Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 45

DATE:                        January, 1996 

INTERVIEWER:      Jim Delahoussaye

LOCATIONS:           Most of Chapter 44 is an interview with Medric Martin, inside his general store on Irish Bend Road (LA 322) near location of Oaklawn Sugar Mill (no longer extant).  The end of Chapter 44 and what small amount is usable of Chapter 45 is at Edward Couvillier’s house at 148 Oxford Loop, Oxford, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, on the same day

 COOPERATORS:  Medric Martin; Edward Couvillier; Agnes Bailey

  Continued from Chapter 44

JD:      …old times, and how they got to be the way they are.  Uh, can I have your birthday?  Do you mind if I get your birthday?

 Medric:          January 1, 1914.

 JD:      Let me get your whole name, too. 

 Medric:          Medric, M e d r i c, M a r t i n.

 JD:      1914.

 Medric:          January the first. 

 JD:      January the first, a New Year’s baby, huh?   Um, when did you come here?  To the…

 Medric:          To the store?  I opened the store in 1935.  Also got married in 1935. 

 JD:      You figured out you could get married cause you got a store and you could support a wife?

 Medric:          Well, I figure I didn’t have any time to go see my girlfriend, we couldn’t see each other.  So, we got married.

 JD:      Where was she?

 Medric:          I was working in Jeanerette.  Her name was Mildred Landry.  I…I…I…work in the store from 4:00 o’clock in the morning till never know what time to get out.  For a long time.  That’s seven days a week. 

 JD:      What kind of store was that?

 Medric:          That was a general merchandise store.  We had everything in it.  Had shoes, purse, cloth, clothes…liquor, all groceries….  Since 1935.

 JD:      And you came directly here, to this location? 

 Medric:          I was born here, I was born right here on the same property.  I was born on this property, where I’m at now.   My mother’s…the house was still livin where I was born.  And I built me a lil house when I got married a lil further on this side of her. 

 JD:      No kidding!  Well, was this plantation land at that time? 

 Medric:          No, this was a private land.  Bourgeois [sp?] family.  When they died, it got to be the Bourgeois estate.  My mother was a Bourgeois.

 JD:      Well, I see the name Martin in different places, like Martin Ridge Road, the road that goes to the…[Myette Pt. landing]…

 Medric:          I…I wouldn’t know how that came about.

 JD:      Oh, it’s not the same family?

 Medric:          No, it’s not the same family.  No. 

 JD:      Well, when you came here and opened this store, was the store here when you came?  Or did you…

 Medric:          Yes sir, they had a store building on this property in the 1880 something, when my grandmother bought this property.  That’s right.  But when I came you could see where it had been enlarged several times and then, in 1936, I made it bigger also. On the opposite side, just one part of it.

 JD:      You built that, uh…you built that addition on that side? 

 Medric:          I didn’t build it…I just extended it out. That’s right, just made it a lil bit larger.  We had a lot of people in those days.  Most everything was done by hand labor…there was no mechanical stuff at all.  No tractors, even.  Mules.

 JD:      Is part of this building as old as you’re talking about?  The 1880s? 

 Medric:          Must be, [?] my uncles had it right before I came in.  One died before and the last one died in ’32, when I finished high school.  Then I worked around…I went to New Orleans, I worked at Saenger Theatre for about a month.  Then my daddy got sick and I came back to stay with my daddy and my mother.  And…I helped them in the field and things, and then I opened the store in 1935. 

 JD:      Now, he was a farmer?   Your daddy was a farmer? 

 Medric:          Yes’r.  Mr. Bourgeois died in uh, in ’32, when I graduated from high school, #, and he died in ’32.  But then his brother-in-law ran the store for about a year or so, then he went broke.  The store was closed, and I reopened it in 1935.

 JD:      This store…right here…was?

 Medric:  He went out of business…went broke I think, that’s why that happened to him, he ran out of money.  He was too…he was too good hearted.  He gave it all away.

 JD:      Really?  And that was Depression times, wasn’t it?

 Medric:          That was Depression times, right. 

 JD:      And people…people didn’t have any money.

 Medric:          Didn’t have too much money.  A nickel was a nickel.

 JD:      You uh…when you opened the store, was most of your customers…was it mostly related to the plantation [Oaklawn], to…?

 Medric:          This was plantation people, that’s all it was.  We had five stores in this Irish Bend [of Bayou Teche].  I made the fifth one when I opened this one.

 JD:      You’re kidding me!

 Medric:          [they] had a store half a mile on one side, and a mile on the other side. Plantation stores.

 JD:      But this wasn’t a…this wasn’t a company store?

 Medric:          No. Never was.   Always been a independent store.

 JD:      Umhm.  But they had company stores on the sides.

 Medric:          One about a half mile on one side, about a mile on the other side.  Belleview Plantation store and Oaklawn Plantation store.   Well, then Belleview got to be a private store too, Mr. Paul Comeaux came in as a private, but the plantation would back him up.  He could give em credit, and plantation would collect his money for him.  But I never had that opportunity. [laughs] 

 JD:      Well, were you on pretty good terms with the plantation people? 

 Medric:          Oh yes. I stayed pretty good…good faith with em all.  I liked that.  I guess that’s why I did some business…other people, plantation [stores] advance em the credit, [but the laborers] would come spend their lil cash with me. [laughs].

 JD:      So, you were here…go ahead, you started to say something.  You…well, anything that you think of that you can say, is important to me.  Anything. 

 Medric:          Well, the people you were asking me about [the Myette Pt. community], that’s…that’s when I used to go out huntin.  And I met some of those people, they used to live across the lake, and that’s when they started movin on this side.  They came on this side.  That’s where I met these people, Mr. Bailey, Mr. Daigle, Mr. Couvillier.  And all those people came in.  And I did huntin back there, and then I started sending em groceries.  I’d go out there, and they didn’t have no cars.  Them days, they just had boats, campboats to live in. I’d go out there and get their groceries…see what they needed in groceries, and get it and bring it back to em.  And I also substitute on a mail carrier route at that time.   I used to deliver mail.  I acted as a post office for em, oh, for about a couple, three years, or so…maybe more.  Then we finally got the post office to consent to open a route on that levee there.  I’m the one that opened that route, and fixed them boxes…started them getting their mail at their houses, you see, along the levee where they were livin. 

 JD:      So, you went to the Post Office to ask for that?

 Medric:          No, I asked for that while I was workin there as a substitute carrier. 

 JD:      Oh, you were officially part of the Post Office as a substitute carrier?

 Medric:          As a substitute carrier, that’s right. Porter Allen…Porter Allen had the route, he was the regular…I substitute for him when he was sick, couldn’t come, I substituted the route.

 JD:      You got a lil pay for that?  Whenever you did that?

 Medric:          Oh yeah.  Yes sir, that route started in Franklin and wound up back in Franklin.  Went all around there, crossed the bayou at Oaklawn and go far as Charenton, come back and pass all back of the [Chatwood?] section on Franklin.

 JD:      What years was that?  When that was happening?

 Medric:          Oh, that was…that was in the late ‘30s, ‘40s, early ‘40s, somewheres in that time. 

 JD:      Well, how did you first meet those folks out there on the levee?  Do you remember?

 Medric:          Well, that’s when they started comin in…and meetin em, that’s where I met em all. 

 JD:      They came here, to your store?

 Medric:          They came there, and I met em.  I used to go huntin…I started meeting em.  They needed groceries and things, so, they came in.  They had no way…they had to walk in and walk out, so I….  And, that’s how I start meetin em.  Those were mighty good people, those days they fished and things and plenty times they didn’t have any money, and I advanced em.  Oh yeah.  I advanced em.  People what needed something, I let em have it.  And…and, all of em paid me.  Except, they got one…especially a youngest one owed me much, the other ones don’t.  One of the youngest ones, he never did want to pay his bills.  Yeah, not the oldest.  The old ones are payin folks.  Still are.  The young one would start growing up, when he got to be about 15, 17, 18 years old…started fishing and needed a lil something, I gave them some too, but, I got all my money except one.  And I’m not gone tell you who that is.  [laughs].  Those were good people, really good people. 

 JD:      So, what kind of hunting did you do with them?

 Medric:          Oh, I’d go duck huntin sometime.  With Mr. Lester Couvillier at times.

 JD:      Oh, that’s Edward’s father, or Edward’s half brother?

 Medric:          Edward’s half brother.  Edward Couvillier’s half brother. 

 JD:      So, you’d go duck hunting with him? 

 Medric:          Mr. Lester?  Yeah.  Albert Couvillier’s daddy and Jesse Couvillier’s daddy. 

 JD:      Putt and Jesse…Putt and Jesse?

 Medric:          Umhm.  Yeah, Putt and Jesse.  Putt and Sapp.

 JD:      Sapp, that’s right! 

 Medric:          That was their names.  Those days they didn’t have outboard motors.  The outboard motors came in after [that] … they had the lil Lockwood Ash motors.  The poppoppoppop?

 JD:      Umhm.  And y’all would go out to the duck huntin in those things?

 Medric:          Yeah.  The lake was a lake in them days.  Couldn’t see across it.  And they came in with the channel, and the sandbars, and you did rabbit hunting and everything there, then.

 JD:      On the sandbars, and everything?

 Medric:          One of em would take me across there, go kill rabbit anytime you wanted.

 JD:      Ever do any deer hunting with em? 

 Medric:          Very little.  I went one time with Mr. Bailey.  Went across the lake to Blue Point.  And he had a cabin boat.  Mr. Albert Bailey, I went with him one time.  We didn’t kill anything. 

 JD:      They tell me you used to have all the fishing supplies over here at your store for em, too, eh? 

 Medric:          I used to have…I used to keep the twine, whatever fishing lines, and the hooks, and everything else.  I kept that.  When they came in, I sold them a good bit of that.  And when they didn’t have any money to put…I’d furnish em something so they could catch some fish.  But when they sold the fish they paid me right away.

 JD:      That was, in the times when they were still using nylon…I mean cotton. 

 Medric:          That’s right.  Nylon hadn’t come out yet.  And the nylon twine came later on and they went…it’s better line. 

 JD:      I’ll bet they used to buy a lot of cotton line, huh? 

 Medric:          Yeah, they bought a pretty good bit of cotton line.  They bought a pretty good bit of nylon too.  They knitted their own nets.  They built their own nets and everything.  They built their own boats and everything else.  Very self sufficient. 

 JD:      Did you ever, did you ever carry uh, tar, for dipping net and dipping cotton line?

 Medric:          I never did handle that.  I never did handle tar.

 JD:      Do you know where they bought it?

 Medric:          They went to Franklin, I think.  Some of em, and some of em got some from other fishermen.  They had a boat used to buy fish, and he’d get the tar.  But when Franklin started getting the tar…

 JD:      Uh, you mention fishboats.  Uh, when they first pulled into the levee, did you meet em when they still had their campboats on the other side of the levee, in the canal?

 Medric:          No, I never did meet em then.  When they started comin on this side, that’s when I met em.   Quite a few of em came back on this side.  I never did know em when they were across the levee.  I didn’t have any way to go across there…

 JD:      And I guess everything that they bought and everything, in those days, was from the…from the fishboats.

 Medric:          Bought the groceries and supplies from the fishboats.  Till I got there, and most of em bought their stuff from me. 

 JD:      Did you ever get interested…since maybe the fishboats weren’t gonna buy their fish anymore…in buying fish and…?

 Medric:          No, I never did.  I didn’t have accommodations where I could handle the fish, and nothing else, you know what I mean?  I had my hands full doin what I was doin.  I couldn’t afford to do anything else, because…four o’clock in the morning, I get home 9, 10, 11, 12, 1:00 o’clock in the morning.  I had a very good wife.  That’s right, she put up with that.  That was seven days a week. 

 JD:      What was your day like?  Can you tell me what…what…you got up at four o’clock in the morning.  What was it like, all your day?

 Medric:          Well, just start workin.  Wait on the customers as they come in.  Then, and then my daddy had a farm out there.  He’d stay in the store for me and I’d go work…work in the fields.  ‘Cause he wasn’t able, he was sick.  He had stones in the kidneys.  He couldn’t very well go…he’d mind the store, then my wife would come help him when he needed because he couldn’t read or write.  But he had a terrific memory.

 JD:      He had a store…he helped you with the store and everything and he couldn’t read or write though, huh? 

 Medric:          Couldn’t read or write, but he had a terrific memory.  He could remember if he gave something to somebody, whatever, if my wife wasn’t here to put it down.  My wife never did stay in the store [alone].  Them days, the…the…it wasn’t right for her to stay in the store.  You know what I mean?  These people here don’t know how to [show] respect for nobody.  And I wouldn’t let her then…I didn’t have the right kind of character to take that kind of stuff.  [gestures to hit something].

 JD:      Well, well, well.  Were those pretty good days, if you remember back in the days when…?

 Medric:          Those were very good days!  Those were very good days.  The people  were all honest those days, and they wouldn’t try to hurt nobody.  You take these people on the levee, when they first come here, they put a big box [at the levee]…Fishboat would bring em ice, they’d put it there.  Like when they had milk and stuff?  All of em keep their milk in the same box, no lock or nothing on it.  Keep the fish, but nobody would touch anything that belong to the other ones…unless he ask him.  But, nowadays you couldn’t do that. 

 JD:      Who…who brought the ice, you said?

 Medric:          The fishboat.  The fishboat would bring em ice out there, until they got so situated over here and they got [?] started getting ice from the fishdock, a fishdock down around Charenton after that, you see?

 JD:        When…when was that…do you remember when that road went in between Bayou Teche and the levee at Myette Pt.? 

 Medric:          They always had field roads there.   Plantation always maintained a field road there.  They had a small levee back there.  A small levee…when they build that big levee back there, and later on when they had enough people back there…so the state took it over and kept it up, a gravel road.  They always had a field road there [?].  And they had a small levee and a small canal, in there.  They built the levee big on that thing and put bridges over where you could go.

 JD:      Most people went over the levee…when they brought their boats over the levee…their houses over the levee…was the levee as big as it is now? 

 Medric:          Almost the same size.  They raised it some sections, but that section where they moved their houses, they didn’t raise it too much.  It was almost the same size. 

 JD:      Do you remember when they built the levee?

 Medric:          [indicates yes, but not clear]

 JD:      So, you were born in 1914, and the big flood was in 1927.

 Medric:          I remember that very well. 

 JD:      Yeah.  So, you would have been about what, 14…24…you would have been about 15 years old when the big flood came about.  What effect did the big flood of ’27 have on you?

 Medric:          Not…not too much, cause I was real young.  But the thing about the big flood was high water.  And I…I saw the lake and the bayou meet on that road where you talking about [Martin Ridge Road], where we used to pass. 

 JD:      The lake came out to meet the bayou?

 Medric:          I could leave my store right here and go down the bayou and take off and go all the way to the lake with a boat.  Yep, that was hard but it didn’t last like that too long. 

 JD:      But that’s interesting what you said.  You said it wasn’t a flood, it was just a high water. 

 Medric:          A high water. [laughs]

 JD:      A lot of people thought that was a flood in 1927. 

 Medric:          We used to call that high water back then, high water. 

 JD:      So, if the high water of 1927 caused em to start thinking about building the levee, I guess that would have been a few years after 1927 when they built it.  

 Medric:          Yeah.  I think most of these people came in after the big flood over here.  I think it was after 1927.  We used to have…Mr. Millet used to live out there, at one time, by hisself.  Roy Millet’s daddy?  And he had four sons out there.

 JD:      Did he live on Goat Island?  Or did he live on this side.

 Medric:          No, no.  He lived on this side of Goat Island.  He had a nice [?].  He had a house, he had build him a house out there.  I did a lot of huntin with Roy Millet too.  [Bootsie Millet].  I moved…when the high water came they didn’t have no way out, I move them out from back there before the water flooded their houses.

 JD:      You did?  So, the water got high enough for you to flood…?

 Medric:          That’s right.  Water came against the levee…water was real high.  I don’t think that was ’27 though, I dunno when it was.  It was after…it was in the ‘30s, I think.   Can’t remember, it was in the ‘30s.  Miss Edna, Roy Millet’s mother…

 JD:      Umhm.  Were they fishermen?

 Medric:          Yeah.  They were fishermen.  Used to sell them groceries too.  Did a lot of huntin with Roy.

 JD:      There was no limit on ducks in those days, I guess. [laughs]

 Medric:          We used to kill our share!  But me and Roy did have to go to federal court.  We went and build a duck blind one day, and we come out and scared some ducks over [us], and they said we had shot after the hours.  Me and him in federal court in New Orleans. 

 JD:      They did?  New Orleans?

 Medric:          Yes sir.  Somebody set us up on that.  They thought we was killin their duck.   Steve Calvin came outa New Orleans.  He’s a politician…had a campboat there.  Fella by the name of Joe Cobb, you heard that name?

 JD:      Yeah, umhm.

 Medric:          He’s the one took em out there.  He’s the one brought em in, and they scared up five ducks and me and Roy killed em.  We had our guns, they came right over us…we shot em.  And they say we shot em after hours.  They went and hide and wait on us on the levee when we was comin in.   They didn’t take us to New Orleans then, but we were subpoenaed to go to New Orleans. 

 JD:      Did you get fined?

 Medric:          Millet got fined $5.00 ‘cause he didn’t have his license on him.  But we got some help, uh, that Ed Willis, congressman, and he helped us.  He had a lawyer waitin for us in New Orleans. 

 JD:      No kiddin!  You knew him?  Over here?  Ed Willis?

 Medric:          No, I had a good friend that knew him.  We went see him in St. Martinville. 

 JD:      St. Martinville, eh?  Boy y’all had to do some ridin around because of those five ducks, didn’t you? 

 Medric:          Yeah.  They didn’t do me anything because I had mine [license].  But Roy had fell overboard when we was building the duck blind.  He took his trousers off and left em in the boat.  But that game warden wouldn’t let him go get his license to show him.  Say he didn’t have it in his possession.   We came out of that very good.  But they had many ducks in those days, and they had a lot of rabbits.  I used to go rabbit huntin with the darkies around here.  My daddy would be in the store.  And when I’d come back, I’ve killed as much as 30 rabbits at a time…25, 30, 35.  Put em right there [on the porch of the store].  Didn’t have deep freeze or anything in them days, but the families, time was I knew em all.  Just a man and his wife, just gave him one rabbit.  But if he had two or three kids he got two rabbits. [laughs].  I’d give em all away, right here.   Most of em.  They’d watch me when I’d go huntin.  [laughs].

 JD:      “Mr. Medric is gone!  Put the pot on the stove!” Eh? 

 Medric:          I killed my share of game, but I…I don’t have the feelins to shoot em anymore.  I’ve looked at some.  I went huntin with Arthur Sanders one day.  Called in some black mallards, and they got right over my blind and, just kept circling me.  I could see their eyes, but I never could make up my mind to shoot those ducks.  I don’t know why.  I guess it’s a feelin a man gets.  But it was so pretty, they were so pretty over there, their wings and things, shape…if I’d a had a camera then I’d a been better off.  Cause Arthur said he wasn’t never gone back huntin with me!!. 

 JD:      You didn’t do your share, eh?

 Medric:          He got mad cause I wouldn’t shoot those ducks.  But they were so pretty, you know what I mean?

 JD:      I know what you mean. 

 Medric:          They went and turned in the sun, and the feathers were colored…they were pretty.  So, it don’t tempt me too much to go huntin any more [don’t feel like going]. 

 JD:      How about fishing.  Did you ever fish much?

 Medric:          I fished a little.  Not too much, with a pole?   Gaspergous on the lake and stuff.  I did some of that.  Never with a rod and reel.  Never used a rod and reel. 

 JD:      You’ve always…it seems like you’ve always had a good relationship with the black people around here. 

 Medric:          I treated the black people just the way I treated everybody else.  You see…always got along with the black people.

 JD:      That’s good.  It wasn’t that way with everybody around here, though.  Some people were…

 Medric:          No, most of the black people were good.  They…most of em didn’t want to associate with anybody.  They’d rather be to theirselves.  I’ve never had trouble, and I opened this store in 1935.  If black people wanted something he came to the same place, white man wanted something he came to the same place to buy it too. 

 JD:      So, there was no segregation in the store at all?  Everybody was…

 Medric:          Not at all.  When the blacks bought something though, they’d go sit on the other side [there is a built-on side room].  They wanted to…they wanted to get…most of the whites stayed on this side [the main room of the store].  If he felt like going in there, he’d go in there.

 JD:      Like a drink, you mean, or a bottle of something?

 Medric:          Yeah.  All together.  Never had any trouble about segregation. 

 JD:      You must have had some trouble every once in a while with fights, though, among people?

 Medric:          Yeah, had a few of those.  [laughs]

 JD:      Well, how did you handle that?

 Medric:          Get in there and break it up. 

 JD:      How?

 Medric:          Just…go in there.  Take the…take the knife or whatever he had…take the knives…and make em keep quiet, or make one go home. 

 JD:      Take the knives?

 Medric:          Oh yeah.  I had a bunch of knives I had taken away.  They used to like knives, lord, darkies liked knives.  But they had some respect for me.  You take the…make one go home, next day they were friends.  Let em come back in the evening, they were good friends again. That’s [they fought] when they got…crossed up about something.  I never had too, too many fights though, ‘cause…them kids and ladyfolks too much.  Cause that’s where your trouble comes, when you get ladyfolks come in there.  Betsy’s gone have her straps too [?]… .  But just men mostly…I had most of the time all men.  And they always got along.  When one got out of line they’d correct him themselves. 

 JD:      Did they kind of police themselves a lil bit?  Try to…?

 Medric:          Aw yeah.  Something or other…see one getting out of line, they’ll call him down.  If he getting a lil too much alcohol in him and…they’d calm him down.  I had a lot of help for that.

 JD:      You sure have had a history here, haven’t you? 

 Medric:          Somewhat.  What I regret is, now that my wife is gone…

 JD:      Yeah.  Your wife just died recently, didn’t she? 

 Medric:          In April.   Last year.  I didn’t spend enough time with her. But I was a good provider for her, and the kids.  Guess that’s the…  We didn’t have anything when we got married.  Got so she could get what she wanted, and things, but…it was a lot of long hours [in the store] and she was by herself, and then, like I say, too many people, and I didn’t want one of em to tell her anything, or somebody tell her anything she didn’t come in the store too much [because disrespectful people might insult her]. 

 JD:      Y’all lived right behind the store, back here?

 Medric:          I lived in the second house back there.

 JD:      The second house behind the store.  Who’s in the first house? 

 Medric:          My brother.  My oldest brother, Sherel. Sherel Martin, yeah.  #. 

 JD:      How does he spell his name?

 Medric:          S h e r e l.   He has a son that’s assessor in Franklin.  That’s his son.  His oldest boy.

 JD:      An assessor, the assessor in Franklin, is that right?

 Medric:          Yeah, yeah.  That’s his son. 

 JD:      What did your brother do for a living? 

 Medric:          Well, he was Weeks Island a lot, and he came and worked at Oaklawn.  He used to work at Oaklawn.  He went to the tropics before, when he was young, and he came back and he worked at Weeks Island.  And he married a girl at Weeks Island and they still together. He’s 92 years old.  And his wife is like an invalid, she can’t do nothing.  They have to take her out of bed in a lift and put her in a chair and feed her.  She can’t walk, she can’t do anything. 

 JD:      She’s still at home?

 Medric:          She’s still at home.  He takes care of her.  #.  He do the housework, he do the cookin, he do everything.

 JD:      Well, do y’all own all the property…the Martin family, all the way back to the bayou?

 Medric:          Yeah.  To the bayou, 56 acres.  Belong to three brothers. 

 JD:      Some of it’s in farm land? 

 Medric:          Oh yeah.  Most of it’s in farmland. 

 JD:      Somebody…somebody raises crops on it for you? 

 Medric:          Well, I did it till 1973.  And I left out in ’73.  I quit, and I let the [name, Baudois?] have it then.  And, in 1974, every farmer got rich! #.  That’s when cane went up to $100 a ton.  As long as I farmed, it was $3 and $4 a ton. [laughs].  And I couldn’t hardly make anything and then I had to come back in my store then, too, because, though it I had too much that uh…one…one had to suffer.  One [or the other occupation] had to go.  So, I stayed in the store and leased the farm out.

 JD:      [laughs] And they got rich, eh? 

 Medric:          That’s right.  I just missed the boat on that’n. 

 JD:      That’s the way life is, eh?  I sure was sorry to see that sugarmill close. 

 Medric:          Oh yeah.  It was the best mill in the parish, in the state in my opinion. ‘Cause we always made more…extracted more sugar… I worked in that sugarhouse too.

 JD:      You did too?  What did you do with it?

 Medric:          In the sugarhouse?  I used to weigh sugar, wintertime I ran the limin tanks, the evaporators, I did a lil bit of everything.  I was an all around man.  Yes sir.  When I left the sugarhouse in ’35, I had to work extra, you know, to make a lil extra money for us, and uh, I was in ’35 I was startin to [drain??] sugar on the sugar floor, I could almost boil sugar.  And I was pretty close to bein a sugar boiler. 

 JD:      That took a lot more…that was a…you had to have a lot more experience to be a sugar boiler?  Is that it?

 Medric:          Not...not…not too much.  Because, had to know how to do it.  Boiling sugar…after you learn how to [pick, sit,???] that grain, you just mix that syrup.  Mix that syrup with the one you got boiling to make that grain, sugar grains… grow.  Know what I mean?  But you couldn’t put too much syrup at one time, you had to know how to regulate your heat and your syrup.

 JD:      Well now…how did you…how did you learn to do that?

 Medric:          Well just by handling [?] I did that in the evaporators.  Evaporator, all it did was take water out the cane juice, and made the syrup with it.  And that’s a process that you let it come in and…for that you had to use a …[know] how much steam to keep on it, and different things, you know what I mean?  To get the density, whatever they wanted.  I made syrup…I used to bring them, people along the lake, Mr. Bailey and Mr. Daigle and all those…Mr. Lange, and all those.  I used to bring em syrup.  I make it right there in the evaporators at Oaklawn [sugarmill].  And I still worked there, then, when I was goin out there duck huntin, and [?], and work in the mill.  I was doin a lil bit of everything. 

 JD:      Yes, sir.  I worked in that mill for three years too. 

 Medric:          You came here after I was in the store a good while.

 JD:      I came here in 1972. 

 Medric:          That’s what I say.   I didn’t go back to the [sugar] factory then.  I just…after I was here then, they made syrup to sell to…to sell…making syrup, that canning syrup.

 JD:      I didn’t realize they ever made syrup to sell there.

 Medric:          Oh yeah.  I used to go boil the syrup for em at night.  They had five different cans of syrup. 

 JD:      Five different kinds of syrup?

 Medric:          Yeah.  All out of the same thing.  [all five “kinds” were the same thing]

 JD:      What uh…did they sell the syrup that came from Oaklawn? 

 Medric:          Oh, sold a lot of it.  Shipped some into Texas.  They sold a lot of syrup.

 JD:      Is that an independent mill?  I mean…

 Medric:          At one time, yes it was.  Most all the time it wasn’t.  I dunno… Southcoast worked in it a good while, owned it then, but uh…I don’t know who owned it…it was an independent mill at one time, I know.  In those days you didn’t pay any attention to that, you just did your work.  Yes sir.  I worked out there for six hours for 20 cents.

 JD:      When was that?

 Medric:          That was in the ‘30s.  What I’m telling you.  Worked six hours for 20 cents.  And then we went up…I was working in the feed mill at Sterling [sugarmill] when the 8 hours a day, and 40 cents an hour came on.  We used to…got paid every two weeks, got seven or eight dollars.  When we started getting that 40 cents an hour we thought we was rich! [laughs].

 JD:      When you opened this store, it was just after the Depression, I guess, wasn’t it?

 Medric:          The Depression was still on.  You felt it a good bit.  People didn’t have too much money those days.

 JD:      Well, how did you have the courage to open the store then?

 Medric:          Well, I don’t know.  They always had a lil store here, so…I opened it.

 JD:      So, they had a lil business going?

 Medric:          Yeah, they had a store here before…[but it was] closed three years, and comin from work out there [cane fields?] a Mr. Dietlein used to ride with us…a fellow by the name of Harold Dietlein, his daddy owned the wholesale [Renoudet and Dietlein] in New Iberia.   And I talked with him and asked him about it, and he said “We’ll advance you”.  So I started off slow. 

 JD:      That was a wholesaler?

 Medric:          That’s right, in New Iberia, yes sir.

 JD:      I guess the roads around here in those days were kind of…

 Medric:          We had a gravel road.  Gravel road…used to follow the bayou.  They didn’t have a road go across from Franklin to [?].  I can’t tell you when it was built, but we had a gravel road.  They may have had it when I came to the store, I don’t know.  They had a lot of people on this Irish Bend. 

 JD:      So this was known then as the Irish Bend?

 Medric:          Irish Bend Road.

 JD:      There’s a…there’s a lot of sugarmills right here in this area, wasn’t there?

 Medric:          At one time there was each plantation had one. Each one.  They had one at Sterling, had one at Oak Bluff. They had one at Oak Bluff, Sterling own it now.  They had one at Belleview.  Sterling got charge of that too.  Then you got Shaffer Plantation, you called [it].   They had one across the bayou there.  Then Oaklawn owned part of that, now Southcoast [does].  Whoever owned the land, I think it was [?].  Further down over there, they had one at Camperdown.  You can see the foundation.  Fixing that old time house out there?  That was part of the sugarmill.  That’s foundation for sugarmill there.  And then you went on to Columbia.  Columbia was…call that the Caffery’s sugarhouse.  Still have the remains of it, but uh…

 JD:      So, each…each plantation had its own sugarhouse?

 Medric:          Each one.  And when I was a young boy, they started closing up.  Not too long…I wasn’t too big when most of em closed.   But I barely can remember…I can remember the one pretty good at Belleview, one there.  ‘Cause daddy used to haul the cane at Belleview, that wooden bridge there.   With the mules.  Went to Oaklawn after that.  Hauled a lot of cane at Oaklawn. 

 JD:      Well, when you started workin with these folks, uh, at Myette Pt., you had a vehicle by that time, you had a truck or something?

 Medric:          Yeah, a lil truck.

 JD:      What kind of truck was it?

 Medric:          Chevrolet pickup truck. 

 [Medric’s second daughter, Joann, comes in] 

 JD:      One of the things I’m really interested in is…I talk about how Myette Pt. became a community.  A community is a place where not only do people live in it, but they have certain services.  They had electricity, they have water, they have mail, they have mail…uh…they have all the other things…religious…schools…

 Medric:          They had a school out there.

 JD:      So, I was interested in how they got to get all those things that they got.  Um, and you talked about how…

 Medric:          I started the mail route out there, I’m the one numbered the boxes and everything else…

 JD:      You started the mail run?  You got the boxes set up for them, and everything?

 Medric:          I’m the one set up the route for em.  Numbered the boxes, put all their names and things else.  I just delivered there when the other mailman didn’t go, but he took it after me cause the didn’t want to go…I did it.   I used to keep all their mail here before they had a mail route. 

 JD:      They had their mail sent to the store, here? 

 Medric:          All their mail came right here to me.  And I’d take it…and get it…and go bring it to em every day, or every two days.  And Mr. Lange, he used to work offshore with his company, he’d call me, before they had telephones, to tell his wife…or see how they were doin, and I’d tell…

 JD:      So, you were communications with em too, to…

 Medric:          I was the center for communications when they first came across. 

 JD:      So…so you provided the…you got them set up with mail service, you also provided some of their, uh, their groceries…

 Medric:          Most of em.

 JD:      Now, how would they order from you?  You’d bring groceries to em and they’d give you the order then, or…?

 Medric:          Tell me what they need..and I’d go back, huntin or…or bring the mail, and somebody need something, shopping, I’d bring it to em.  Some of their kin people would go out there see em, they’d bring groceries, you know?

 JD:      Stop here at the store?

 Medric:          Exactly…or, either, they bought some in town and bring em to em.

 JD:      How about electricity?  Did you have anything to do with Teche Electric bringing electricity out there?

 Medric:          No, I don’t remember.  I know we talked about that often, I don’t know if that helped em or anything else.  They had to have so much [users].  Puttin the poles and things…cost some money.  But eventually they did it.

 JD:      They had to have so many people, you mean, who would use it?

 Medric:          Yeah, that’s right.  That’s how they finally got it.  But I don’t know if I had any help in that, you know, I mean.  We talked about it a lot’s of times. 

 JD:      How about telephones?  When did the telephones come in? 

 Medric:          I think the telephones came in after the oil company had something out there.  I wouldn’t know too much about that. 

 [someone comes into the store, Harold Boudreaux, incidental talk]

 End of Chapter 44: INTERVIEW WITH MEDRIC MARTIN. 

 Begin Chapter 45

 INTERVIEWS RESUME, SAME DAY, AT EDWARD COUVILLIER RESIDENCE, AT 148 OXFORD LOOP, OXFORD SETTLEMENT.  PRESENT:  EDWARD COUVILLIER, AGNES BAILEY, AND OTHERS NOT IDENTIFIED.

 TAPE SPEED AND RECORDING QUALITY ARE INFERIOR FROM HERE TO THE END OF THE TAPE

 [Edward and three other people capsized a boat in the main channel of the Atchafalaya River on a hunting trip]

 Edward:        We hold onto the boat.

 JD:      Well, that’s what I mean, you held onto the boat, and then what?

 Edward:        [we] drifted into the bank, ‘bout…it was about 5:00 that morning [when it happened].  It was about 9:00 when we hit the bank. 

 JD:      Y’all must have been cold, eh?

 Edward:        Cheeee, cold!  Wintertime, big norwester blowin, hoss.  Full of gas, we all got gas all over us.

 JD:      The gas was floatin on the water?

 Edward:        Talk about burn, hoss.  He [Medric] didn’t mention that?

 JD:      No, he didn’t, uh…

 Edward:        You need to go back and let him tell you that story.  He’ll tell you, boy, that’s all he used to talk about. 

 JD:      He’s not, uh, he doesn’t talk as much as I remember he used to.  He used to talk a lot more than he does now.

 Agnes:           There wasn’t no gravel when we moved here. 

 Edward:        I always remember gravel.  There wasn’t no gravel on the levee part [of the road] out there. 

 Agnes:           All the time, we’d go to the show, Medric was there [in the store].

 JD:      Y’all would go to the show?

 Agnes:           We’d go to the show, and after the show, we’d stop there.  He wasn’t about to close that store till we passed back. In case we needed somethin. 

 JD:      I didn’t understand that his family owned a bunch of land down there.  Said they owned 56 acres.  Said the store had been there a long time, maybe 100 years.

 Edward:  I believe his uncle had that before he did.

 JD:      Yeah, something like that…he went broke, and closed it for a little while, and then Medric took it over in 1935.  I believe he was there 10 years before y’all crossed the levee. 

 Edward:  Yeah.  He was there ever since I can remember, I can tell you that!  And they [also] had Oaklawn store, right where you comin for Medric’s, and you turn and hit the bridge…Oaklawn store was on the right [on the corner]. 

 JD:      He told me there were three stores there, close.  All within a half a mile of each other…his store, and another one. 

 Edward:  Belleview, ., and then Comeaux.  .. 

 JD:      I have some news for you.  I have a friend at work who got interested in y’all’s family tree, and she’s very good at uh, at going into the libraries and researching things.  And she came up with some interesting things that…that we didn’t know.  Uh, Myon’s…Myon’s grandmother, name was Leah Hebert.

 Agnes:           That was his momma’s momma. 

 JD:      But her real name was not Leah.  It was Alia, A ELL EYE A.  Alia. 

 Agnes:           That’s right.  Alia.  We called her Alia [pronounced A Lee Ah]. .. 

 JD:      She found this out in the courthouse [library ?] in Baton Rouge. 

 TAPE SPEED AND RECORDING QUALITY IS DEGRADED FROM HERE TO THE END OF THE TAPE. HAD TO SWITCH TO SMALL RECORDER WITH SPEED ADJUSTMENT ON IT.

 JD:      We did get dates on Myon’s grandfather.  We did get dates on him.  He died in 1922.  He was born in 1857 and died in 1922.  We got that from the records.  So we didn’t know that. 

 [confused, poor recording]

 ED:     I remember Uncle Joe Daigle, I remember old Joe.  .. 

 Fini