Atchafalaya Basin Peoper: Chapter 29

DATE:                        December 28, 1995 

INTERVIEWER:      Jim Delahoussaye

LOCATIONS:           Recording made mostly in a moving vehicle on a trip from Myette Pt. to Napoleonville, Attakapas Landing and Pierre Part, Louisiana. 

COOPERATORS:   Edward Couvillier, Lena Mae Couvillier, Agnes Bailey, Joe Sauce, EJ Daigle, Carolyn Delahoussaye

  Continued from Chapter 28

 [Much of this tape is done in a moving vehicle.  Road noise was a problem for transcription and the notation “[?]” was used where voices are unintelligible, or where conversation involves directional issues about the highways to take, etc.]

 [We arrived at the church at the location called The Canal on the map.  We went out into the cemetery and found some of the graves we were looking for.  It was a very cold day!]

 JD:      Well, I am pleased with that.  Did you show this to Agnes?  This is what the grave markers look like, Agnes.  That’s what the markers look like.  The big square one is concrete and the other one is metal.

 Lena Mae:     Right next to granpa, there. 

 Agnes:           I don’t know who it is.  No name one it.

 [road talk and laughter]

 JD:      Well, Agnes, if that’s where the Mayon’s are, where do you think the Sauces are? 

 Agnes:           The Sauces, I donno Jim.  I remember when that tornado hit in Pierre Part, now they might have been in Pierre Part, I donno.

 EJ:      What was Grandpa Sauce’s name.

 Agnes:           Laurent. [later found to be Larnce].

 Lena Mae:     Laurent and Ophelia.

 JD:      Well, we didn’t find a canal.

 EJ:      We didn’t find the canal, but we sure found a lake.

 [so now we have visited the cemetery on “The Canal”.  We found several graves that have ancestors of Myette Pt. people whose names are recorded in other notes.  Now going to Pierre Part to look in a cemetery there.]

 Joe:    …have any recollection, uh.  Think Daddy would remember em?  Think Daddy would remember his grandma and grandpa? 

 Agnes:           Yeah, oh yeah.  Yeah, Neg should. 

 JD:      We didn’t have those dates before we read those stones…?

 Joe:    Yeah, some of em. 

 JD:      It’s a pity they didn’t tell us where they were born.  Sometimes they do say born such and such a date at such and such a place.  These don’t say that.  She was older than he was.  She was three years older than he was.  [?]

 [road talk]

 JD:      Yall realize somebody’s been taking care of that gravesite for about 63 years?  From where, he was buried?  That’s how long that marker’s been there on the ground.  Now, he’s been dead 63 years, that’s right. 

 Lena Mae:     I remember him, yeah, but I can’t remember when he died.  I don’t remember nuttin about when he died. 

 Agnes:           I remember when he died.

 Lena Mae:     I remember when grandpa died. 

 JD:      He would have been 71…72 when he died. 

 Lena Mae:     I never forget…when grandma died.  That’s when I saw that big light.  Every year they had more [pictures?] on the porch…on the shelf…and it was getting dark.  They had a big, big cypress by the lakeshore…you could see it from the house, and I used to play by that cypress all the time.  We had a playhouse there.  And I looked up there, man, there was a big old red light by that tree.  Called Momma and Daddy, they never could see the damn light. 

 Agnes:           We never could see it.

 Lena Mae:     And I seen that light just as plain as you want.  I mean it went away…and I’d…it would come back.  It done that three times.  I kept telling Daddy…and nobody could see it but me.

 Carolyn:        This was after she died?

 Lena Mae:     No.  Well, when she died.  And that same night…that same night…Parrain ? I believe, is the one come and brought us the news…that Grandma Claiborne had died.  And they was hookin onto the camp to bring it to, uh, Morgan City. They brought the camp over there in Morgan City.

 Agnes:           They brought the camp over there and come buried her over here. 

 Lena Mae:     And they laid her out in the camp, cause we was there, and, then  left with her, and I guess that’s when they come over here [to The Canal?], don’t remember nuttin after that. 

 JD:      And that’s…that was Fanny Mae?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, that was Fanny Mae. 

 JD:      She must have gone by Fanny, because that’s all they put on her, uh, her gravestone.

 Lena Mae:     Well, all we knew her by [was] Grandma Claiborne.  You know?

 JD:      And yet, her name wasn’t Claiborne, it was…it was Mayon. 

 Lena Mae:     But we’d call her Grandma Claiborne.

 Joe:    Yeah, his name was Claiborne.

 EJ:      Boy, sure shows you who was boss of the house.

 JD:      That’s what I was thinking, too. 

 Joe:    Traditional family.

 Carolyn:        [that’s] like calling me Grandma Jim.

 Edward:        There’s another graveyard, Jim.

 JD:      I kind of like that.  [laughter]

 [road talk for a long time]

 Joe:    You know how they are…those garden farms, uh, further south?  Well, Grandpa Daigle [Homer] would grow…garden farms.  Always had a garden, I remember as a lil boy.  And Momma…Momma talked about that.  They used to even…like some of these garden farms that do sell some of their produce and stuff like that. 

 JD:      And where would that happen, Joe?

 Joe:    Well, when I was a lil boy…he…grandpa always had a big garden when he lived across the Pit.  But, uh, Momma talked about him always gardening a lot. 

 JD:      You talking about across the Pit in Morgan City? 

 [long period of talk not recorded]

 Joe:    Yeah.  But uh, before [he gardened] wherever they lived.  He talked about uh, Fourmile Bayou, he talked about where he used to live on the Lil Texas [a canal in the Basin], and …

 Lena Mae:     That’s the first time I went church, between, uh, [?]

  [road talk and cane harvesting]

 EJ:      Remember we were talking earlier on…on the Red River and the fish ?  What I was about to say is the Red River water runs the fish out.  Once the Red River rises, you got to go down to the coast to find fish.  Reading articles in different magazines, north in the Red River is full of salt water springs, and the Red River carries this salt water down.  And I believe we keep saying the Ouachita water runs the fish out, but I believe the Red water running the fish out ahead of it.  What the did, they blocked a lot of these springs off, and they were catching salt water stripers way up there at these springs.  Where now, they’re going back to catching bass and sac a lait and stuff. 

 JD:      They blocked the springs off now?

 EJ:      Umhm. 

 Joe:    That had something to do with stirring the fish up…whatever…

 EJ:      Yeah, it would move the fish.  You know there is no reason just plumb muddy water move the fish like that.    After a Red River rise in that lake, you could hardly catch a fish until almost the next spring.

 Joe:    I figured it was just the cold of the water.

 EJ:      I did too.

 JD:      But it was good for shrimp.  You catch a lot of bait shrimp [in a rise].

 EJ:      It was the muddy water [that] affects the shrimp.  Brings em off the bottom to the top.

 [road talk, various aspects of Pierre Part]

 EJ:      The way he got it [water in the yards][he could put] crawfish traps out in the yard. 

 Edward:        Probly gets his 11/16^th out of his ¾ [laughs, mesh size in crawfish traps]. 

 Joe:    Yeah, that’s gone be a problem.

 Edward:        I don’t believe they gone have to many from over here.  These people over here don’t believe in them small mashes. 

 Joe:    That’s the reason they got a Three Quarter Inch Law.

 Edward:        You put out a 11/16^th by em…them suckers mash it up. 

 JD:      They will?  If they find em?

 Edward:        Yeah. 

 Joe:    They been learning a lil different…last few years.  Catahoula back there and us back there [using 11/16^th traps].  Run into a few that’s hard headed…they change their minds.

 [road talk and turtle farms]

 JD:      That was a houseboat, I betcha. [looking at the houses along the road in Pierre Part.

 Joe:    Aw, a lot of stuff along here was houseboats, believe me.

 Lena Mae:     There’s one across the bayou, Jim.

 JD:      Yeah, across the bayou, huh.  Shore enough.  Still had a cistern on the side of it.  Agnes, you say you think some of the other people might be buried here?

 Agnes:           Yeah, where…wherever the church is at…

 Joe:    Church is right by the bridge…right across the bridge.

 JD:      An old fish car…fish box. 

 Lena Mae:     You see some of these houses here…that was campboats too, but the built onto em and they look more like a house.

 JD:      There’s a fish house huh? 

 EJ:      Crawfish place.

 Edward:        Look at the nutria rats. 

 JD:      Where?  On a log?  Oh, dead ones?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, they linded up.  [some 15 or so nutria lined up on the bank…from a trapper, maybe].

 Edward:        They got a bunch of em.

 EJ:      That’s something [a problem] if they don’t do something about[them].  Even the swamps are full now.

 Edward:        They got any beavers in there?

 JD:      I couldn’t tell if they’d been shot or trapped, could yall?

 Joe:    The law…now…I believe, you supposed to shoot em if you see em.  Or something like that. 

 Carolyn:        You are?  Why?

 JD:      Certain places.

 EJ:      …eatin up the country.  Trappers have quit trappin em.  They just…rampant.

 Carolyn:        Oh, I see. 

 [road talk]

 JD:      That was a wide houseboat!  Maybe.  Did they have em…did they have em that wide on barges that big?

 Joe:    It may have been added on [onto].

 EJ:      They had some wider ones too.

 Joe:    Shore they did. 

 EJ:      The later ones did, the last ones that were much wider than…

 JD:      Well, the first ones were all on cypress barges…did they ever build em on those cottonwood logs? 

 Joe:    Uhuh.

 EJ:      I never seen em like that. 

 JD:      Eventually those cottonwood logs…those cottonwood logs would sink, wouldn’t they?

 EJ:      Well, thing is, they weren’t …well…to move around with em.  But on something like that you couldn’t tow it well…

 Edward:        Go down current, but not up current.

 JD:      Carolyn, I swear, I walked through some of these houses when we were doing the co-op and every time I walked thru a door I’d hit my head.   All the men were like 5 feet 4 inches tall.   [Pierre Part is full of very short people]

 EJ:      Well, they weren’t freaks, you were.  [laughter]

 JD:      That’s right.  That’s right. 

 Joe:    Talking about me and EJ, now, huh? [they are both not tall]

 JD:      [seeing a big boat] Where would you go with a lugger like that on this bayou?  Lake Verret?  I guess, Lake Verret? 

 EJ:      Down through Lake Verret to Morgan City.

 Joe:    Bayou Boeuf.

 JD:      You can no longer get from here to the Atchafalaya, can you?

 EJ:      Only through the locks, Bayou Boeuf locks.  See all these back waters?  Catch a lot of choupique.

 [road talk]

 Lena Mae:     See right here, the Rainbow Inn.  I used to come to the dance here by boat.

 JD:      Where? Right there?  By boat?

 Lena Mae:     That building right there. 

 JD:      Where would yall live, to come here? 

 Lena Mae:     We was livin, across the lake but but we’d come…we’d come from Lil Pigeon, we’d cross the boat right there. 

 JD:      Yall would come all the way from Lil Pigeon here? 

 Lena Mae:     Yep. 

 Agnes:           We passed the statue.  I remember that statue there.  We used to come by boat, there. 

 Lena Mae:     We go to the Rainbow Inn.  Yeah, that big building there, right there. 

 Agnes:           This is the church that the, uh, that the tornado took.

 JD:      And this is the graveyard that you think somebody [we know] might be in?  [the Catholic graveyard and church in Pierre Part]

 Agnes:           Yeah. 

 JD:      Well, let’s take 15 minutes and walk around in there.  And see.  We’d be looking for…what’s the last name?  Sauce? 

 Agnes:           Yeah. 

 EJ:      Larnce Sauce.

 JD:      Yall want to kind of divide it up?  [to search the gravestones].

 EJ:      That would be the way to do it.  Get so many feet apart where you can read one grave from the other. 

 JD:      Lena Mae, I’m gonna…uh…

 Lena Mae:     I’m gone stay in here ‘till yall find it. 

 JD:      But I’m gone to open this back door. 

 Agnes:           …big graveyard.  Pretty graveyard though, look how it’s fixed so pretty. 

 [several people stay in the van while others search the graveyard]

 Agnes:           Mr. Diaz and them had quit coming to church over here, oh yeah, the priest was awful they say.

 Agnes:           Some of em [graves] even build lil houses…big enough to put two or three of em. 

 Lena Mae:     They need to get in the back, that’s where the old graves gonna be, way in the back.

 Agnes:           Yeah. 

 Lena Mae:     That was Uncle Bill’s name?  Bill? 

 Agnes:           Yeah. 

 Lena Mae:     They find one.

 Agnes:           Anh?  They find one?   They might find all three of em, right together, I guess.  I’m not sure…I believe Uncle Bill’s name was Wilson? 

 Lena Mae:     His name would be Willy.  If they call him Bill, his name should be Willy.  That’s what’s bad about not [caroling?  Meaning using a nickname] you know?  I believe all my kids go by their real name.  All my kids go by their real name.  Justin, Larry, Bonita…Gwen and Kevin.   [if they] carry a nickname, and they grow up with it, and something happen…?

 Agnes:           [for example] T-Put, nobody knew her name. 

 Lena Mae:     That’s it…all Uncle Joe’s kids. 

 Agnes:           I don’t know…I don’t know T-Put’s name.  The only one I knew her name was Sedolia.

 Lena Mae:     Wait…what’s Nut’s name, T-Put’s name?  Nut was Hilda…T-Put’s Mary Lee. 

 Agnes:           Yeah.  And Tot?

 Lena Mae:     Tot?  I don’t know her name.

 Continued on Chapter 30