DATE: January 2, 1996
INTERVIEWER:
LOCATIONeg: Cleo “Neg”
Sauce’s house at Oxford Loop, Oxford, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana
COOPERATORS: Cleo
“Neg” Sauce
Continued from Chapter 31
[tape starts after a conversation has begun]
JD: So,
that’s what I underst
Neg: Had to…no choice.
JD: He couldn’t, uh, he didn’t have another way to make a living to support his kids?
Neg: Uhuh. No.
JD: So, your Momma, Rosalie, you said she didn’t fish at all?
Neg: Uhuh. Aw naw.
JD: Where did she come from? Do you know where she came from…where she lived when your Daddy married her?
Neg: I
really don’t know. Probably [lived] all
together, like we always lived, I imagine, you know. Up
JD: On a campboat, though, you think she lived on a campboat?
Neg: Well, I don’t know where they was livin, when they was little. But uh, I don’t’ know if they lived in house all they life, or … They did live in campboats, but I don’t know if they lived in campboats at that time or they was living…you know…I don’t know.
JD: Umhm.
I’m curious to try to underst
Neg: I think they did that mostly during the Depression. Cause it was hard to make a living. During the Depression they ain’t had no jobs If you did have a job you didn’t get nothing either. Most of the time they ain’t had no job. So, I think that’s when…a lot of em…that’s when they move away from town. They could scrap up a living in the…[lake].
JD: Now, in the Depression, that would have been in the early 1930’s? Is that right?
Neg: Probly so.
JD: The 20s, late 20s, 1930s…
Neg: Oh yeah.
JD: It was in the Depression you were born?
Neg: I think so.
JD: OK. So that makes sense that people had….
Neg: Yeah. That’s mostly why they left town. I had a uncle stayin in Berwick over there. And they…it was bad for us too, but uh, they ain’t had no jobs, you know…in debt over there.
JD: In Berwick?
Neg: Until my Daddy brought em to come up the lake with us…
JD: Now uncle…that was your Daddy’s brother, you talking about?
Neg: No, that’s one of my momma’s sisters, my bro…[no] my daddy’s sister that was married to him [making an uncle].
JD: Matile, or Florence, or Anna? Or Chuckee, or Lucia? Philomena? You don’t have to remember the name, I was just…
Neg: I know her name, but right now…Anna… Anna…French.
JD: So, she was married to somebody,
Neg: Yeah, come up in the lake.
JD: Did they get their own camp boat?
Neg: Yeah, [or] rent…sometimes they’d rent a campboat…or get em a lil shack or something like that. My daddy had a good sized campboat him, 12 by 30 I believe it was.
JD: Still, he had a big family too.
Neg: Yeah, six.
JD: So, you think it was mostly to make a living that people, I mean because times got hard…
Neg: I
think so, I think that was the reason.
Live cheaper, you know, like up the lake [instead of] in town. You could eat fish, different things that you
catch…you could go hunt
JD: At least you could get enough to eat. For your family.
Neg: Aw yeah. And make a living like that, fish a lil bit, pick moss.
JD: Did they sell moss even during the
Depression? You could still pick moss
Neg: Yeah, for something. [laughs] it wasn’t much. One or two cents a pound. Fish the same thing. Two, three cents a pound.
JD: But on l
Neg: No, uh, in town not even that because they
ain’t had no job. Nothing to do. So that’s…
JD: But like you said a while ago, people were happy.
Neg: Right! Ain’t had nothing, but they were happy. You know, it didn’t matter if you had anything or not, which to me it still don’t. You know, I don’t want no money, I don’t want no fancy thing in this world. What I’m gone do with that? I gone have to leave it. So, what good it’s gonna do? It don’t do no good.
JD: People
who….
Neg: All about the same, you know. Nobody had nothing.
JD: Well, to say they had nothing…but that’s…they had campboats, they had a place to live. They had a boat, even if it was a push skiff, they had something they could go around in. They could…they had a way to make…they had people who would help em catch a few fish like you helped me. You remember? To catch a few fish to make a living? So, they had…they had a good bit, I mean they didn’t have nothing fancy but they had…
Neg: Well, in a way, in them days, it was pretty good, what you had, you know, because they…nobody had nothing much. Even in town, nobody had…unless they rich people. But the poor folks, they were poor. And that’s the way it went.
JD: But
the best thing it seems like those houseboats or campboats offered was a way to
get out
Neg: Yeah. That’s what I think…that’s why people got
away from houses in town,
JD: And how long did that last Neg? Started…if you can remember back…now you, uh, were you born on a campboat? Your self?
Neg: I think so. I believe so.
JD: And
your older brothers
Neg: Probly
so, probly so. Joseph was axin me the other day cause I’m supposed to be born
in Bayou Sorrel. Now, Joseph say they
got a Bayou Sorrel down there [in the south end of the Basin] too. So, I don’t know. I always thought…understood that I was born
at Bayou Sorrel up here by Plaquemine.
Now I’m wondering, it might be down there. You know, cause that’s where…that’s where my,
my gr
JD: It would make more sense to be from the south, the one down below.
Neg: It would sort of, yeah.
JD: Yeah, did I, did we tell you…did anybody tell you that we took a little trip the other day? And uh, to go take a ride? Joe told you?
Neg: Joe told me.
JD: Joe
took a ride with us. And he told you we
found your gr
Neg: Yeah, they been dead quite a few years.
JD: Sixty three years, one of em. Your gr
Neg: About. I remember when he died. But I wasn’t… like you say, I must have been maybe six…around six years old really.
JD: And both of them are buried…both your grandpa Claiborne and your grandma uh, Fannie Mae…Fannie they call her. They were both buried at the canal. I had more fun with that because Myon told me “The Canal…the Canal” and I said “what canal is that?”. He said “Well, there’s no water but they call it the Canal”. And did Joe tell you we went back on a map and found that...that in 1863 that was a canal? It’s not no more.
Neg: It ain’t no more?
JD: There’s no water at all, just a highway. Just a road. But it’s…it was exciting to find that out, you know, to see how it was and how it is now. And we road all the way on the end, where uh, where y’all were living on Lake Verret, Agnes and uh, and uh, Preston, and y’all, used to paddle across…a pirogue across…from where y’all canal, you had your campboat, to the…to that restaurant where they had those dances, on the landing? At the landing there at the mouth of the canal.
Neg: I don’t remember that, that part of it. [laughs]
JD: Agnes said she remembers…
Neg: Yeah, she ought…yeah, she ought to remember that her.
JD: Well she’s…she’s uh, she’s twelve years older than you. Agnes is. She was born in 1912, and you were born in 1924, so she’s 12 years older than you.
Neg: Seem to me that she’s more than 12…
JD: More, more?
Neg: Agnes is eighty something years old! Course I’m seventy…I’m gone be 72 years old, so…
JD: Well, she could be 84…[laughs]
Neg: That’s probly right…probly right.
JD: Would you have any interest in taking a ride over there sometime…to see?
Neg: Yeah. Someday I’d like to go. Yeah, when it’s nice, the weather and all.
JD: Boy, it was cold the other day!
Neg: Oh, I bet.
JD: I had to get out of the car…me and EJ and Joe got out the car and went walking around, but those women didn’t want to get out the car…it was too cold.
Neg: I was gone go…Joseph had called, and uh, it’s a good thing I didn’t. I didn’t feel good, that’s why I called him back. I told him I didn’t feel good enough to go.
JD: Well, it was good for you to do that…to make up your mind.
Neg: And that night…I was real sick again. So, it’s a good thing I had called and tell him I wasn’t goin.
JD: It is a good thing because you could have got cold…on that trip. Could have been worse. We’ll have to take the ride sometime when it’s nice.
Neg: It’d be nice…but…I been there when I was little…but…
JD: But you would have been real little when you were there.
Neg: I don’t remember nothing about it.
JD: Because if Agnes was 13 or 14, you would have been just one or two years old. Do you remember at all…you were born, you were born…you were born three years before the big flood, before 1927 flood. So, you probably don’t remember much about the big flood.
Neg: No, I don’t remember.
JD: OK. Do you remember at all when they started to build the levee? When the built the big levees?
Neg: This levee here?
JD: Umhm. The big one.
Neg: Yeah, my two brothers worked on that right of way…when they started way up the country.
JD: On the east side? Or…?
Neg: On this side here.
JD: On this side, or on the other side?
Neg: This side. Yeah, they worked way up the country over there. Cut right- of- way.
JD: Preston and Robert?
Neg: Yeah. When they first started… when the first started…when they was gone build the levee. Cause my Daddy had moved…we had moved from, the Canal, over there, up to Lake Long here.
JD: Where’s Lake Long? Can you help me understand where that is?
Neg: Ohh, Lil Pass used to come in…into…come out in Lake Long. This end in Grand Lake and the other end come out in Lake Long. And my daddy had moved up there so uh, they could cut right of way.
JD: Your daddy had moved the campboat up there, so your brothers…did he work on it too, your daddy?
Neg: No, uhuh. My brothers did.
JD: So, he moved up there so they could work on the right-of-way. Did he keep fishing at the time, or what? Or lumber?
Neg: No,
he probly messed around with fish
JD: Did he work in the lumber industry much? Your daddy? Timber?
Neg: I
don’t know Jim, he probly did, before I was born. I don’t really remember him messin around
too much [with timber] when I was comin up.
But he probly did. You know,
before I was born, or very small.
Yeah. He had moved us there
JD: You talking about just cutting the trees?
Neg: Yeah, just cut…clean out the place, you know, to build the levee.
JD: So,
they didn’t put the dirt right on top the trees, they cut the trees
Neg: Right.
JD: And then they come with…what?...draglines?
Neg: Draglines…big draglines. Oh yeah, I remember when they build the levee. Yeah.
JD: Took a long time?
Neg: Ooh! Did it take a long time! It took a long time before they got to Myette Pt. [laughs].
JD: Just clearing right-of-way? Or building the levee?
Neg: Building the levee. And they worked a while, none of them didn’t work that long.
JD: Where were y’all living when it came to Myette Pt.? Across the lake again, at Blaise’s Canal?
Neg: Yeah.
JD: So, y’all were in the middle of the lake when the levees were coming down, y’all didn’t see the levee…you didn’t see em build the levee right here.
Neg: No, uhuh. No. Bootsie probly seen em though. They was living here.
JD: Bootsie Millet? They lived here a long time Neg?
Neg: Oh yeah. Bootsie was raised out there at the lake.
JD: At the lake?
Neg: Myette Pt.
JD: That’s how it came to be called Myette Pt.?
Neg: Umhm. …had been stayin there for years.
JD: And his family? What about his family?
Neg: Bootsie?
They was living there. His momma
JD: At Myon’s Canal, or …?
Neg: Just above the Canal.
JD: In the lake? There was some place to put a campboat in there?
Neg: No, they had a house. They had a house on the point, there. Above the Canal.
JD: Of course that’s before the levee. …
Neg: Yeah, oh yeah. They was planting cane out there by the edge of the lake. Oh yeah, they still had cane rows when we moved here. They wasn’t plantin cane no more because they had build the levee.
JD: And the water would come up.
Neg: Yeah. …the rows was still there.
JD: And it’s just trees now, or what?
Neg: Yeah…well, that’s where they dug the big hole on the inside of the levee. When they had raised the levee up a few years ago, they dug that hole in there But they used to…that used to be all cane in there a long time ago.
JD: Sugar cane!
Neg: All the way to the lake.
JD: Now, Bootsie Millet married your…your sister. Yank [Ophelia]?
Neg: Yeah.
JD: Did they have a bunch of children?
Neg: Uh, don’t remember if it’s five or six. I don’t remember exactly, five or six, for sure.
JD: But, you their uncle.
Neg: Yeah.
JD: Well, I don’t want to tire you out Neg…I don’t want to…
Neg: I ain’t got nothing else to do [laughs].
JD: You sure?
You sure? One of the things I
want to write about …I want to write about something that y’all don’t even think is important,
I guess, but I…but nobody knows it
Neg: Yeah.
Between me
JD: You see what I’m talking about? I would never think to ask a question like
that, except that I just did
Neg: Shore did.
JD: And you wouldn’t think to tell me, would you?
Neg: Uhuh.
We played marbles after we was married.
On Myon’s Canal, on that lil levee.
Me
JD: And what would y’all play for? Y’all played for marbles? I mean, you’d win the marbles? Where did y’all get the marbles?
Neg: We’d buy em.
JD: And what did they look like?
Neg: Aw, they was pretty. Used to call em crystals. They was beautiful, you know, clear glass …all kinds of things through there.
JD: They were glass?
Neg: I think they were. I got some here in the lamp.
JD: You still have some Neg??
Neg: Yeah, they supposed to be in that lamp.
JD: In a coal oil lamp? Well look at that! Glass marbles. Shore enough. Y’all would buy those in town or…off of a fishboat?
Neg: Yeah, off the fishboat, stuff like that…
JD: Glass marbles! with a middle, I wish I could see what they look like…oh, I see now, I see. Boy that is pretty, hunh?
Neg: Aw yeah, they was pretty.
JD: Great big ones, some of em, look at that big one!
Neg: Lot of times it was what we’d use to shoot with.
JD: You’d shoot with those big ones? It would knock the smaller ones out of the ring? Is that how y’all played?
Neg: Yeah, made a ring there,
JD: You had to shoot from the edge of the ring? Or what? I mean…how did y’all…How did you play marbles?
Neg: We used to make a ring like over
here…like…over here you’d make a mark
JD: And you shot…you shot for those in the middle…
Neg: Yeah.
JD: And how would you win?
Neg: You’d knock em out of the ring.
JD: So, any of em you knocked out of the ring…that was yours?
Neg: Right.
JD: Did everybody have to put some to start? Is that how you start?
Neg: Yeah. Everybody put maybe like each one, one or two, whatever.
JD: Whatever y’all decided, that’s like…you see…if you were playing cards that’s what you put in the middle. Call it ante, or something like that.
Neg: Or something like that.
JD: And y’all played that a lot?
Neg: Aw yeah.
JD: What you got in that picture there?
Neg: That’s Nine [his wife, Elmira], when she was young.
JD: Isn’t that beautiful! That’s a beautiful woman! That’s a beautiful woman. Look at that!
Neg: Yeah, that’s when she was young.
JD: Boy, boy, boy. How old was she here, Neg, about?
Neg: I think about 15. I think so.
JD: Y’all married then?
Neg: No. Yeah, she was a beautiful lady. I think.
JD: Well, I think so myself.
[tape stops
Neg: The Ford first come out? The coils? That’s what they’d use over there. And, ?. And then they come out later with what you call the dead coil…they called em dead coil [laughs] I don’t know why. And it’s the same coil you got on em now. That’s how they’d call em. I guess it’s because you didn’t hear em. The others…the ones we used to use on the boats? you could hear em, [makes a loud humming sound].
JD: Oh, they made noise. The coils did.
Neg: Yeah, when you’d pull the motor the coil would buzz.
JD: All the time it was running? All the time the motor was running it would buzz?
Neg: Aw yeah, you could hear it though, only when the fire hits.
JD: Well,
let me go back. I’m interested in
everything that we can learn about what…what it was like to live on the
campboats as a family. Now, I don’t care
if you want to start when you were a boy…when you were like 14 or 15, or we can
go from there to when you were married, or…or even after your children were
born…I’m interested in all of that that went on. So, if I could ask you to… let’s take it
from when you were 15 years old. Can
we do that? Well, your daddy died when
you were 11, so maybe when you were ten, before he died…maybe when you were
nine…do you remember anything about those days, when you were nine
Neg: Couple of us, couple of us.
JD: Two of y’all were sleeping…what kind of mattress did y’all have?
Neg: Aw, they’d make up…they’d make the mattress
out of moss. Oh yeah, talk about sleep
good. Every now
JD: About a foot thick? Is that right? Black moss?
Now some people had trouble, I remember, I underst
Neg: Never did have no problem with bugs. Not if you put it in there clean and/
JD: So, let’s say you got up in the morning, you were ten years old…you got up in the morning…what was your day like? What did you start off doing? Your daddy was still alive…
Neg: The first thing that I start doing…you go to
the edge of the camp
JD: Ok, you put your clothes on…I’d really like to know about all of that…you put your clothes on. What kind of clothes? Let’s say it was summertime…what kind of clothes did you have?
Neg: I always wear a long-sleeved shirt,
JD: Even as a boy?
Neg: Oh yeah. And my arms was white, white, white all the time.
JD: What kind of shoes?
Neg: Well shoes…most of the time we go barefeeted.
JD: Didn’t have any shoes.
Neg: Might a had em. Might a had a pair of shoes, yeah, but we’d save em, you know?
JD: And then by the time you had to wear em they were probably too small. [laughs].
Neg: But uh, most of the time barefeeted.
JD: Ok, so you drink your coffee…
Neg: Drink your coffee…start your lil day’s work, whatever you do, you know, you just…
JD: Well, you had breakfast I guess, huhn?
Neg: Uh, probly so when I was young I probly did
have breakfast, but it’s been years that we didn’t eat breakfast. They’d cook early,
JD: OK, so y’all would eat two meals a day then, rather then three?
Neg: Yeah, bout two meals a day.
JD: You uh…
Neg: Not all of it, but you know, go on about our business, like we’d go fishing, you know, come back put the fish in the cage. Sometimes you go two three times a day like that.
JD: Your lines were close?
Neg: Right.
And you know in them days you put your fish in a cage
JD: OK, so you go two or three times during the day…
Neg: Yeah, sometimes we go two, three times, run
your lines, you know? ‘Cause you
couldn’t keep no fish in a boat like we did when me
JD: Till the fishboat came.
Neg: Right.
And that’s about the way it went every day, you know. Get up
JD: Ok, you would…you would…you would fish but when you finished with your fish[ing] let’s say you’d finish at 3:00 in the afternoon for your fish…what did you do from 3:00 till supper?
Neg: Lot
of time we’d set out on the wharf
JD: On Blaise’s canal? Y’all would kill grosbecs with shotgun?
Neg: With shotgun. Kill good mess of grosbec right there sittin on the wharf.
JD: Now, the wharf you talking about…is uh…
Neg: Yeah, that dock on logs [crib].
JD: Kill grosbecs for supper, or next day…
Neg: Right, for the next day, or for supper.
JD: And then, what time would y’all eat supper?
Neg: Sometime around dark…most of the time around dark, eat supper.
JD: And what was supper mostly…a lot of times? What can you remember that the food was like?
Neg: Lot of time we’d eat, like I say, grosbec
JD: So,
you would have em twice a day… for dinner
Neg: Dinner
JD: And you had some meat with em usually, of some kind?
Neg: Sometimes we had meat, not all the time, but we used to buy a lil pack of meat… when the fishboat pass we’d buy a pack of meat.
JD: But how about game? Y’all had game meat.
Neg: Oh yeah, we had squirrels
JD: Grosbecs in the summer?
Neg: Grosbec in the summer. Boy that was good, yeah! [laughs]. I’d like to have me some.
JD: And ducks in the winter.
Neg: And ducks in the winter. And you roast them grosbec down with onions,
talk about a meal! Rice
JD: How about bread?
Neg: Oh yeah, Momma used to make her bread. Every couple days she’s make bread.
JD: It was good?
Neg: Whoooo, talk about good! [laughs].
You know who makes some good one now?
Faith. [his daughter]. Yeah, her Momma showed her how one day,
JD: She brings you some?
Neg: Yeah. [laughs]. She had brought me some not too long ago. Boy it was good.
JD: So, after supper. What did y’all do after supper? Didn’t have no electricity, didn’t have no television or radio or non of that, or lights, even.
Neg: That [lamp] was our light.
JD: Kerosene lamp.
Neg: Yep, what you see right there.
JD: That’s the same lamp?
Neg: That was…that’s one of em that we raised our kids with. Yeah.
JD: The same kerosene lamp right here.
Neg: Same one right there. Yeah. And they don’t make em like this…like that no more. That’s an old one, there.
JD: So, what did y’all do after supper, after dark, I guess.
Neg: Oh, a lot of time we’d sit down with a deck
of cards
JD: What kind of game?
Neg: Oh, used to have them game they used to call “fish”. You remember that? I don’t know if you remember. They tell you fish, you know, so you had none…if they ain’t had none to match yours…they’d say fish, and take some out of the deck.
JD: And how could you put down cards?
Neg: Certain cards you’d put down…
JD: And how would you win?
Neg: I don’t think you win.
JD: But, somebody ran out of cards first?
Neg: Yeah, I think that’s the way it went. It’s been a long time.
JD: Well, everything I’m asking you is a long time ago, so that’s understood, I mean.
Neg: I think that’s…that probably the way it went. I think…the one that ran out of cards first or something like that.
JD: So y’all played, eh…y’all played cards at night.
Neg: Yeah, played different things. Used to play jacks too. They lil balls…
JD: Throw em in the air?
Neg: Yeah. Stuff like that.
JD: Now, the kids
Neg: Yeah, I used to play all those things. [laughs]
JD: Well, I mean, it was a good thing to do. Passed the time. Sure, sure. Now, I don’t guess anybody read anything, huh? Nobody pretty much could read?
Neg: They ain’t had too many people could read. And they…
JD: Well, you know the thing about it is it wasn’t necessary. I mean, you didn’t need that to make your living. Or to raise your children. You didn’t need to do that. You didn’t need to read highway signs if you didn’t…if you weren’t on the road. And on the canal, on the bayou, they didn’t have signs. [laughs]
Neg: No indeed.
JD: How did y’all make out with the fishboats? If people couldn’t read, y’all pretty
much had to trust, like when they weighed your fish,
Neg: Um, most times some could do a lil figuring. Learned from the…I don’t know how they’d learn but they’d learn out of they head, I guess. Most of the people could pretty much figure as much as the one runnin the fishboat sometimes?
JD: Oh, yeah?
Neg: Cause,
uh, old Henry S
JD: He would run a shrimp boat…uh, uh, run a fishboat?
Neg: Run a fishboat.
JD: And he couldn’t figure at all?
Neg: Figure
a lil bit, but he couldn’t read nothing.
How they’d learn, I don’t know, but take like Myon
JD: Figure
the money
Neg: Yeah.
JD: But he couldn’t read.
Neg: No
Continued on Chapter 33
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