Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 34

DATE:                        January 2, 1996 

INTERVIEWER:      Jim Delahoussaye

LOCATION:         Cleo “Neg” Sauce’s house at Oxford Loop, Oxford, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana

COOPERATORS:   Cleo “Neg” Sauce

Continued from Chapter33

 JD:      So, you got married andand your mother Rosalie, and Preston and you were mar…were living in this houseboat, which the two of ya’ll built.  And...and then, after ya’ll got married ya’ll lived in this houseboat, the four of ya’ll for a while.

 Neg:   Yeah, a lil while.

 JD:      And you said this was in 1944?  When ya’ll built this campboat right here.  OK, then what happened? 

 Neg:   Then we bought a lil bitty campboat [laughs].  A lil bitty one.  Just big enough for our bed, lil coal-oil stove.  Remember them lil coal-oil stove they had?  Three burners.  I had build like a lil closet, put our clothes

 JD:      One room.

 Neg:   Yeah.  One room.  It was neat yeah!  [laughs].  It wasn’t much but it was home.

 JD:      How big a barge was it on? 

 Neg:   Oh, it was very small.  Probly 6-8 foot wide, maybe 16 feet long.  I had put it on logsbetween logs.  [to make it] steady. 

 JD:      It wasn’t a …it wasn’t a cypress barge?  It wasn’t a hull barge?

 Neg:   Yeah.  But it was small, the size of the campboat.

 JD:      Oh, and so you put the logs on the outside to hold it steady?

 Neg:   Yeah, right. I knew we couldn’t stay in there long, though.  So, I had bought…I had went to Morgan City.  They had one for sale.  I guess you might still remember it.  It used to be right on the side of this one.

 JD:      On the levee?  I remember lil house…a lil house next to this one.

 Neg:   Yeah.  It was 24-foot long and 10-foot wide.  I bought that.   And that one…that was nice that one, comfortable. 

 JD:      So, you went from that lil bitty one to one a lil bit bigger?   Two rooms? Two rooms.  Ok, and ya’ll lived in that for awhile. 

 Neg:   Yeah, lived there a good while‘Till my momma died, then I got… [the one his mother owned] and put this on the bank by Bootsie…where Bootsie used to live over there, by Momma.

 JD:      On the levee?

 Neg:   Yeah, and I was living further this way.  And then I moved it from there and brought it…where mine was. 

 JD:      So, you inherited this one when Rosalie died?

 Neg:   Yeah, it was mine, really.  ‘Cause me and my brother had…had build it. 

 JD:      And Preston [his brother], at this time?

 Neg:   He was gone [died].

 JD:      He was gone [died at]  32?  You said? 

 Neg:   36. 

 JD:      Heart attack.  OK.  Uh, so it was just you left to…you had built it, so it was yours.

 Neg:   Yeah.  Really, it was mine because me and him build it.  Or me and Myon put it together but, me and him paid for it.  Buy a few piece of lumber at the time…a lot of the lumber we had sawed, like all the walls and all, all that we had sawed.  The only thing we bought is the door frames, and the doors, and

 JD:      Yall brought the wood to the sawmill and had em saw it?  Brought the logs? 

 Neg:   Right.  All them walls and all [he points to the inside of the room].  Old time cypress. 

 JD:      Is that right?  And the barge ya’ll had it on at that time?  What about that?

 Neg:   Part of that lumber we had sawed too. 

 JD:      Two-inch lumber, big lumber?  Big wood?

 Neg:   No, the gunnel was two inches, bottom was an inch. 

 JD:      The gunnel was two inches.  The whole length of the campboat for the barge?  One piece of wood?

 Neg:   One piece of wood. 

 JD:      30 inches high? [whistles]

 Neg:   Uh, thirty… 22 I think it was

 JD:      22 inches high?  How much freeboard did you have between the…the water and the edge of the campboat.

 Neg:   Had plenty…put 2x6 on top of the barge, you know, when you build the cabin.  You always put a 2x6 on top of the barge. 

 JD:      So that gave you an extra six inches.

 Neg:   Aw, it [the house itself] was high above the water.

 JD:      24 inches above the water. 

 Neg:   Aw yeah.  It didn’t sink too deep, two, three inches.

 JD:      That’s all it sunk?  [whistles] OK, so…so you got this…you got this houseboat, and, by that time ya’ll were living on the bank.

 Neg:   Yeah.  Living this side the levee.

 JD:      So, you and Nine were living in that little…that little…boat?  Or the second one?  The one with two rooms, when ya’ll crossed the levee.

 Neg:   Right

 JD:      And all your children were born in that one with the two rooms? 

 Neg:   Uhuh. Oh no.  Some of em was born in this one.

 JD:      In this one.   So, you lived in campboats all your life, pretty much, eh?

 Neg:   Aw, yeah.  Until we moved back [across] of the levee.  [?]

 JD:      Well, still…this is still a campboat, I mean…on the levee. 

 Neg:   Yeah.  yeah.  Really, that’s not a house, can’t say you build a house, just a campboat we moved.

 JD:      How did ya’ll pull those campboats over the levee when ya’ll came across? 

 Neg:   With a winch truck.

 JD:      You parked the winch truck on top the levee…or?

 Neg:   Yeah, park it on top the levee and you pulled until you got to the…almost the top, then you had to move over…the truck a lil bit over, keep pulling then…get to the top of the levee.

 JD:      What kind of a sling did ya’ll use to hook up to em…I mean how did ya’ll hook up to the…to the…campboat to pull it?

 Neg:   I don’t really remember…to pull it up the levee, I don’t really remember.  I guess, probly tied to the main barge, I would imagine, you know.  Be solid enough to…to pull the whole thing up.  When…when we pull it up…2x6 [not clear here about connecting 2x6s to the barge for something].  Probly tied onto the 2x6s, I would imagine, to pull it up.  When I moved it from where Bootsie was, to where I was, made me some…I had went way back in on Goat Island and cut me some cypress, and I flat em by hand, with a ax.  You can see, they still under there.  So, we…we pulled em out of Goat Island, way back in the woods.  Milton had that lil air-cooled [matboard motor], we hooked on…had a long rope.  Milton pulled em out of there with the air-cooled.  [laughs]. 

 JD:      It was still floating though, they were floatin. 

 Neg:   Oh yeah, they were floatin.  Talking about the…the timbers that I had made.

 JD:      You…you made the timbers back on Goat Island?

 Neg:   On Goat Island

 JD:      You trimmed em and everything, and squared em off?   Before you pulled em out?

 Neg:   Right. 

 JD:      And they were as long as the barge?   As the house?

 Neg:   They were as long as the house. 

 JD:      One on each side.

 Neg:   One on each side.  And I put em under there…underneath there and jacked em up against the…the 2x4s, and I nailed em.  I took that 2x6 and put em inside that 2x6 and I nailed em to there.  Make me a foundation. 

 JD:      And that’s still what this house is sitting on?

 Neg:   Still sittin on it.

 JD:      On the ground?  Or its got some…

 Neg:   No, got blocks under it…But it’s still the…the pieces that I made.

 JD:      How big were those trees to start with?

 Neg:   [chuckles] All of em were about that big.

 JD:      About three feet across at the bottom?

 Neg:   Pretty close, at the bottom.  [whistling].  And they had to be, 30 foot long…

 JD:      To…to…when they were trimmed, they had to be 30 feet, I guess?

 Neg:   Yeah.  And…so by the time you get to the top they had to be big at the bottom, you know, to make the top big enough.

 JD:      Sure, sure.  How long did you work on that? 

 Neg:   Probly a week or two. 

 JD:      Now, was that to get it across…to come across the levee? 

 Neg:   That was to move it from where it was to where I was…I had to come back up the levee and then back down the levee.  Back up the levee to the top, pulled it on top the levee till we got…where I used…where I was living.

 JD:      So, ya’ll had to come up, down, back down again?

 Neg:   Right.   But I had a big foundation [but] it didn’t move [well], I guess.  Those piece that I made.  [laughs].  Didn’t even swag. 

 JD:      Y'all broke up the barge when ya’ll came across the levee the first time? 

 Neg:   No, we had pulled the barge and all across the levee. 

 JD:      Everything.  But I guess after a while ya’ll broke up the barge and used the lumber for other stuff?

 Neg:   Aw yeah.  Um, I had took the barge out from underneath there, and I had build a lil camp on it to go campin, for a while. 

 JD:      You could? [amazed]

 Neg:   For a while.  And after momma died, some of em wanted to sell it, the campboat. 

 JD:      This one, or the little [other] one?

 Neg:   This one.  And that’s when I said the campboat belongs to me.  Which is the truth.  You know?   ”Yall can’t sell it”.  Say, “I want it”.  And I got it.  Now, it was Robert, Ophelia, Ida and Agnes that …that would be left that’’ [could claim property]…And they say, “Well, give Ida the barge”.  I ain’t had to do that either cause the barge was mine too.  But I did give Ida the barge.

 JD:      Jesse [Ida’s husband] was dead by that time?

 Neg:   Yeah.  No, Jesse was living.

 JD:      And they broke it up and used the lumber…for whatever…?

 Neg:   Yeah.  There’s a lot of the lumber on that house there [Ida’s current house, the converted houseboat].  Build the porch, and different things, you know?

 JD:      Was that ever a houseboat, what Ida’s living in right now?

 Neg:   Yeah.

 JD:      It was?  It was a campboat? 

 Neg:   It was.

 JD:      They just built onto it a lot since it’s been on the land

 Neg:   They renewed it.  They got a carpenter to renew the floor.  Lot of it been renewed.  Made like a house. 

 JD:      When ya’ll were living on the other side…in Myon’s Canal…what made ya’ll decide…”OK, I’m gone pull across the levee”?  Because, for you, all your life had been spent on the water.  I mean, when you’d step outside your house and walk “that way” you were going to fall in the canal. 

 Neg:   Aw, that’s for sure. [laughs]

 JD:      All your life.  And then, ya’ll were living in Myon’s Canal…I got it on paper, there were about 15 campboats living in Myon’s Canal about that time…punch of em!  Bunch of em!

 Neg:   Yeah, they had a bunch.

 JD:      And suddenly…I shouldn’t say suddenly…that’s not true.  But after a while, ya’ll all decided…most of ya’ll decided…ya’ll were gone pull over the levee and go live on landyou, for the first time in your life.  What made you decide, to…to…to get out of the water, and go across and live on land

 Neg:   I don’t know.  I guess because everybody else was moving, you know, on this side, so, probly figured I was gone go on this side too.  [laughs].  Live on the bank. 

 JD:      But, I mean, that was a big change! 

 Neg:   Talk about a big change!  They had, uh, like Edward’s daddy…Edward’s daddy, I think, was the first one to move.

 JD:      Albert?

 Neg:   Yeah.  On this side.   And after that, every now and then, one of em would move…pull across the levee.  Till we was all across the levee.  [laughs]

 JD:      So, it didn’t happen all at once, huh?  I mean…

 Neg:   No, not all at once.  One stayed…maybe months…or maybe a year apart.  Every now and then, somebody would pull across. 

 JD:      You, uh, when you got over there, when you crossed the levee, and you were on land for the first time, I mean, your boat wasn’t tied to your house anymoreYou had to leave it across the levee in the canal.

 Neg:   Oh yeah.

 JD:      And, you couldn’t just…you couldn’t just do the things that you had done before.  You couldn’t decide for instance that you wanted to live somewhere else for six months and just hook up and leave.

 Neg:   No, couldn’t leave, had to stay there. [laughs]

 JD:      How did you feel about that?

 Neg:   It was pretty nice.  Like when the wind blow and stuff, you wouldn’t have to worry about your ties [to the bank], stuff like that, cause lot of times that wind blows hard…had to put some more ropes on your campboat….  So, it was kind of nice, you ain’t had to worry about that [the wind and tide] no more. 

 JD:      So, that was something that was better…

 Neg:   Yeah, in a way it was better.

 JD:      You could…uh…you didn’t have to worry about it sinking either

 Neg:   No.  But…the [barges] we had didn’t leak a drop.  Dry like this here [the floor].  The one that I pulled…the other…that didn’t leak a drop…

 JD:      That was your second one…the one with two rooms?

 Neg:   Yeah.  Now, our old campboat that we had didn’t leak, at all.  It was dry like that [the floor again]. 

 JD:      The old one?  Now which one you talking about, the old one?

 Neg:   The old one, my daddy’s.  The one I was raised in?  That was an old campboat, puuuu [amazed]. 

 JD:      What happened to that one?

 Neg:   We traded it for another smaller one, after he died.  We had traded it to my uncle…he sold it to Arthur Sanders’ daddy.  And then Arthur Sanders’ daddy sold it to Mister Dan Lange…I think that’s the way it went…something like that.  And the last time I seen it, it was after Arthur and them moved and uh, moved it there to Oaklawn Canal.  They had brought it to Oaklawn Canal, that’s the last time I seen it. 

 JD:      That was a long time ago?

 Neg:   Aw yeah.  I think that…I think Mike tored that campboat up. 

 JD:      Mike?

 Neg:   Sanders.  They had moved to Morgan City, and I believe he tored it up. 

 JD:      It was a big boat?  Your daddy’s campboat?  Like this one?

 Neg:   Oh yeah.  It was a lil longer than this one.  I think it was 12 foot wide and 30 foot long. 

JD:      That’s the one you grew up on?

 Neg:   Yeah. 

 JD:      And it was dry like that…the hull was dry like that?

 Neg:   Awww yeah.  Didn’t leak a drop.  It might have been 40 years old.  And it might a been older than that…[?]   

 JD:      When ya’ll got over the canal, when ya’ll got over the levee I mean, ya’ll had things like…like you say…like it was on land so you didn’t have to worry about the wind, you didn’t have to worry about that campboat sinking for some reason, uh, there must have been some other things that ya’ll noticed that ya’ll liked about being on land.  Did ya’ll get electricity? 

 Neg:   Yeah.  It was a good while after we was there, though.   A good while after we was on the bank before they passed electric.  That’s why CLECO gripe and gripe and want to buy Teche [Teche Electric, this is a current issue with customers of Teche, and a vote is being requested].  But Teche was the only one that go anywhere and give you electricity.  So that why I’m still sticking with Teche, unless they…they was supposed to sell it, to CLECO.  But it’s CLECO that wanted that…but I don’t think they got it, yet.  I don’t believe. 

 JD:      So, Teche [Electrical Coopertive?] did a good thing for ya’ll.

 Neg:   Oh yeah.  That’s why I…all of us…mostly stuck with Teche. 

 JD:      When ya’ll were living…when ya’ll were living in the Canal, this canal, Myon’s Canal, is that what ya’ll called it?  Myon’s Canal?  What did ya’ll call it when ya’ll were there? 

 Neg:   I don’t know how it become [laughs] to be Myon’s Canal.  I guess because Myon lived there.  It was just a drainage canal that they used to have there, before they build the big levee.  For field drainage.  It was open, if you remember, all the way to the lake.  But, they had that…from the first canal, where we used to live in the back by the levee?  That lil levee, by the shad point, used to run all the way across there.  Aw yeah.  That was all closed in.  And Jesse [Daigle] decided that he was gone dig it open.  And he did too.  He cut it with a shovel, cut that lil levee.   And the water did the rest.  Sho did. 

 JD:      Um, but it was…the canal was known as Myon’s Canal to all of ya’ll who lived there?  Is that what it was called? 

 Neg:   Yeah, we lived there for a long time, I guess that’s why they decided…people decided to call it Myon’s Canal.

 JD:      Now, while ya’ll were living in the Canal, ya’ll were fishing of course? 

 Neg:   Oh yeah.

 JD:      Yall were fishing for a living.  Yall all had Lockwoods by that time, I guess, and

 Neg:   Yeah.

 JD:      And you sold your…that’s what interests me now at this point, is… ya’ll were living in the canal…at the mouth of the canal…

 Neg:   Yeah, at the mouth of the canal.

 JD:      Mouth.  All of ya’ll were up there at the front.

 Neg:   Yeah.  When we first moved…moved there…our campboat used to stick out [into] the edge of the lake. 

 JD:      Yours did?   Blaise’s…no Rosalie…

 Neg:   Uhuh.  [then] Yeah, my momma.

 JD:      Uh, that’s because there wasn’t enough room to put it in the back, or what?

 Neg:   Yeah.  well, they had plenty room in the canal but the canal had build up [filled with sediment] and they ain’t had no more water in it.  Just at the mouth, there.

 JD:      Oh.  So, in the back it was…it was built…it was shallow in the back? 

 Neg:   Yeah.  They ain’t had no…hardly no…well, they ain’t had no water at all, it was dry when the water was low. 

 JD:      How did it get deep like it is…like it is now?

 Neg:   Oaklawn [the property owner] decided to dig it.  And they dug it.  A dragline and dug it.  

 JD:      Yall were there when they dug it?

 Neg:   Oh yeah. 

 JD:      Y'all had to move your campboats out while they dug it out?

 Neg:   No, they dug from the campboats [toward] where it was dry.

 JD:      Well, ya’ll were selling your fish while ya’ll were living in the canal, in Myon’s Canal.  But how?  How were ya’ll sellin your fish?

 Neg:   Oscar Lange used to come get em.

 JD:      How?

 Neg:   By truck.   Yeah, he’d come by truck.  When we first moved there, the fishboat was still assin.  Jesse Higgins, he would buy fish. 

 JD:      In a fishboat? 

 Neg:   Yeah.  Sold a lot of fish to Jesse. 

 JD:      And then Oscar Lange started to…started to run a truck out there to get the fish?   How often would he come?

 Neg:   Oh, every two, three days.

 JD:      So ya’ll still had to put your fish in fish cars?

 Neg:   Yeah.  He’d come out there and pick em up.

 JD:      How did he do that?  How did…how did he get…I mean I know the road wasn’t that good…

 Neg:   Well, then the roads was pretty good cause they had shelled it. 

 JD:      They had shelled on top the levee or on the bottom?

 Neg:   On the top.

 JD:      He would come there with his truck.  And if ya’ll were all living out there, at the end, how would he get the fish from the…from his truck…

 Neg:   It was when…we had moved in the back of the canal by then.  Living by the levee.

 JD:      It still must have been hard to get those fish from down at the bottom up [to] the top of that levee in the truck?

 Neg:   We’d carry em up there, you didn’t get em up there in the truck. [laughs].  Carried em up there.

 JD:      In…in what?  In boxes, or in…

 Neg:   In boxes.

 JD:      [whistles]  And I guess you had to take whatever he wanted to pay you for em huh?

 Neg:   Yeah.  Whatever they’d pay, that’s what you’d sell em for

 JD:      Did ya’ll feel like they were being fair most of the time?

 Neg:   I think so.  It was fair.  I think so.

 JD:      The fishboats andandand Oscar Lange.  They…they all treated ya’ll pretty fair

 Neg:   Oh yeah, I think so.  Lot of times we’d gripe, but that’s how it’s always been, the fish go down you’d gripe.  [laughs]  But I think they were pretty fair.  They’d pay you what they could.   When they’d sell, they’d have to get…you know…what THEY give em for em, just like us. 

 JD:      Where was Oscar Lange’s fish dock?  Where did he …?

 Neg:   At Calumet. 

 JD:      Is there anything now there? 

 Neg:   Now?  No, uhuh.

 JD:      There’s no building or anything where he had his fishdock? 

 Neg:   No, it’s all [gone].  Not too far from the bridge, there. 

 JD:      I understand after ya’ll got across the levee, Myon took over carrying ya’ll’s fish.  Is that right? 

 Neg:   Yeah.  Edward had started buying, but [some of em…?] didn’t like that so he quit and give it to Myon. [?]

 JD:      Did Myon quit fishing about that time? 

 Neg:   Oh, Myon was still fishing, you know, a lil bit.  Not as much, but he would still fish. 

 JD:      When I first met ya’ll on the levee, had ya’ll been selling fish to Myon there underneath that shed for a long time?

 Neg:   Good long time.  A good while. 

 JD:      If ya’ll crossed the levee…I think ya’ll crossed the levee somewhere around between…like you say, some would go and then some more, starting around 1944 or so…and ya’llya’ll, must have been all of ya’ll crossed by 1947 or something like that. 

 Neg:   Uh, no, later than that.   We build that houseboat here in 1944.  We build this at uh…at the canal.  Myon had moved back to the canal, but we was still living on this side.

 JD:      The canal being Blaise’s Canal on the other side?

 Neg:   Right.  And me and Myon build it, so I wasn’t too old then either [laughs]. 

 JD:      Yall built this?

 Neg:   Yeah, me and Myon build this.  We build that across there.

 JD:      Across that…at Blaise’s Canal?

 Neg:   At Blaise’s Canal.

 JD:      Well, how did ya’ll get all that lumber over there to do all that stuff with? 

 Neg:   By boat. 

 JD:      You would run the Lockwood over to the sawmill and pick up your lumber andand come back with it loaded on the…on the Lockwood? 

 Neg:   Yeah.

 JD:      What’d ya’ll call that?  A bateau?

 Neg:   A lil bateau, abut 20 foot long, 24 foot long.

 JD:      And ya’ll would carry everything around like that [in bateaux].

 Neg:   Yeah.  A lot of the lumber, too, get from the fishboats too.  You’d tell em what you want, Pinkerman Mendoza used to buy fish, and he’d pull logs too, to the sawmill. 

 JD:      He would pull logs to the sawmill?  For ya’ll?

 Neg:   For the one that wanted to.

 JD:      Anybody?

 Neg:   Cut em at May Brothers.  Garden City. 

 JD:      Yall would have those logs cut for, like, half? 

 Neg:   The ones that I had cut, yeah.  The ones we had cut, we had to cut em up here, or, in CharentonMr. Henry Acair, used to have a lil sawmill in Charenton.  And that’s where we had em sawed. 

 JD:      Would he saw for on half, is that how you would do it? 

 Neg:   Yeah.

 JD:      For half, so you’d get half the lumber and you’d get half the lumber. 

 Neg:   He had a nice place, sawmill.

 JD:      It’s all gone?

 Neg:   Oh yeah.  No, his house still there, and all, but he’s dead, him.  His house still there but they sold it.

 JD:      You see, that’s a whole big thing about all these campboats, and nobody knows very much about that.  I mean you always hear that people lived on campboats, but you don’t hear very much about…how they got…where they got built…how they got built…who built em?   All of that.

 Neg:   Yep.  No they ain’t got too…the new people don’t know too much about it.   Old people, everybody lives in house, now.  Nobody hardly lived around the bayous.  Them days, they had a lot of people living down the bayous.

 JD:      A lot of people, huh?  That brings up another question, you know, you say a lot of people were living around the bayous…you talking about on campboats…in various places?

 Neg:   Yeah, all along the lake.  From Bayou Boutte all the way back to Keelboat [Pass]. 

 JD:      Well, let me ask you that then.  I’m interested in how many places…you see, on Blaise’s Canal ya’ll had a bunch of campboats, on Myon’s Canal ya’ll had a bunch of campboats, on Keelboat there was a bunch of campboats.  Bayou Boutte there was a bunch of campboats. I’m wondering, if you was to start, just for the sake of trying to remember, if you were to start…let me say at Bayou Boutte, because that’s about as far south as I know of, toward Morgan City, they were.

 Neg:   Yeah.

 JD:      If you start at Bayou Boutte, come up the lake on the other side.  How many – not just one…two…one or two, I’m talking about how many bunches of campboats can you place in your mind all the way up to…I don’t know how far up you can go…

 Neg:   They used to go all the way to Keelboat [Pass] for sure. 

 JD:      Well, start at Bayou Boutte, how many can you…how many places can you remember where there used to be bunches of…like 10 or 12 at least? 

 Neg:   Well, along Bayou Boutte, and our canal [Blaise’s]. Now, at different times, now, you know, they had people who would move.  By times they had seven, eight, ten campboats be in that canal, where Myon was.

 JD:      In Blaise’s Canal?

 Neg:   Right.  And the same thing in Lil Pigeon and all the way up to Keelboat it was like that. 

 JD:      Ok, so you got Bayou Boutte, and the next one…you go all the way to Blaise’s Canal before you get a bunch? 

 Neg:   Yeah.

 JD:      So, there was not much between Bayou Boutte and Blaise’s Canal?

 Neg:   Not much. 

 JD:      And then you got a bunch in Blaise’s Canal, and the next one up…

 Neg:   Big Pigeon.

 JD:      Big Pigeon first.

 Neg:   Lil Pigeon, Bayou Smith, the Burns…the Burns used to stay in Bayou Smith.  And my uncle, they used to live in Lil Pigeon.  By times, we used to live in Lil Pigeon, and then we’d come back…back and forth.  Yeah.  My uncle Phillip, he used to live in Lil Pigeon, my Uncle Alvin...Alvin Mayon…

 JD:      He was married to one of your aunts?

 Neg:   Yeah, Aunt Nini.  Used to call her Nini.  That was my daddy’s sister.

 JD:      Your daddy’s sister, but I don’t have that as a name.  I have Philomena, Lucia, Anna, Florence and Matile. 

 Neg:   Anyway, I don’t know…[it might have been a nickname].  We used to call her Aunt Francis… Tante Nini!

 JD:      All right, so, you got to uh, Big Pigeon, Lil Pigeon, Bayou Smith, Catfish Bayou?  They had a bunch there? 

 Neg:   Yeah, all them lil bayous almost, you know…by times they had somebody living…

 JD:      But I’m talking about where there was…if there was bunches…

 Neg:   At Bayou Smith they had…the Burnses lived in Bayou Smith…and from Bayou Smith, it was, the next place I think was Keelboat. 

 JD:      Edward and them lived there.  And Hog IslandYou know?

 Neg:   I guess somebody problem lived there too…I’m not too familiar with it. 

 JD:      Now, if you come down the other side, Neg, cross…cross and go to the lake …cross and go to this side of the lake…like that…and come down this side [referring to a map]…was there any campboats in bunches down this side?  Lil Pass, you talking about…?

 Neg:   They had some in Lil Pass, but not…not a bunch, I remember one, Reese’s that used to stay there….  Neg Reese, Norman and all them.  His old man used to have a camp over there. 

 JD:      But comin down this side [West side] of the lake, not too many? 

 Neg:   Not too many.

 JD:      Not like the other side? 

 Neg:   Not like the other side.

 JD:      Why do you think?

 Neg:   At Bayou Grue, Pete and them…

 JD:      Gondolfo? [prounounced Gandalf]

 Neg:   …Gondolfo, used to stay there

 JD:      They had a bunch of houseboats or just one? 

 Neg:   Uh, they just had a couple.   Him and his brother…

 JD:      John?

 Neg:   Yeah, now, by times they might’a had other people there too, I don’t know. 

 JD:      Now how about Myon’s Canal, right here, was there always a big bunch of houseboat s in there?  Or….

 Neg:   No, when we first moved there, for a while we were by ourself.  Lester used to live at the end [on the lake end].

 JD:      Couvillier?

 Neg:   Yeah.  And then we had moved back across there, and to his momma’s, lived in a house like I told you [?].  By times, they had a bunch of campboats, by times not too many.  They didn’t have no room for em to pull in there.

 JD:      They didn’t have room?

 Neg:   Until we moved back by the levee. 

 JD:      Yeah, everybody wanted to be up by the lake, I guess, huh?

 Neg:   Well, they ain’t had no water in the bayou [laughs]. 

 JD:      And then you didn’t have to go…well, I guess there’d be two things…if you were back in the canal you were better as far as wind was concerned…

 Neg:   Oh yeah.

 JD:      But if you were up near the front you were closer to the lake to get out…to go out and fish, and all that.

 Neg:   Yeah.  And it was much cooler in the summer.  You get that lil breeze from the lake.   They used to have a good bunch of campboats in Myon’s canal.

 JD:      Well, I counted…like I say…I have on paper…I counted 15.

 Neg:   Musta had.  Jean [Geme?] Smith used to be in there.  I don’t remember how many but a good bunch. 

 JD:      I was going to see if I could [find the list on paper].  In the canal, see if you remember any…any of em that I don’t read off here…see if you remember if there’s anybody…there was Edward Couvillier and Lena Mae, Myon, Rosalie Myon and you, and your…and Preston, John Gondolfo, Pete Gondolfo, and Sam Gondolfo, three boats…Abner Couvillier…

 Neg:   Yeah, but they didn’t live in the canal though…

 JD:      They didn’t live in the canal?

 Neg:   They lived in Bayou Grue. Then they moved across the levee over there by the ramp [Myette Pt. Landing]. 

 JD:      OK.  [continuing] Abner Couvillier, and Albert Couvillier, Roy Millet – Bootsie, Joe Sauce, Jesse Daigle, Dan Lange Joe Sanders…huh?

 Neg:   He lived there. 

 JD:      Lester Couvillier, Arthur Sanders, Nick Verrett, and Plot Sauce.  I don’t know who that is. 

 Neg:   Yeah, I know who it is, but he never lived in there.

 JD:      He never lived in a campboat on the…on the bayou?

 Neg:   He was my uncle…one of my uncles?

 JD:      He was one of your uncles?  Let me see if I can figure out…

 Neg:   He didn’t live in the…he never did live at Myette Pt, him.

 JD:      Well, I wonder where [I got that information]?

 Neg:   My Uncle Phillip camped there, didn’t live in a campboat…just camped right up there a couple times.  He’d camp there a few days.

 JD:      Your Phillip Aucoin?

 Neg:   Yeah. 

 JD:      Uh, Plot Sauce, if he was your uncle, he was married to one of your aunts? 

 Neg:   No, he was my daddy’s brother.

 JD:      He was your daddy’s brother?  Did he have another name? 

 Neg:   Seulfried

 JD:      Seulfried?  Was that his name?  All right!  Seulfried was his real name?

Neg:   Yeah. 

 JD:      OK, that’s good.  Seulfried was his real name. 

 Neg:   Seulfried, right.  He was my parrain. 

 JD:      Your parrain?  Your godfather?

 Neg:   Umhm. 

 JD:      Can you think of anybody else that was living…at…in that bunch of houseboats all in the canal before ya’ll started moving over?  Anybody I didn’t name? 

 Neg:   Name em again? 

 JD:      OK, uh, Edward and Myon, and you, and  the three Gondolfos but they all lived at Bayou Grue, OK

 Neg:   And they been living in the canal until they moved by the ramp…they house was there.  But they didn’t live in the canal [Myon’s canal].

 JD:      Then there was Abner and Albert Couvillier, and Lester, all three of them, and then there was Joe Sauce, he married Vena, Vena Couvillier,

 Neg:   My uncle too.

 JD:      And then Jesse and Dan LangeJesse Daigle and Dan Lange, and Joe Sanders and Arthur Sanders, and then I have Nick Verrett down here…[?] And who is he kin to?  Anybody?

 Neg:   And they had Jean [Gene?] Smith used to live there too.

 JD:      He didn’t move across the levee with ya’ll, at all, though, did he? 

 Neg:   No, not Gene, he had moved to uh, he had moved to Charenton and put his campboat on the bank.

 JD:      Oh,  just as a question to see if you remember…if you know the name…uh, apparently Russell and EJ [Daigle] had a brother that drowned in the Basin, do you remember what his name was?

 Neg:   Uhh, Jesse, I believe.  He was named after his daddy, I think. 

 JD:      He drowned, huh? 

 Neg:   Yeah, he drowned, in back of the levee. 

 JD:      He couldn’t swim?

 Neg:   No.  He had went…he had a lil line back of the levee, and they had a big south wind blowing.  And he went back there in a pirogue, mess around back there in a pirogue.  The pirogue had probly hit a tree or something, knocked him overboard.  That’s the way I figure. 

 JD:      Did they find him right away?

 Neg:   A little while after, yeah, not long. 

 JD:      He wasn’t floating or anything?  He was on the bottom?

 Neg:   Oh no, few minutes after he drownded, they found him.

 JD:      Is that all?!   Was he about ten years old?

 Neg:   Yeah, I think that was…about ten years old. 

 JD:      Did that happen…did that happen a lot, to ya’ll?  Did ya’ll have accidents a lot?

 Neg:   Not really.  Not really.  Now and then you hear one of em fall overboard and drown, but not…not too many.

 JD:      And I understand a lot of ya’ll couldn’t swim either. 

 Neg:   Lot of people.  I could swim, but not too much [laughs]. 

 JD:      You could?  You could stay on top, I guess. 

 Neg:   Yeah.  Now [at this time] I couldn’t swim.  Fall overboard now I’m a goner. [laughs].  I could swim a lil, like across the canal. 

 JD:      Dog paddle, like that…on the side?

 Neg:   Yeah.  Was never a good swimmer.  I could swim a lil bit. 

 JD:      Did your kids all learn how to swim?

 Neg:   Uhuh. 

 JD:      No?? [laughs]

 Neg:   Marie, there, she can’t swim.  Goes in them boat and all, lot of time I tell her got to put that life jacket by you.

 JD:      She doesn’t wear a life jacket?

 Neg:   No.  

 JD:      That’s not good.

 Neg:   No, it’s not good.  That’s why I tell…keep that life jacket by you, [in] case you fall.  And I know how dangerous it is, sometime your boat just hit something, you know, not…I used to watch all those things, me, I keep myself braces [ braced?] good in my boat. 

  Continued on Chapter 35

No comments:

Post a Comment