybody ever talk about how old they were when they died? 

AT THIS POINT THE SESSION GOES FORWARD ON A DIFFERENT TAPE RECORDER, SO THERE IS A BREAK IN THE CONVERSATION.  THE QUALITY OF THE RECORDING IS POORER.

JD:      What I missed, believe it or not……Let’s start from the top with what I missed.  You said that, uh, your daddy had a brother, that there were two kids, and your daddy’s name was Wilfred [Wilson].  And he had a brother, do you remember what his name was?  Your uncle?

Myon: Victor.

JD:      your grandfather’s name was Victorain.

Myon: Victorain.

JD:      And your uncle’s name was Victor?

Myon: Victor Bailey.  But I didn’t give you that.

JD:      I didn’t have it down, somewhere

Myon: I didn’t give you that.

JD:      You didn’t give it to me, that’s why I didn’t have it [laughs]

[mumbled conversation about looking for a pencil]

JD:      All right, Victor.  You didn’t ever remember the name of your grandmother on your daddy’s side.  Catherine was her first name, but did you ever remember her last name by any chance?

Agnes:           Hebert?

JD:      That was on the other side, that was Leah [Hebert] you said. 

Agnes:           Oh yeah. 

JD:      Course it could have been Hebert too, you know?

Myon: Jim, we need to think back, I don’t know, you know.

JD:      We can get it somewhere else.  The [?] machine quit working, but I still didn’t get the name of your mother and father.  Mayon and Sauce.  Right.

Agnes:           My momma was Rosalee Mayon.

JD:      What was that, wind?  [some noise from outside]

Myon: Maybe that window’s open, that window’s open there?

Agnes:           I don’t know.

JD:      Your daddys name?  What Sauce? 

Myon: Jim I had another….

JD:      You did?

Myon: Joe Bailey

JD:      Joe!. There were three brothers?  Not sisters?  There were just brothers in your daddy’s family?

Myon: Let me think, yeah they had one sister.  Marselite Bailey.

JD:      Marselite.  I’ll be doggone.  That was all aunts and uncles of yours.

Myon: Yeah.  That was my, my, daddy’s sister and brothers. 

JD:      Well, I got everything on your side, I believe.  What I need from Agnes is, uh, I need how many children there were, if she can remember, how many aunts and uncles she had on her mother’s side.  On her father’s side, there were 14 children in that family where her father was.  I don’t see how anybody could remember all those names. 

Myon: I used to know em.  It could come back to you Jim, but, old like we is now it’s hard. 

JD:      Yeah.  I got almost the whole thing though.  Another thing Myon, your daddy died when you were a young boy.

Myon: A year and a half old. 

JD:      A year and a half old.   And your mother, Ernestine, she remarried. 

Myon: Yeah.

JD:      Now, what was the name of the man she remarried?

Myon: Daigle.

JD:      What was his first name?

Myon: Homer. 

JD:      Homer?

Myon:            Homer, Homer Daigle. 

JD:      Now that would have been….that was the same name as your mother’s name – Daigle.

Myon: Yeah, they was both Daigles.  But they wasn’t kin.

JD:      Not kin. 

Myon: So they say [chuckles].  I dunno.  They all kin, I guess. 

Agnes:           Good thing you thought about that window.

JD:      What?  Water was comin in?

Agnes:           Whoo yeah!  Pourin in. 

Myon: I figured that’s what it was when I heard that wind. 

[mumbled talk about the wind and the window]

JD:      Agnes, your uh, your mother had some brothers and sisters?  You had some aunts and uncles on your mother’s side?

Agnes:           Oh yeah. 

JD:      You remember how many there were?

Agnes:           Let’s see, I had two uncles.  Yeah, I had two uncles.  One was Alvin Mayon and the other one was Ivy.

JD:      That’s all the brothers she had?  Did she have any sisters?

Agnes:           She had, uh, I believe she had just one sister. 

JD:      Alvin and Ivy?

Agnes:           Yeah, Alvin and Ivy.  No, that’s right …

Myon: Lydia.

Agnes:           She had two sisters.

JD:      You remember their names?

Agnes:           One was Lydia, and the other one was Ella.

JD:      Ellen?

Myon: Ella.

JD:      Ella. 

JD:      Ouch.  Every once in a while I get these things in my chest, it hurt, boy – I went to the doctor for it he said there’s nothing, he said…

Agnes:           Gas pain?

JD:      Gas pain, or something like that, but boy once in a while……I didn’t want to do that just now no [wincing from chest pains]. 

Agnes:           That’s gas pain.

JD:      It could be.  Whoo, uh, now you said on your daddy’s side, Felix, his side, you said there were 14 children. 

Agnes:           14 children.

JD:      Could you come close to naming any of em?

Agnes:           Let’s see.  Let’s see how many boys they had.  They had, uh, Gayon, Jules[?], Milton, they had, uh,Bill, oh but they had more than that, I can tell you. 

Myon: Uh, Joe.

JD:      That’s five boys so far. 

Myon: Milton, Gayon,

Agnes:           Believe that’s all they had, five boys.

JD:      Five boys?  How About the girls?

Agnes:           They had, uh, Matiile.  Nini.

JD:      Nini?

Agnes:           Yeah, Matile and Nini, and uh, Anna, ….was Coline…

JD:      Coline?

Agnes:           Aline[?] was Coline. 

Myon: Lydia..

Agnes:           But they had some, had some that died.  Couple of em, I believe.  But that was…

JD:      Give you ten, so that’s four we don’t have.  Some of em die?

Agnes:           Yeah.

JD:      You think four of em died?

Agnes:           But they had more than that. 

Myon: ….[?]

JD:      …..What was the oldest child?

Agnes:           Uh, my daddy was the oldest.

Myon: ……and Blaise. 

JD:      Who?

Myon: You got it on there already.

Agnes:           You got it already.  Nobody knew him by Felix, they called him Blaise.

JD:      Is that where Blaise’s Canal comes from???

Agnes;           Yeah.

Myon: That’s correct.

JD:      No kidding!  I’ve know that all my life, that was named after your daddy?

Myon: Yeah.  Me and Blaise stayed there for 12 years. 

JD:      No kidding.

Agnes:           They dug that canal and he moved there and he stayed there for years.

Myon: We moved there with him, and 12 years we stayed there. 

Agnes:           Yeah, we moved there with him. 

JD:      Let me think, wait a minute, now wait a minute let me get this straight.  Ok, ..

Agnes:           But I also think they had a girl, let’s see, they had Teda…..[mumbles]

JD:      I have Felix, but his nickname was Blaise..

Agnes:           Yeah.

Myon: Yeah.

JD:      Ok, well let’s take it like this, who was the youngest one in that whole family?

Agnes:           Bill. 

JD:      Bill?

Agnes:           Bill, was the youngest. 

JD:      I thought maybe we could find a name you hadn’t had reason to think about yet.

Agnes:           Missin one for sure, but I can’t remember her name right now.

JD:      It was a girl?

Agnes:           Yeah. 

Myon: I think you missin a boy [too]

JD:      Well, you have Matile, [Matilda] Nini, Anna, Coline, and Anetia[?]. 

Agnes:           They still got one, I can’t remember her name.  [to Myon] Jack and them’s momma?

Myon: Yeah.

Agnes:           Yeah, but I can’t remember her name.  What was her name? 

Myon: Your momma?

Agnes:           No, Boyacks [sp!] momma. 

Myon: Oh, wait a minute. 

Agnes:           I done forgot her name.  [thinking for a while]

Myon: Who’s Boyacks daddy?

Agnes:           Well Phillip, Phillip Aucoin was Boyack’s daddy. 

Myon: Well, that’s uh, awww shit.  Now you see how it is. 

Agnes:           OH, Chouki!!

JD:      [laughing] but that’s a nickname!

Agnes:           Ah, might a been, I don’t know, but I ….

Myon: It is a nickname, I believe it’s …..I knew her name, but,

Agnes:           Her name was, I knowed her all my life by Chouki.

Myon: Me too.  Like me, my name always Myon, you know, …

JD:      Yeah.

Myon: But, I knew her name yeah,

Agnes:           Well, I don’t know her name. 

JD:      I’m gone put it down, like that. 

Myon: Yeah, well, she carried that, that’s the name she carried. 

JD:      We can find it some other time. 

Agnes:           I don’t know her name.

Myon: She was married to a Aucoin. 

JD:      Yall have any reason to know any of these people?  Of that family?  Other than yall? 

Myon: I don’t think so Jim.

Agnes:           I don’t believe.  No. 

JD:      None of em live around here, or none of em have descendents around here?

Agnes:           No.  They moved away from the bayou, they moved to Morgan City over there almost all of em. 

JD:      Most of em would be in Morgan City, that’s where there people would be? 

Myon: [Myon mumbles something]

JD:      Blaise Sauce, huh????  That was your father [Agnes]. 

Myon: Correct. 

JD:      I had no idea that I would ever know who Blaise was.  I had only heard of Blaise’s Canal.  Blaise’s Canal on the other side of the lake, and Myon’s Canal on this side of the lake. [laughs] That’s something. 

Agnes:      Yeah [laughs]

Myon: That man lived 12 years, 12 long years there, his boat [houseboat] in that Williams Canal. 

JD:      At the end of Williams Canal? 

Myon: In Williams Canal.  …what you call Williams Canal. 

JD:      Now, yall moved around didn’t you, I mean the houseboats….

Agnes:           No, we stayed there…

Myon: Aw, we’d go to Morgan City for sickness, something like that but come right back there. 

JD:      [Whistles]  Well, yall must’ve had…

Myon: That man left one summer, there, move away from there [to Big Pigeon, as noted elsewhere?], but I didn’t leave. 

Agnes:           No, we stayed.

Myon: I stayed there.

JD:      And yall fished the whole time you were there?

Myon: The whole time, me and the old lady and the kids, by ourself there. 

JD:      That was the only campboat there?

Agnes:           The only one dere.

Myon: The only campboat.  Matter of fact, I didn’t have a campboat then. 

Agnes:           Yeahhh.

Myon: I had one, but was a small campboat.  My stepdaddy’s camp, he had build a camp on the levee when we moved in there.  He stayed a long while.  …..in my yard.  [seems to remember something that happened in the little campboat:] Alvin Mayon, my uncle.  Me and him had a fight, when we lived in Little Pigeon, and we stayed about five years we didn’t speak.

Agnes:           Five, yeah, long time, I know. 

Myon: And that’s where he made friends, when he come there one day, we was livin by ourself there.  Never forget that, he come in sit down.  We had a side door in that camp, he sit down there and come talk to me.  That’s where we made friends, right there. 

JD:      Yall made friends again. 

Myon: It was one of my best friends, too. 

JD:      No kidding.

Myon: Was good friends after that. 

Agnes:           He’d run his lines, and he’d stop every day, every day.  Stop to see how we were.

Myon: We had a fight there in Little Pigeon when I was first married with her [Agnes].

JD:      Can you talk about what your fight was about, or is that private?

Agnes:           No, about fishin….

Myon: Fishing, yeah.  Fishing, yeah, he kept……[?] claim I had stole some of his fish.  Was line fishin. 

JD:      Ohhhh.

Myon: That didn’t work.  And I had Blaise that was fishin with me, at least I was fishin with Blaise, let’s put it that way. 

JD:      OK, you were the young fella [laughs]

Myon: And he come and attack on me at my camp.  When he hit me he knocked me overboard.  When I got outta there we got hooked up [tangled fighting].  And Blaise come there and separate us, and then Blaise went to whip Alvin’s ass.  It was a big coulou [?!] We stayed about five years I guess.  Caused her to lose her first baby.

JD:      Caused her to lose her first baby?  Is that right Agnes? 

Myon: Had to hook [onto] my camp and tow it to Fourmile Bayou, the quickest place I could get to a doctor. 

JD:      [incredulous] that’s all the way down to Lake Verret!

Agnes:      Went all the way down there.

Myon: Fourmile Bayou, yeah, from Little Pigeon!!

JD:      That’s a long trip!

Myon: Yes sir, tow that camp down there with a two-horse Lockwood, too.  And, uh, went to tell some boys at Bayou Boeuf get Doctor Proctor [sp?].  They were in Bayou Boeuf, they had to cross Lake Palourde to  go get him, he come tend to her.  That’s the trouble he [his uncle Alvin Mayon] had put me in. 

JD:      And you lost the baby?

Agnes:           Yeah.

JD:      Your first one.  Boy that must have scared you.

Myon: I don’t remember how far he [the baby] was gone [developed].

Agnes:           Scared.  I must have been about, about six weeks.

JD:      So not too far along.

Agnes:           Not too far.

Myon: Not too far, but still she had a, she had to get the doctor to [tend to it].

Agnes:           I like to bled to death.

JD:      [Whistles] 

Agnes:           That was rough.

JD:      Where did you lose it?  While you were still at uh, at uh….

Agnes:           I lost the baby comin back home, the doctor said I was all right, you see, [he thought] I had done lost the baby.  But I hadn’t.  I lost it comin back home.  So if that [not sure here] would a happen we could a went back on Doctor Proctor.

Myon: Would’a sued him.

JD:      Course in those days….

Myon: In those days, a doctor, you know, we didn’t think about suing nobody anyway. 

JD:      Nobody thought about that. 

Myon: Uhuh.  But [Dr. Proctor] the only family doctor we had, when I used to live on Fourmile Bayou [he] was my family doctor. 

JD:      And how far away was he?  You say Lake Palourde, how far away was he you think? 

Myon: He was livin in Bayou Boeuf. 

Agnes:           He was a long ways.

Myon: He was a long ways from Fourmile Bayou.  I say long ways, it take about a [pause] an hour and a half in a slow boat.  We had slow boat then. 

JD:      Inboards, yeah.

Myon: Inboards.  They had to go get him and bring him at my house, and bring him back. 

JD:      It would take an hour and a half each way?

Myon: Oh, yeah. 

JD:      Cawlee.  So, you better not get sick too often then [lightly]. 

Myon: No.  Gaaa, I tell you!

JD:      Well, let me understand, let me go back a little bit with some of this.  The kind of thing like yall talk about, like the fight you had, like what you had , you know, how he acted , unfortunately what it caused, like that, the trip yall had to make…..That’s the kind of stuff nobody remembers anymore.  And a lot of people….

Myon: No, well I kind of forgot about it myself, till you brought it up.

JD:      Well, you do till you start to think about it.  You see, and that’s why I want to , that’s why I want the tape recorder on because I could never write down all that stuff.  But that thing will pick it up and then when we can go back and listen to it again we can put the stories together.

Agnes:           Yeah, whatever you want you….

JD:      Um, and what I’d like to do is say some things that maybe will get you started thinking about it, and then when you talk I just listen.

Agnes:           Yeah.

JD:      You know I was thinking the other day, I said that’s pretty nice somebody that interested in you, that they want you to just talk about yourself.  [laughs]

Myon: [mumble] long time we lived together [with Blaise Sauce] after we was married and I left from there [where they had been living on Blaise’s Canal] and I went trappin. 

JD:      Where..where..you were livin?  Across the lake…when you got married? 

Agnes:           Yeah.

Myon: I was livin [in] Lil Pigeon, yeah.  And that’s …I was fishin, I was [mumbles]

JD:      You were by yourself, in your houseboat?

Agnes:           No.

Myon: No, it was me an [?] Bill, he had a boat, big boat. 

Agnes:           …..campin, he had a big boat.  And they’d camp in that boat. 

JD:      More or less like Russell and EJ [Daigle] do with the shrimp boats, sort of thing?

Agnes:           Yeah.  And I’m bake his bread, and wash his clothes, and all.

JD:      So you [Agnes] lived up there too?

Agnes:           Yeah. 

JD:      But you lived with Blaise in his camp.

Myon: His family, yeah.  She was not but 14 years old.

Agnes:           We wasn’t married yet.

JD:      Did yall know each other before you got together over there?

Myon: Yeah.

Agnes:           Yeah, we met in 1928.  ……high water.  That’s when we met.

Myon: High water….

JD:      And how did that happen? 

Agnes:           I don’t know Jim [thinking].

JD:      I mean what was the, what was the deal when yall were, uh, when yall met you said was during the high water.

Myon: We all had our camp tied up in the same canal.

JD:      Where?

Myon: Bayou Lafourche.

JD:      Bayou Lafourche.

Agnes:           Yeah.  The onliest place there was land….

Myon: They had land, you know?  Fourmile Bayou they ain’t had no land.  Where I used to live, my house had 12 foot a water. 

JD:      That was at the mouth of Fourmile Bayou, you said?

Agnes:           Yeah.  They was in Fourmile Bayou. 

Myon: [something about] 19 and 12 highwater.  You said 1928, Momma, it was 1912.

Agnes:           [with some force in her voice] Noo, it wasn’t 1912, I was born 1912.

JD:      You have to give her a few years, Myon.

Agnes:           Yeah.  I’m born 1912.  That was the 1927 high water. 

JD:      That was the famous high water, was ‘27.

Agnes:           Yeah.

Myon: Well, that’s it then ….’27, yeah. 

JD:      So how did that work then, you [Myon] showed up, you [Agnes] were living with Blaise…and family?

Agnes:           Yeah, I was …..When he showed up, he was passin in a boat, and I was on the guards [railings].  We had guards all around the camp. 

Myon: That was after the water went down.

Agnes:           Yeah.  The water was…was still muddy, muddy!  I had a friend, and, [hmph], he went to they house.  And she called me, she wanted me to go see.  But I had seen him already passin in the boat. 

JD:      Uhhum, and how old was he when that happened?

Agnes:           I have him about 23, I guess. 

JD:      He was looking good, eh? [laughs]

Agnes:           Yeah, he was lookin good. 

Myon: I was about twenty…when I got married [so maybe he was a little younger than 23 when he met her].

Agnes:           I got up, I went inside, I told momma, I say “Come see, I’m gone show you somethin” and he was passin chuk chuk chuk [engine sounds], I say “That gone be my Old Man”.  She say “You crazy, go finish wit your work”.  He was my Old Man too! 

JD:      I’ll be doggone! 

Agnes:           She called me over there, that girl called me over there, he was there.  And I’m…[barefooted] you couldn’t wear shoes because the water had just got off the bank, and all.  So I went over there barefeeted.  I usually go starch and iron [dressed] all the time, and  that day I had a lot of work, so I didn’t go [dressed up], and he caught me just like I was.  So I say “Well, if he likted me the way I was, that’s all right” 

JD:      [laughs]  That’s great!

Myon: I used to come sell my fish, they had the camp tied right by the fishdock.  And I used to come sell my fish ….

JD:      You mean before the high water?

Myon: After.

Agnes:           And he’d let his boat drift sometimes, you know, against the guards [rails of the Sauce campboat].

JD:      [laughs] Ohhh, that’s how you, you, cruising, just let it drift.  Boy! [laughs]  Well, when did you first notice her?  When she came over that day during the flood?

Myon: Yeah. 

JD:      And yall got to talking?

Myon: I don’t believe we met.

Agnes:           I didn’t talk too much.  But, we noticed each other and ….

Myon: Then before we go up there fishin [moved their houseboat up the lake from Fourmile Bayou], I used to run [from] Fourmile Bayou up there to Lil Pigeon.  I had a 4-horse Lockwood…[to visit her and her family]