Atchafalaya Basin People: 2026-02-01

DATE: 1974

INTERVIEWER: Jim Delahoussaye

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

COOPERATORS: Myon Bailey, Agnes Bailey, Putt Couvillier, Lena Mae Couvillier, Dot Couvillier

Myon and Lena Mae are married. Dot Couvillier is their daughter. She is married to Putt Couvillier.

Putt: [something about turning the TV off]

JD: Well, yeah, I can, Putt, uh, but it’s not as good as it would be if it was…if it was off. But I don’t want to ask anybody to turn the TV set off. I just wanted to know if Agnes had ever heard herself on tape, that’s all.

Agnes: Yeah. [something about church]. Finish telling Jim about that big stump, that was across the lake at the end of the…at the end of the canal…

JD: What year was that Agnes, do you remember?

Agnes: I don’t remember.

JD: Approximately?

Agnes: [?] was born, in uh, ’38. Born in 38.

Putt: That must have been around ’35, yall was livin over there, uh, Myon?

Myon mmmm, ’35.

PUTT: Because when yall moved over here, that’s when you started working on your camp, eh? On your barge?

Agnes: Yeah. When we worked on that barge, Boyer [sp?] [nickname for their son, Albert Bailey, Jr. – pronounced “boyyay”] was a baby.

JD: Well, let’s kind of start at the…I’d kind of like to get some background information, because I have to know this before I type up the stuff that I’ve got, you know, the notes that I’ve got. First, Myon, what year were you born in? If you don’t mind.

Myon: 1905.

JD: You were born in…born in 1905. And where was that?

Myon: In uh, Simmon’s [Persimmon] Pass. Right directly across from Morgan City. You know where Lake Palourde’s at? Straight across from Morgan City, there.

JD: That was on a houseboat, or was it…?

Myon: On the bank.

JD: And how about you, Agnes? I’d like to know when you were born, but if you don’t want to say so that’s all right with me.

Agnes: That’s alright. 1912.

JD: And where was that?

Agnes Bayou Long. Yeah, you got it on, uh…Bayou Long.

Dot: Yeah, Bayou Long.

JD: And is that on the bank or in a houseboat?

Myon: Stephensville…Bayou Long, but they call it Stephensville. Bayou Long [was the waterway, but the town was called Stephensville]. In that time, it was Bayou Long, that was the bayou where people livin along [it]…But now they done changed the name, it’s Stephensville.

Agnes: That was a big bayou then. But, I was born in a house.

JD: Uh, how come…it seems to me like…there must have been some people livin in houseboats in those times, isn’t that right?

Myon: Yeah. They had people in them. Around Fourmile Bayou [where he was raised] they didn’t have too many people livin in houseboats. But up the country, here, they did have a lot of people livin in houseboats. At that time, we wasn’t livin up here though.

Putt: Well, the Old Man [his father, Lester Couvillier] was livin in houseboats…

Myon All they lives.

Putt: Ever since, uh… [and] I was 14 years old when we moved over the levee [and moved off of houseboats].

JD: Well, uh, Myon, what was…what was…for instance, now, what about your father? You remember your father very well?

Myon: I don’t remember.

JD: Not at all? Now, how about your mother?

Myon: Mother, yeah, I buried her. She was livin in my house the last two years she was livin.

JD Your father died when you were young?

Myon: Yeah, a year and a half old.

JD: Did you ever hear much stories about him? What he did for a livin, when he was alive?

Myon: Fish.

JD: How about your parents, Agnes, what were they…?

Agnes Fished, picked moss, hunt frogs…alligators.

JD Hunt frogs? There was a market for frogs back then?

Myon: Oh yeah. Lot of people hunt frog in them days!

Agnes: You see, in the summer, we had two months, uh, that they couldn’t fish. They had a closed season on fish.

JD: [VERY surprised, but see material from Mike Walker on this whole idea of a closed season] When was that?! When?

Agnes When I was small.

Myon: Aw yeah, you had two months closed season. #.

JD: Two months closed season?

Myon: Three months!

JD: Three months! And what months…what months were those?

Myon: That’s in May, when the fish would spawn. Catfish would spawn.

JD: In May, and what? May, June and July, or what?

Myon: I think so.

Putt: April, May, and June.

Myon: Yeah.

JD: So that’s the same…about the same as closed season on frogs, then?

Myon: About the same.

Putt: Two months…the closed season on frogs.

JD: Yeah, that’s April and May, now, eh?

Agnes Hunt alligators, pick moss…Well, when he couldn’t fish, he’d pick moss. Pick moss, uh, almost all day, then at night he’d go hunt frogs. And he’d kill alligators and hunt frogs at, you know, at the same time.

JD: Well, that’s a long day for a man!

Agnes [had to] do it!

JD: How many hours do you suppose he worked during a day?

Myon: I guess some days he worked 14, 15 hours.

JD: Did he take a day off during the week, or…?

Agnes No, Sundays, that’s all.

JD: But he did take his Sunday off?

Agnes Yeah, when he’d pick moss. When he’d fish, he didn’t.

JD: Well, now, yall both lived on the bank. Uh, so, the fish that…that your parents caught, to make a living, how did they sell their fish?

Agnes: Fishboat would come get em.

Myon: Fishboat

JD: So, yall both lived on the water [but on the bank]?

Myon: On the water. Had groceries, and fish…he’d buy the fish and you buy you groceries. Just like a store. He’d come once or twice a week to your place…

JD: And did he have liveboxes in his boat, did you put…?

Myon: No, he had ice.

JD: He had ice, himself. But yall had to keep your fish alive?

Myon: In liveboxes.

JD: Yeah, ‘till he got there.

Agnes They had big old…made big old fish cages, uh…[that the fishboats would put the fish in and tow them back alive to the dock]

Myon: On the olden times, before us, yeah. [?] We keep our fish in cages, boat come in there…

Putt: When was that, Mr. Myon, [they] had that fish cage, used to tow it to get your fish…?

Myon: That was years back, that was uh, oh from Morgan City, let me see if I can …uh, Mike Clantile [sp?].

Putt: They used to tow, uh, Jim?, they used to tow a fish…a fish box… [to keep the fish] alive, and tow em back to Morgan City.

JD: Tow the boxes?

Myon: Yeah.

JD: Aw, they had a barge, or what?

Edward: No. made like a skiff.

Putt: Make like a float, like a pontoon.

Myon: Made like a skiff, so they could pull it.

JD: Well, was it kind of like a…kind of like a, a seine barge like they use nowadays? Wide with a bateau front?

Myon: No, it was wide and big, but it was made like a skiff. So you could tow it. Just like pointed skiff, you know? #. You done seen one of them skiffs.

JD: Like a skiff, not like a bateau, all right. [this fish-towing device is pictured in Malcolm Comeaux book on Atchafalaya folk life] Now uh, how much do you suppose that they got…do yall remember how much they would get for their fish when they’d sell em?

Myon: Oh, they didn’t get no big price, five to eight cents a pound was a big price.

JD: This is like when your daddy was fishing, you talking about?

Myon: You could buy a sack of flour for 40 cents. #. 24 pounds. #.

JD: And uh, how much did they pay for moss? Do you remember, Agnes?

Agnes: Cent and half.

Myon: Cent and a half…sometime when you get three cents it was a good price, big price.

Agnes: Sometime you’d get three cents for it.

JD: A pound, you talking about?

Myon: A pound, dried, had to be black. Black moss.

Agnes: You had to work it. Pick it green, but you had to work it.

JD: So, you would pick it green, huh?

Myon: Oh yeah, most of the time. [to cure it] you pile it up…

Agnes: You pile it up, and then every evening we take some buckets and wet it, and work it, turn it over and…

Myon: After it’s good and wet you’d pile it up and it form a steam in there and kill it. All that stuff would fall, and it was just the inside [that would remain].

Agnes You turn it over, and after it get black you hang it out on the line. It would dry. And then my daddy get there and bail it.

Myon: [smell?] it get a lil bit nasty when you put it out on the line to dry it [laughs].

Putt had a old skiff, high, high sides. Out here, right in this cut out here in this channel? And used to have some great big old eddies, you know? Six foot deep, up to six and eight foot deep. Some worse, you had to watch em, you know? And he used to…they used to not have no boats [with motors] out here. And uh, used to have an old fella livin out there on that island [Goat Island] you know? So, he’d go out there and run lines, you know, cold, cold, cold…ice sickles.

JD: What island…what island, Hog Island?

Putt: No, right out here! And uh, he used to fish out there in skiffs all the time. He didn’t have no such thing as boats [with motors], you know? And he set off down the bayou in that skiff and sometime he would get in one of them eddies, and he have to push about five minutes to get out of there, you know?

JD: Is that right?!

Putt: Keep turnin, turnin, keep pushin, keep pushin! And boy, look, sometime that old back of that boat, you know, it would catch the back like that…sometime it would catch a lil water, and sometime it won’t….until that skiff cover that…in other words, it would hit it just right [and] it would cover that eddy, and kind of smother that eddy out a lil bit. And boy, he’ll take off! #. They had eddies that big, that current was so bad here. That’s how big them eddies was.

JD: What year you suppose that was, Putt?

Putt Oh, I guess…that had to be around 19…let’s see…1941 or ’42, I guess. Boy look, they had some deep eddies there.

JD: Now, what was this channel like then? Uh, was it…lookin like it does today out there? Or no?

Putt Uh, the lil cut looks the same, but up above there, all that water was open. You had just as much current comin down this lake here [down the west side] as you had in the [main] channel.

JD: You mean by Charenton [comin from]?

Putt Yeah. That’s the reason why…that’s the reason why we had that big eddy, you see? In other words, that cut would come in…

JD: Right at that corner it would meet?

Putt: Right at that corner it would meet, make these eddies here. And boy that Old Man had some problems fishin!

JD: Well, Putt, what was your daddy’s name?

Putt Lester Couvillier.

JD: Lester? And where was he born, do you remember anything about him?

Putt: I don’t remember where he was born, Jim, all I know is he lived on a houseboat just about all his life. Anyhow, ‘till I was 14 years old. Then, he died when I was 24. In other words, he pulled the houseboat over…over the levee there…when I was 14 years old. We lived on a houseboat all that time.

JD: Well, can you remember…go back as far as you can with your memory, do you remember your life as a boy…when you were a boy on a houseboat? What do you remember about when you were a boy on a houseboat, concerning things like…like fishing. That’s the thing I’m most interested in, what was it like to be a fisherman?

Putt: Well, back then we was too small to go out by ourselves, Jim, and uh, the onlyest way we could…in other words…go out, was if somebody [was] with us, you know? Till we got a lil older, about seven, eight years old, then we could go out on our own fishin.

JD: You were fishin on your own [at] seven or eight years old?

Putt Yeah. You take a boat, you know, a pirogue? And uh, Jessie [his brother] was a lil older than I was, you see, but we’d fish around…pretty close to the house, you see? But I remember when there were fishboats used to come pick up the Old Man ’s fish. Sometime he get there at 9:00 o’clock at night. We had a nickel for a jawbreaker, once a week, you see. Get a jawbreaker with him. If that fishboat…if we was in bed…I done seen us in bed, and the Old Man would leave the house, go get some fish up [out of the fish car], and we’d get in a #3 washtub, and uh, make it out in that washtub to that fishboat to get some candy…our nickel’s worth of candy.

JD: What!? You would get in a number…not two of you, one of you?

Putt No, one of us.

JD: You’d get in a #3 washtub and get out to the fishboat…?

Putt Go to the fishboat, and get out, and come back. Get out of bed to do that, now! Sometime eight, nine o’clock at night. And uh, we had our nickel to spend, you know, go get our jawbreaker. Go get jawbreakers.

JD: Now listen, uh, now you know the story seems to be about the same, when you talk to Myon about the fishboat comin and pickin up the fish, and the grocery boat bringing groceries at the same time, I mean it was the same boat. But what I’m interested in is now…how long you suppose those fishboats worked that…this area? How long, how many years do you suppose that those fishboats were workin, pickin up fish from people livin in the…

Putt: I guess, Jim, when the Old Man used to tell us, young boys, about his experience in here [the Basin]…he used to tell us [about a] long time ago… you see, he lived on houseboats all his life, that’s all he ever done was push [push skiff], fishing, you see? That’s all he…he used to push and he was uh, when we was uh…in other words [basically, he never had a way to get to town so all his dealings were with the fishboats for supplies and sales for his fish, moss, etc.]. [For meat to eat] he always used game, you know?

JD: He used what?

Putt Game, I mean, to survive the family, you know? And a lot of time he couldn’t get shells. When he killed…other words, killed some mallards, he used to sell em, you know, by the pair for a few shells, something like that. #. And with a couple shells he would get game, and stuff,

JD: Who did he sell this game to? When he’d kill…?

Putt Well, like Conrad, the one got that big uh, dry dock right down in uh, in Morgan City. They all used to come down, hunt with the Old Man , bring him shells and stuff, and trade. He didn’t, say, sell em [the ducks], he mostly trade.

JD: Oh, I see. So, to your knowledge, though, this fishboat…this fishboat idea, operated for as long as your daddy was alive?

Putt: I guess, Jim, he ain’t had no means of transportation. I mean, all he had was a push skiff. He couldn’t…in other words, they’d buy everything off of it [the fishboat], know what I mean?

Lena Mae Well, Mertile ran his boat till we moved over here.

Putt: Yeah, and Jesse Higgins used to run a fishboat [also], and pick up the fish. We used to go over there sometime [and] if we didn’t have no money, swipe us some candy. [laughs]. As a practical joke, you know, but he knew we was doin it, but we’d get us some candy anyway.

Dot: I remember they picked up the fish until we moved over here, and daddy put that fishbox on top the levee.

JD: I imagine there were still fishboats workin in the swamp,uh, even after that…

Putt: Oh yeah.

JD: But, when did they stop to your knowledge? When did the fishboats stop?

PUTT: Well, when everybody had left from up…from up the lake, and start movin into Morgan City, and different places, you see, where they could start bringin directly to the docks, you know, and got boats and motors [outboards]. When they done that, they bring they fish directly to the fishdock.

JD: Now try, as best you can, try to put a year on that. When’s the last fishboat you can remember, that used to work that swamp, that you know of? When’s the last fishboat, that you can remember that did that?

Putt I tell you what, Jesse Higgins was the last one I remember. He used to, in other words, come right…just like I told you, you know, ’41, somewhere like that.

JD: So, you think the fishboats quit in 1941?

Putt It wasn’t long after that, because, you know, people started buyin motors, then.

JD: So, you think people really started moving out of the swamp onto the bank, uh…

Dot: About ’42, or ’43.

JD: ’42, or ’43? They started movin onto the bank, people did?

Putt Well, I was 14 years old. Uh, when we moved back here. It must have been…

Lena Mae: Yeah, but we had been back…we had been back here…no, yall moved here first. Yall had the camp on the lil levee over there.

Putt: But I tell you what, when my brother was born, the onlyest transportation we had, old colored man come from Oaklawn, and pick momma up. We was livin here on a houseboat at the end of this canal. Nobody was up here, and we had…Old Man had to bring the houseboat in here to get…to get her off [of] there, you see, to bring her up…by horse, by wagon?...#...picked us up in a wagon and brought us out to Oaklawn, that’s where my brother was born at.

JD: You mean because she was ready to…she was ready to have the baby? That’s why…

Putt: Picked em up, mule and wagon, brought em to the front where they could get a doctor, you see?

JD: Now, in what year, wasn’t it about in 1929, or ’30, that they first built this levee?

Putt 1927 high water, they start build it. Now, I wasn’t alive then, but the Old Man and them told me. 1927 high water, well right after that they start build the levee.

JD: This one here? [points out the front door of the houseboat/house].

Putt Yeah.

JD: Now, they had a lil levee out there before. Out there in the front. Why was that, what was that for, that lil levee out in front [between the lake and the cane fields].

Putt Well, they had cane fields out there.

Dot: That was all cane fields, Jim.

Putt: And they had a old time sugarmill back in, years ago…

JD: I remember, I saw those, uh,

Putt They had them…they used to grow cane out there. That was just a lil protection levee, you see?

JD: In other words, uh, before that, before ’27, apparently that lil levee was enough to keep most of the floodin out? Was that it?

Putt Yeah, the lake was so big…you didn’t have no high water till this tremendous…1927, you see? [the water] It moved up into Franklin from this side here. Course, I wasn’t born, but I just was told.

Dot: Because I can remember Daddy had a big boat, that the name of it was Albert 2. With a cabin? Well, we’d take off that mornin, it would be late evening before we’d get in to the bank. That’s how wide the lake was.

JD: Now, where were you born, Dot?

Dot: Uh, let’s see, momma told me.

Putt: Well, you was born in Morgan City? I was born right there in Charenton.

JD: Now, where were you…where were your parents when you were born? Where were they living when you were born?

Dot Well, they had…just before I was born, they had moved to Morgan City from across the lake [at Blaise's Canal], you see? To wait, for my arrival.

JD: Oh, is that right? So they went to Morgan City for you to be born? That’s the reason they went there?

Dot: Yeah. And after I was born, they moved back. You see?

JD: Did they tow the houseboat down to Morgan City?

Dot: Oh yeah. Towed everything.

JD: So, yall lived right there on the bank, I mean on the houseboats, but it was tied up at Morgan City until you were born?

Dot: Yeah, I was born in The Pit.

JD: Now, what’s the reason why you momma would’ve wanted, you think, to move to Morgan City for you to be born? I mean, not all your brothers and sisters weren’t born in…in hospitals? Were they? Or in town?

Dot: No, most of em was born at home but they always towed…you know, towed to Morgan City. In case they need a doctor.

JD: Oh, they did?

Dot: Yeah.

JD: So, oh, I see, all right…all right…all right. So they towed to Morgan City in case the doctor would be needed. But who delivered the children anyway, if the doctor wasn’t needed?

Dot Midwife.

JD: A midwife…black, white, old, young?

Dot: No, it was a white [woman]. I forgot what momma used to call her, but uh, they’d go get her ahead of time, you know? She’d actually live with em until it was all over with.

JD: Oh, she did? Now, what did she do? Did you watch any of your brothers and sisters being born?

Dot: No.

JD: So, you don’t know, in fact, what the midwife did. I have to get that from Myon and Agnes. I understand Myon was there for the birth of every one of his children, isn’t that right?

Dot: Umhm.

JD: None of this stuff about sending him out to the other room, or something?

Dot: Uhuh! He helped. He was right there. #. He was there for every one of em.

JD: Well, where did yall move back to after you were born?

Dot: Back to Blue Point [Blaise's Canal].

JD: Now, was there anybody livin with yall, you know, other houseboats tied up there at the time?

Dot: Oh yeah. They always had a, at least three or four houseboats with em. You’d never stay by yourself on the canal. You always had three or four there.

JD: For what reason?

Putt Jim, when I was…

Dot: They just, just stick together, you see?

Putt: When I was a baby, the Old Man was livin over there around Willow Cove somewhere. And he kept wantin to move, [but] everyday there was a norwester break out. Every day, you know? In other words, the north wind would pick up and the lake would get too rough. One night he got up, and he was gone come around that night before the north wind picked up. [but we] get out in the middle of the lake, here come a crackin norwester, sunk the camp and everything went down. Other words, I was a lil baby, you know, and they told us that often, you know? How we all got in that pirogue, and we had to go light a old oak tree on fire to dry everybody’s clothes and everything. But, in the middle of the night he was gone come around there to get out of that north wind every day, and when he got in the middle of that lake, a norwester cracked out, and sunk everything he had out there.

JD: Did yall get it back? Did yall raise it?

Putt Yeah. They raised it, but a lot of stuff was ruint, you know, what they had. But…

JD: Putt, how would they raise a houseboat if it…I guess there was about 10 feet of water in the lake then, eh?

Putt: Well, I can imagine…I never did raise one but, what you’d do is try to get it in shallow water. You see, lumber, it floats [is light in the water], as you pull on it with boats you can slide it to where [towards a bank].

JD: Get it higher and higher.

Putt: Yeah. And once you get that…that rail out, out of the water, where the timbers are set, well you can go ahead and bail it out.

JD: You can pump it after that and it floats by itself.

Putt: Yeah. I can remember many a night at 2:00 o’clock, the Old Man lay up in bed there, and the old camp start takin water. And he would get us all out…get in the hurl [hull] of the camp and start pullin water out through them timbers, you know? Bail it out.

JD Takin water for what reason? Waves?

Putt Well, bad timbers and stuff, you know? It gets bad, you know, got to pack it.

JD: Just startin to leak, in other words, eh?

Dot: You get in there, and you bail, and you cork [caulk].

JD: What did you caulk with in those days?

Dot: Cotton, I believe.

Putt: That, oakum, stuff like that.

JD: What was oakum? What was that like?

Putt That’s,well, it’s still used in corkin wooden hulls. It’s some kind of, rope, like, that’s treated with some kind of oil, oakum oil.

JD: It’s black?

Putt It’s, brown. Sort of brown.

JD: And it swells when you pack it in…

Putt That oil they got in it keep it from rottenin, you see?

JD: Yeah, I see. I used some of that stuff. Well, Dott, how many

…you were which one of how many kids?

Dot: Of six. I was the fourth.

JD: The fourth, so there were two more after you. And Tiny [Carol Ann] is the youngest one?

Dot: Tiny was the youngest.

JD: And Putt, how many children…which one were you?

Putt Eight.

JD: You were which one of eight?

Putt Six. No, no, seven.

JD: You were seventh of eight. And Jesse is the oldest.

Putt No, Hoss is the oldest.

JD: Hoss is the oldest. I thought you said Jesse was a lil older than you?

Putt: He’s a lil older than me, and that’s why I say we used to fish together me and him, he was a lil older than me.

JD: So, you were the second to the youngest.

Putt Yeah.

JD: Well, who’s younger than you?

Putt Clifton. [he was] afflicted. He was four and a half years old before he could walk.

JD: Is that right? Well, when you look back on those days now, you know, that you spent like that. What was the difference in the way you lived then and the way you live now? The thing that most sticks in your mind?

Putt: Well, when we got something we appreciated it back then. Today you can get it…things, you know…and sometime you don’t appreciate it. Like, some people get too much, you know what I mean? Back then, when you got a lil candy, or something, it was worth somethin to you.

Dot: Them days, you got one toy for Christmas. And then, maybe not a toy, you might get a bag of oranges. Well, that was a great thing!

Putt: Well, I tell you, all I ever got when I was a kid was one red wagon, that I can remember, for a toy. I got a red wagon and a cap gun. That’s the only two things I believe I ever got.

JD: Can you describe the houseboat that you were born on, that you lived on?

Putt I can show you the pictures, there…

JD: I know, but can you describe it?

Putt Yeah, it was 15 foot wide, and it’s about, let’s see…

JD: Now, that’s the barge, or…?

Putt: No, that’s the inside of the space. Fifteen…about 45 foot long. Three rooms. Ten of us sleep in three rooms.

JD: Now, how did you arrange yourself to sleep?

Putt: Like in the middle room, well, all the boys stayed on beds on the floor. And, you know, you got…like you put a mattress on the floor, spread out on the floor…we had, one big bed in there. The oldest would sleep in the big bed, the other boys sleep on the floor. And in Momma’s room, the girls would stay in there. You know, until they got married.

JD So, you didn’t have a…you didn’t have a place to sleep all day long. At night, when you got ready to go to bed, you’d take your mattress down and put it on the floor where you were wanted to sleep. And was there any effort at all to keep the houseboat warm at night in wintertime? Or did you just have to throw blankets on top of you.

Putt: No, we had a old common wood stove there, you would get it heated up and make some coals and shut the damper on it. Kind of close the damper off a lil…it would keep warm pretty much, you know, at night? And then, early in the morning it’s cold though, boy! You get there and throw that kindling in there, and if you don’t watch it, it’ll blow the stack off!

JD: Why?

Putt The damper you put on it, the hotter it will get. It come up…bounce up off the floor! It ignites, you see, the smokestack goes straight up through the top of the camp, and it got such a…a pull…oxygen pull through that kindling, it go to viberatin. You got to keep the damper down on it. It burn that pipe…it get that pipe cherry red!

JD: That much heat!

Dot: And you had quilts. You got blankets and all today, but then they’d make quilts. You’d have what you call a quiltin bee, where all the women would gather…

JD: All the women in those lil houseboats you talking about?

Dot: Right. They’d all gather and make a quilt a day, maybe.

JD: A quilt a day?! Did yall have quilting frames?

Dot: Yeah.

JD: Well, where did you put a big quilting frame in a lil houseboat?

Dot: You push all the furniture to one side, and you sit right in the middle, and you’d suspend it from the ceiling.

JD: Ohh, you’d drop it from the ceiling. #. You see, that’s a whole….that what you just brought up, now , that’s a whole different story. But for the time being, let me finish with this, uh, the houseboat, now. I’ll ask you later what you can remember from it, too, Dot. But, uh…Putt what was that houseboat made of?

Putt It was made of cypress. The Old Man used to uh, other words, I don’t know where he got the cypress boards from, but a lot of these, uh…he bought em mostly from these rough sawmills, I guess, you know? Other words, they used to have steamboats [that] would pass…

JD: Pass where?

Putt: Right out here in the lake. They’d get timber by the big old booms, you see. They were steamboats…the Albert Hanson, Cap’n…uh, I think it’s the Cap’t Ace. But uh, he used to come down with large tows of timber out of that lake…pass way out back of the island [Goat Island] out there, all that was lake. And go on down with his timber. And when he come back up, we used to live along there in them campboats, and they’d blow their horn. And they’d tie up in the Cut, there, and give us all some biscuits and treats, you know, something to eat. And then they’d blow the horn and we’d get off the boat, and they’d take off and go on up. Comin up light, you see, they’d pass through that Cut, there.

JD: Which cut? That one right here? [between Goat Island and Myette Pt.]

Putt The lil Cut. And they stop along that bank, there, and blow their horn, and we’d all go get us something…

JD: Now yall were livin on houseboats right here, at the time?

Putt Yeah.

JD: Now, at this time, Dot was livin across the lake? At Williams Canal. Isn’t that right Dot?

Dot: Myon’s Canal…[terminology thing] [Blaise's Canal in the rest of this material]

JD: But it was across the lake. Yall were livin across the lake from each other. [Dot and Putt].

Dot: Yeah. They was here [at Myon’s Canal] before we were. #.

Putt: They had a few families livin along here.

JD: In houseboats all of em?

Putt: Yeah.

JD: Now, Putt, you talking about these steamboats. Were these sternwheel paddleboats, or were they sidewheelers, or what?

Putt They was them…back…old time…

JD: In the back?

Putt Yeah.

JD One big, big wheel in the back?

Putt One big wheel.

JD: It had several decks up off the water…high…and two big smokestacks belchin that black smoke all the time.

Putt Yep. Oscar Lange bought one of em for a fish dock.

JD: Is that what Oscar Lange’s building is? An old riverboat?

Putt Old uh, old uh, steamboat. #. Used to haul timber.

JD: Now, is that…at that time, was that the only big traffic there was on the rivers, was those steamboats?

Putt Well, you didn’t see too many tugboats or nothing. Most…mostly steamboats.

JD Ok, when was the last time you can remember steamboats makin any use of that, uh, that water at all? When…?

Putt Well, that’s been many a year ago, I mean. That’s right after I was…I was just old enough to walk and get around and follow the gang, you see? When they used to pass. I was born in ’38, so that wasn’t…

JD: Say ’44, 45?

Putt [?] I believe early ‘40s.

JD: 41, ’42?

Putt Somewhere around there, I wasn’t very old.

JD: And shortly after that, the steamboats quit runnin?

Putt No, we just moved away. You know, we moved to Morgan City.

JD: Well, how long you suppose they kept runnin after that, Putt?

Putt Oh I don’t know. After that…Oscar Lange had that dock built out of that old steamboat we used to eat biscuits off of.

JD: So you don’t know when the steamboats quit runnin?

Putt No, sure don’t.

JD: You got any…you got any possibility on that Dot? You were born in ’38. You were both born in ’38?

Dot: Umhm.

JD: You the same age. You the same age as me, we all 36. [THIS IS HOW THIS TAPE IS DATED TO 1974].

Dot: He was born in July, I was born in December.

JD: You and I only a month apart in our birthdays. I’m November 4, when are you?

Dot I’m December 24.

JD: Go ahead Putt.

Putt I, uh, I didn’t want to say too much.

JD: That business of those steamboats, that’s something I hadn’t even

I hadn’t even thought that those things were still runnin at that time.

Putt Tell you what, we was talking about the lumber to build a camp. I done seen the Old Man and them take a axe and cut a cypress down and, other words, just saw it off on each end. And take a axe and put it [the tree] on a rack and chop, chop until he get him a 4x6 or somethin. With a choppin axe.

JD Now, you say “put it on a rack”. What’s a rack?

Putt: Well, in other words, put it to where he can work…can work on each end. Put each end on somethin where it’ll hold it up, you see, where he can square it off. [to square it off] like you don’t get it up on something, you chop down there until he get one side square and then he’ll roll it and he’ll chop until he get him a 4x4 for a runner, or timber , or [?]. And uh, we used to…we used to go out in the lake and pull up some, uh, a lot of time after them surveys pass, and stuff, they’d drive them stobs down and to get some lumber to build a camp with he’d pull up some of them 2x2s you know, for…for uh, for studs and things to build with.

JD: The survey markers?

Putt The survey markers. Many of those we had to pull up to get lumber to…

Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 03