Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 04

 

DATE:                        1974

INTERVIEWER:      Jim Delahoussaye

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

COOPERATORS:   Putt Couvillier, Dot Couvillier

 Putt and Dot Couvillier are married. Dot is the daughter of Agnes and Myon Bailey

 JD: the air-cooled and the Lockwoods were two different kinds of motors.  What, uh…what’s the difference between…I thought they were the same kind of motors. 

 Putt:  No, you got to hook up a water pump with it. 

 JD: Oh, so it’s a constant flow from the bayou into the motor and back out again, ok. 

 Putt:  Right.  And days when it would get so cold, the Old Man , when he was out there in the lake, he used to drink that warm water from the exhaust, you see?  They used to have a lil rubber hose, go over the side? He want some water to drink, water too cold overboard, he just take and drink it comin out through the motor…that warm water.

 JD: Well, they had to have something to…What I wanted to ask you about was the roof, on these houseboats, what kind of roof did you have on those things?

 Putt:  They used to put a solid roof with tar paper.  #.  In other words, it was a round roof, it wasn’t a…# a round, flat roof.  A lil gable on it.  #.  They roll that tar paper out on it. 

 Dot: And you’d put gutters around it, and you’d have your drums on your…you had a porch all around the campboat.  You had your drums on the side there.

 Putt: Catch your drinkin water.

 Dot: Catch drinkin water, cooking water.

 JD: Now you had that third room, then…there were two bedrooms and a kitchen.  Now, the kitchen, what did it have in it?  What kind of, what was the kitchen like?

 Putt:   Well, you have a table, and dishpans to wash your dishes in.  And uh, you have a woodstove and a table.  And that was just about it.  And you had to have place for your woodpile back of your stove, to keep all your wood dry. 

 JD: So, you kept your wood inside?

 Dot: Umhm.

 JD: So what, uh, uh, there was no kerosene stove or nothing like that to cook on?  You did all your cookin on a wood stove

 Dot: Right.  Had kerosene lamps. 

 JD: Your kerosene lamps was what you used for light at night, huh?

 Dot: Umhm. 

 JD: fantastic stuff, there ain’t nobody knows this kind of stuff…

 Dot: Dying out.

 Putt:  Jim, I done seen me have to jump overboard many a time, momma get to runnin us around and around that campboat.

Dot:  He was about five years old, jumped overboard. 

JD: To get away from your mother? 

 Dot:  Yeah.

 JD: No wonder you had [to learn] to swim.  It was either that or get a spankin, eh?  Well, you got your spankin anyway when you got back to the boat.

 Putt:  Well, she didn’t mess with us too much.  She used to throw at us!  She’d throw pots [laughs], anything she got in her hand, a pot, a window stick, or, anything.  Podnah, it’s time to take off.  Lot of time the only place you had to run was round and round the campboat.  [laughs].

 JD: But did she lose things by throwing em off the campboat? 

 Putt:  Well, window sticks and stuff, she lost a lot of stuff, but she landed a lot of it! Uh, she had some aggravating chickens, that any time…every time we’d move, she’d turn the chickens loose on the bank.  And look, every time it’s time to move again, you got to get out there and run your chickens down through the woods.  Get em all in a fishcar, you know, and put a fishcar on the porch. 

 JD: And tell me, what’s a fishcar?

 Putt: Well, that’s what we keep out fish [alive in].  We had to haul all that out of the water and put it on the camp.

 JD: Those boxes, those big boxes…you called them a fishcar? 

 Putt: Put chickens in em, yeah.  Put the chickens in em when you move.  And they had to load up everything.  If you had animals or anything, you had to put in on the front. 

 Dot: Your plankboard, [gangplank], like a…

 JD: Your boardwalk to the bank?

 Dot: Yeah.  You slide that on there too.

 Putt: Always used to call that a stageplank.  And I’ll tell you something else she always did.  Like, wash clothes.  We had the old washpot outside? Big black kettle.  She used to have to boil all her water…we had to strain it putting it in there, we had to heat it, and come to the washing machine, strain it when you pour it in the wash machine, and get out there and wash…clean her clothesline wire, pass the rag and wipe it, before she’ll put the first piece of clothes.  And when she inspect that water, you better not have a piece of drug [dirt] in it, ‘cause you have to do it all over again.  She didn’t want to see nuttin in it!

JD: Now, that was the kids, uh, part of the kids duties, the boys duties to see that that water was clean.

 Putt: Yeah.  Had to haul the water, and put it in a drum and put alum in it and settle it.

 JD: Alum? 

 Putt: Yeah.  Settle the water.

 JD: Did you also buy that off of the fishboat?

 Putt: Yeah.  Lil box of alum, you put in that water.  She wanted a certain amount mixed in it. And, other words, that alum had to be right, and that water had to be right. 

JD: I’ll be doggone, alum!  Now, this is bayou water? You takin this right out of the bayou?

 Putt: Out the bayou.  And each time she wash, she empty them drums, and right after she empty them drums, we better be on our way fillin em up.  So they could settle for the next washin.  Get that alum.

 JD: So, you put it in drums to let it settle.  That would get most of the big stuff out of it.  And you still had to strain it all those times? 

 Putt: Still had to strain it.

 JD: Now, you mentioned a washing machine just now.  What in the world was the washing machine?  What…what kind of washing machine?

 Putt: Well, she used to wash on washboards until the Old Man bought her a lil air cooled wash machine.  Run by air cooled.

 JD: You’re kidding!  An air cooled washing machine?

 Putt: Yeah.  You start that lil motor, you see, and it took…it’ll turn one way, but it’ll…you know, it had the belt it’d flip flop, you know?  And uh, it’d work by air cooled.

 JD: You mean it was a gasoline powered washing machine!  And the agitator would work on this…on this motor. I’ll be doggone! 

 Putt:  And for the iron, they used to heat them old iron with the stove, you see, them old flat irons.  The Old Man  bought her a gas iron, that operates with fire. 

 JD: Gas?!

 PUTT:  Yeah, white gas.  They used white gas in it.  You’d pump it up. 

 JD: You mean like a Coleman pressure lantern, the same thing?

 Putt: Yeah.  And you light it, and that’s what…that’s…that’s fashion, you see?

 JD: Are you serious!? 

 Putt: We moved up to that fashion.  And, we had to make sure, when we was fillin that tank with that gas, now, and don’t spill a drop of gas in it.  You know, the whole tank, when you pump it up, and you’d screw it you know, and you open that jet on it, and you put a match there and it would blaze…it had a lil regulator, you set it a low fire or a hot fire.  A beautiful made iron. 

 JD: Well, I’ll be…what was it made out of, this iron?

 Putt: Oh, it was made out of…you know when they had that flat…just like a regular old time iron, had a heavy flat piece on it? 

 JD: Like iron, made out of iron?

 Putt: Yeah.  And it was built up.  It was pretty big, with the lil tank settin on the back…made out of metal? 

 JD: Brass?

 Putt: No.  Tank wasn’t brass, it was, I guess, galvaniz or something.  It was…they had them lil brass jets in it, to set?

 Dot: And she’d iron, Jim, they didn’t have a ringer.  Them shirts, she could iron a white shirt!  It was out of this world. 

 JD: Well, this brings up a whole bunch of ideas.  Now, first of all, she washed…she had to have soap.  Where’d yall get the soap?

 Putt: Well, used to use that Ocatgon soap.

 JD: And you bought that off the fishboat too?

 Putt: Yeah.  They had all of that?

 JD: Well, did you actually buy all your supplies off the fishboat? 

 Putt: Back then, before they started getting them boats in, you know? [boats with engines in them].  In other words, boats was [scarce]…they had a few boats, you know, big boats that they used…like when we was livin across the lake over there, I was…I was very, very small then.  I don’t know, I was born in Charenton, in fact, momma and them was livin across the lake when I was born.  We used to cross to that beach [Charenton].  He used to put us all in the well of a boat like he had…you know he had the well in that boat?  And it was a big bateau, to cross the lake, you couldn’t cross it in a lil one.  And he closed that hatch on us until he’d get us across the lake.  He put blankets and stuff in there, quilts, just like… make it like a lil house in there.  And they’d close the well [hatch covers] down to where, you know, big waves, when they’d hit that well it would just drain offn the boat.  It wouldn’t come in the well.  [otherwise] it would get us all wet.  [laughs]

 Putt:  Oscar Lange used to have a…Jim…Oscar Lange used to have a…a fish truck, would come out here once a week when the fishboats quit.  And pick… …when he start drivin a…a truck, he used to be just like them trucks, Hayes.  He’d come once a week…[you would] keep your fish live all week.  And then when he come, well…sometime twice a week.  It all depend on we ain’t had no road back here, you see?  We had nothin but a dirt road plumb out to that gravel road, out…uh…

 JD: By the sugarmill?

 Putt: By the sugarmill.  It was dirt road.  And when he could get back here, he’d come pick up the fish. By truck

 JD: What was that, an old model T truck?

 Putt: No, he had a old panel truck.  One of them panel trucks? Start comin out, you know?  Like, like them coffee man…?  But it was old, old time panel trucks, you know?

 JD: But when yall had to keep those fish as much as a week at a time, didn’t those fish lose weight in those boxes?

 Putt: Well, fish don’t…fish don’t go hungry in them fishbox.  They feed on stuff out the water, they got all kind…like minnas and swimps and perch hang around and… 

 JD: And you could keep several hundred pounds of fish in those boxes?

 Putt:  Well, it all depend on how big the box is.  The bigger your box, the more fish you can keep, but three or four hundred pound of fish’ll hold good in a box.

 JD: is that right?! 

 Dot:  I can remember, Daddy [Myon] had built a big crib, and right in the middle he had three big fish box that would fit right into that…the crib. 

 JD: What you mean by a “crib”?

 Dot:  It was nothin but, like, logs you know?  And he built like, put planks on it.  Well, we used to play on there.  And right in the middle he had three big fish cars, where he’d keep his fish.

 Putt:  You used to have to watch the coons and stuff, cause a lot of times coons would get on there and try to eat your fish. 

 Dot:  And during high water you couldn’t get on the bank to play, and that’s where we’d play on the crib. 

 JD: A crib, you call that.  You put the fish cars on the crib.  I’ll be doggone. 

 Dot:  Now, when we was across the lake [Blaise's Canal] he had all kind of trees planted.  We had grapefruit trees, and orange trees, and fig trees, even a camphor tree. 

 JD: In those days you didn’t get the flood like you get now?

 Dot:  Uhuh.  It was wide open out there, you see, then. 

 JD: You said something about high water where you couldn’t get on the bank to play, uh…

 Dot:  Well, you see, you might have a lil levee, but it wasn’t much of a lil levee.  And the back was all flooded [behind the natural bayou bank levee].

 JD: But those trees were planted on that levee?

 Dot:  Yeah.

 Putt:  Well, we used to eat many a spoons full of that coal oil and sugar.  Momma use to…that’s the best thing in the world for cough.

 Dot:  Right.

 JD: Coal oil and sugar?!

 Putt: You take a teaspoon of sugar and drop some coal oil in it, and take that.  It’ll stop you coughin. .  And swamp lily roots, good for fever.

 JD: Swamp roots?

 Dot:  Umhm.

 Putt: Still good for fever. 

 JD: I want to see some of that stuff, nobody showed me any of that stuff.

 Dot:  It’s hard to find.  He [Myon] used to just walk out there…

 Putt:   Well, right over the levee they got all kinds when the water’s low.  You seen them plants, uh, come in where you rake crawfish?  They got them big wide leaves on em.

 JD: Kind of arrow pointed leaves?

 Putt: Uh?  Yeah, they got lil jernts on em, you use the roots.  And you soak em, or make a ring…

 Dot: And put it around the neck… 

 Putt: Around the neck… nine jernts, you see…and uh, let em drink that water from that.  It’s just like a philter [?], it’s cool, it tastes cool.

 JD: That’s just like yall were talking about putting a alligator tooth around somebody’s neck when a baby is teething. 

 Putt: Uh, these roots too, is good for when a baby’s teething.  It draws the fever.

 Dot: It’ll get black, and it’ll get hard, hard, hard [the root tied around the neck].  That fever cause that root to do that.  And for teething, you give em a lil bit of that water, it’s cool, cool. 

 JD: What does it taste like?  I mean, you know there’s something like Vicks Vaporub and stuff like that, or something like that?  If you…anything that’s mentholated…

 Dot: Well, mostly it’s like a rainwater.  They got no [strong] taste to it, but to tell you what it tastes like, Jim, I couldn’t tell you.  It’s just…it got a lil taste to it.

 Putt: When you swallow it, it’s cool. 

 JD: Kind of like a Salem cigarette, instead of a regular cigarette, cool like that?

 Dot: Just about.  

 Putt: They used to have all them bad weathers, like we havin today? [hurricanes] Everybody tie they camp down.  If it come at night, everybody pile up in the strongest camp.  Everybody’d move in, everybody get in the strongest camp. 

 JD: You mean for like these big storms?  Like hurricanes?  Well, of course in those days you didn’t know when a hurricane was comin, did you?

 Dot:  No, just thought it was bad weather.

 Putt: They just thought it was bad weather, you see, they could hear them radios.  Them radios uses them batries, them old big, long batries, that goes up back of them radios. [batteries]

 JD: Now, you had radios back from the time you could first remember?

 Putt: Yeah.  We had an old radio, used to listen at…Lucy [I Love Lucy].

 Dot: At night. 

 JD: You always had a radio on the houseboat, eh?

 Putt: Yeah.

 JD: Was that your main means of doin something at night?

 Dot: That was our entertainment.  We all…after supper, we would finish our work?  We would all sit around and Daddy turn that radio on.  And you don’t make a sound or you miss something.  And that was our family’s entertainment.

 JD: The radio at night, huh?

 Dot: The radio at night.  Or, we’d all leave, and we’d go visit, see?  We’d stay until bedtime.  Drink coffee, and they’d talk, you know, and the kids would play.  And then we’d come back home, from camp to camp.  Yeah, more than people visit today.

Putt: And you know you used to could see just as good with them uh, them lamplights [kerosene lamps]…[once] your eyes got adjusted to em?...as a electric light.  I know they was dim, but your eyes got adjusted to em, you could see just as good, you know? 

 JD: But they were better lamps in those days too, they had reflectors on em, didn’t they?  Like that “tin plate” they used to put behind em? 

 Dot: Well, some we had like that, but not all of em.  We used to have just regular coal oil lamps.  We started school, we did our homework like that.

 Putt: You ever seen a lamp with a brass bottom on it? 

 JD: Uhhh, once, I think, a long time ago.

 Putt: We got one.

 JD: Now, you say when yall started to go to school…were you both up on the bank by the time you started goin to school? 

 Putt: No, Momma and them was livin in the canal.  You see that lil levee they got?  Well, they had built that up, to the levee [big], with uh, sacks of sand…for the kids to cross. 

 JD: You know where that big drum is out there right now?  That lil levee?

 Dot: Yeah.

 JD: They had to build it for the kids cross?

 Dot: And you know where that cut…you know where that current is strong between that lil levee and the  [big] levee?  #.  Well, they had built that levee themselves there.  So, we could cross.

 Putt: They used to have…they used to have a plank walk across it.

 JD: Well, how did you get from there to school, if it was raining?

 Putt: Walk.  We had to walk.  [they walked from the Myette Pt. levee to the road at bayou Teche to meet the bus]

 JD: Walk where?

 Dot:  Daddy had…what, uh…’39?

 Putt:  Yeah, but that ’39 Ford, but uh, they used to have a railroad in the middle of the field out here.  Brother and them, I was too young to go to school, they used to have to walk out yonder to where the road crosses.  Where the old hay barn used to be out there.

 JD: Well, that’s about what?  Two miles, three miles?

 Putt: About three miles.  They used to have a old railroad boxcar out there in the field with a railroad [tracks].  We used to get behind that thing and push that boxcar and jump on it and ride.  #.  And once you get one of em started rollin it goes a good ways, yeah?  #.  You get enough kids behind that thing pushin on it and jump on that thing and ride a long ways on it. 

 JD: And nobody got smashed, I bet.

 Putt: Uhuh. We was too bad to get smashed back then. [laughs]

 Dot: Used to walk…but would put us off at the end down there, we’d head home walkin.

 JD: Well, how about those people now…at this time I imagine…at this time had everybody moved out [of] the swamp?  Was everybody near the bank with their houseboat by then?

 Dot: Uhuh.  No. 

 JD: What did those kids do that were out there?  They just didn’t go to school?

 Dot: Just didn’t go to school.  Well, they did have a school on Hog Island.  Those that was, uh, around there, they’d go to school.  Edward [Couvillier] did go, about three years. 

 Putt: They used to have a school boat.

 Dot: Yeah, and…

 JD: A school boat, like a school bus?

 Dot: Yeah.

 JD: It would go to all the camps and pick up the kids?

 Putt: I don’t remember how, other words, I wasn’t old enough, but Edward and all of em know…Myon and them know how that…how that worked.  But Edward went to school in Hog Island, up there. 

 Dot: The school is still there, the school building is still there. 

 JD: On the old island?  And there’s nobody livin there now? 

 Putt: They made a camp out of it. 

 Dot: They also had a hospital out there. 

 JD: No kidding!  Were there more people livin up there than there were down here?  There must have been if there was a school and a hospital there?

 Dot: Must be so.

 Putt: Yeah, Abner [Couvillier] and all of em used to live there.  Abner used to live on the bank.  At Hog Island, on Keelboat [Pass].

 JD: I wonder why?  Was there better fishing up there at that time? 

 Putt: Well, they had more land and more bank, and they had, you know, in other words, better ground, to live on.  A lil higher ground, you see?

 Dot: Yeah.  And just a way of life, you see.

 Putt: And people move around according to the fish, too.  Sometime if they live in a bad area, fishin bad, well, they hook on to their camps and go where they can find fish. 

 Dot: They move with the fish.

JD: Well, l… then there must have been…they must have been…if they had all that settlement up there though, there must have been pretty good, uh, pretty good fishing grounds up there to fish from.  And there must have been moss picking…lot of moss picking up there too, I guess? 

 Dot:  Fishin, moss pickin, about everything.

 Putt:   You know…back then, Jim, you hardly ever see one strayin away too far from the other one.  They move…they nearly all get together and #...all get together and they all…just like migratin, you know? 

 JD: Well, now, who [of the camp owners] made that decision?  Now you see…

 Putt: They get together, discuss it, the problems they havin, and uh, things like that…

 Dot: The women didn’t have no…much sayso in them times.  When the men got ready to leave, you just got ready, and you left. 

 JD: Of course the nice thing about that was your house never got moved.  Your house was always the same.  It was right there, you piled everything on it and you take off.  And when you got ready to stop and eat lunch, well, you’re set up just like always.  Right there just like you usually were.  I tend to think that’s a pretty good way to do things. [laughs].  Kind of like livin in a trailer today, I guess.  That’s fascinating, that is really fascinating. 

 [some talk about domestic chores]

 JD: Well, Putt, when you were livin on that houseboat all that time, and everything, what’s your estimate of how long one of those barges would last?  That those houseboats were built on?

 Putt: Jim, I tell you, the Old Man  built one…I don’t remember if he had built or bought the barge…pretty sure he built the barge…back in the wintertime of uh, around 1940, look like to me.  And uh, when it finally got bad enough for us to move back here and move on the bank, we was livin on Oaklawn out here, right back of the sugarmill, in the Bayou Teche.  And uh, that was when I was 14 years old, so…about 14, 15 years old…that had to be…that must have been in 19 uh…about 1949, something like that, yeah, 1949.

 JD: You say he built the barge in 1940, somewhere around there, and it finally wore out about 1949.

 Putt: Yeah.  well, I don’t…you see, once you get one of them things done, I don’t know if you ever pulled it up, in other words done any paintin to it, cause a houseboat was your only source of livin.  And it’s hard to try to pull one up and put it on the bank…

 JD: You were livin in it!

 Putt: Pull it up on the bank, and it cracks open.  Cypress will bust open, you see?  Open up by the sun, and it’s hard to reswell one of em.  And, uh, when they open like that it’s hard to reswell…you can’t pull em up too often.

 JD: Would you say, then, the life of a barge was somewhere around 10 years, in your experience, you think?

 Putt: Well, that’s according to the barge I know of.  He could have bought that barge, but I’m pretty sure he built it.  I remember him building the house on it, in the wintertime.  The barge is in the water.  [he’s not sure] if he built the barge or where he got the barge from. #.  We was livin right here in the canal [Myon’s Canal] when he built that…that campboat…he built.

 JD: Why do you suppose people moved, Putt, from the…from the…from the swamp…from livin on houseboats?  Why did they move from houseboats onto the bank?

 Putt: Well, due to the fact that lumber, in other words, it’s hard to get lumber…well, specially now…you couldn’t get no…you can’t buy good cypress, it’s all been destroyed. And, other words, it’s been cut.  You can’t find no lasting lumber to build a houseboat with.  You need boards, if you was to buy em it cost so much you couldn’t afford it.

 JD: It was even like that back then, when yall started to move back [onto the levee]?

 Putt: Back then they used to buy their lumber, I guess, from rough sawmills.  You know?  Most of it.  Then they could get out there and [?] the lumber with a axe.  And, you know, pick up lumber…[?]

 JD: Well, you say then you think that the reason people moved off of houseboats was that they couldn’t get the lumber to build the houseboats anymore.  But I want to ask you a question, how much of it do you think was due to the possibility of getting electricity, and uh, and living on land, in communities…?

 Putt: Very little, uh, Jim.  Cause when we moved back here, we didn’t know when we pulled over, we didn’t know if we was gone get electricity or not.  Until we tried it. 

 JD: So, you think the main reason that people moved off of houseboats was not being able to get the wood to build the barges out of anymore. 

 Putt: Well, that was one of the facts.  I mean, you couldn’t find no more good lumber. 

 JD: And that was around 1950?

 Putt: Cause I know…yeah…I know doggoned good and well if my daddy could have had a good campboat [with] a good hurl, we never put that…

JD: A good what?

 Putt:  A good hurl.

 JD: What’s that?

 Putt: We called it a hurl, a barge.  They called it a hurl, a campboat hurl.  And uh, if he’d a had one of those, we’d a never moved on the bank. 

 JD: Well, Dot, uh, let me get your opinion of that.  Uh, I asked Putt the question…when people finally did move off the houseboats onto the bank, what his opinion was as to why they did that.  Why they moved off the houseboat onto the bank.  What do you think is the primary reason?

 Dot: I think maybe it was, uh, to try something better, maybe, you know a better way of life.

 JD: That’s what I asked Putt, and Putt said he didn’t think that was it.  He said he thought that his daddy, if he could have got the wood, would have stayed livin on a houseboat. 

 Dot: Well, he was that type.  He most probly would of. 

 JD: But you think some people did move off the boats…?

 Dot: I guess they saw, maybe, a better way of livin.  Cause, we were like gypsies.  You know?  Just movin from one place to the other.  #.

 JD: And then, I guess, when yall started goin to school…everybody started goin to school…

 Dot: Well that, that was the main reason, is, you know, sendin us to school.  Cause, as it was, Alberta was eight years old when she started.  Milton and Lena Mae didn’t have no schoolin.

 JD: Are they the oldest?  Were they the oldest?

 Dot: Yeah, they were the oldest.  And they didn’t get any school. 

 Putt: Jim, I believe the Old Man  had one of the first campboats hooked up with electricity, on the water.

JD: He ran a line to the boat, eh?

 Putt: He tied into a line, in other words, from the bank to the campboat. But, when we got away from there [where?], we left that and come here we was livin back in lamplight.  We ain’t had no electricity back here when we pulled over. #. 

 JD: Well, Dot, what uh…Now you were too young to really know what decisions were made, why those decisions were made, but, you really think that some of these people thought they saw things better if they were livin in one place.  What kind of advantages do you think they were lookin for?  What kind of things…new things…better things?

 Dot: Well, I think, it’s education for one thing, for the children.  #.  Because they didn’t have no education whatsoever.  What they learned, they learned on they own. And uh, maybe it was a closer way to get the, you know, what they needed.

 JD: Well, I can’t see that it would be closer to get to where they needed if they had the fishboats runnin all the time with everything they needed right at their doorstep.   That’s almost like havin a grocery store come right to your house. 

 Putt: Yeah, but they didn’t come as often as you would go to the store.

 JD: What’d they come? Once a week or something like that? 

 Putt: Sometimes…it all depend on the weather, a lot of times…due to the weather.

 JD: Yeah.  Uh, education, you think was the main thing, eh? 

 Dot: Or, maybe they got the age where they wanted to settle in one place, you know?  People do get like that. 

 JD: Umhm.  Well now, this is important then.  Their parents, OK?  Myon and Agnes’s parents, and your parents [Putt], did they live on houseboats all their lives?  Your parents parents?  Your daddy’s parents?  Your grandfather and your grandmother?

 Putt: Oh, uh, my…my…I never did knew my momma’s…she come from Europe [his grandmother].  My…in other words, my grandpa on my momma’s side come from Europe. 

 JD: Your grandfather on you mother’s side came from Europe?

 Putt: Yeah.

 JD: What part of Europe, do you know?

 Putt: I don’t know. #.  And uh, far as my grandpa on my daddy side, well, I never did know my grandma, my real grandma.  But my step grandma, well, they lived on houseboats for a long time till they moved on the bank out here.  And I bought they house. 

 JD: But…but for their lifetime, they lived on houseboats as far as you know, all their lives, until they move on the bank about the same time yall did? 

 Putt: Well, they moved on the bank before we did.  I can’t recall, you know, I wasn’t…wasn’t old enough to know.

 JD: Yeah, what I’m tryin to say…what I’m tryin to ask is really, uh, Myon and Agnes and your momma and daddy, they lived on houseboats most of their lives?

 Putt: Yeah.  The Old Man  and them lived on houseboats till I was 14 years old, like I told you, back that date…moved over the levee here.

 JD: Yeah.  But, what I was getting at was your grandparents.  Uh, now you say that one of em came from Europe, OK.  But I was wondering how different the life of your grandparents were, to the life of your parents.  In other words, did they spend that much time on houseboats too? 

 Putt: Ah, I couldn’t tell you.

 JD: Dot?  You got any idea?

 Dot: uh, my daddy’s momma, they were livin in Morgan City, on land [Fourmile Bayou, actually].  They wasn’t in a houseboat. 

 Putt: In other words, that’s Edward’s daddy, Jim, he could tell you all about how long they lived on houseboats.

 JD: Edward’s daddy.  Edward’s daddy was who?

 Putt: My grandpa. 

 JD: Oh, is that right?

 Putt: He would know all that.  He’s [Edward] my uncle and my brother-in-law.  Reason why is we married two sisters. 

 JD: Well, there’s a big span of years between you and Lena Mae [Edward’s wife, and Dot’s sister]. 

 Dot: Lena Mae was the first one, you see, and I was the fourth.  #.  As far as, uh, my ancestors, Momma’s people come from France.  They left a fortune back there.  They was havin some kind of revolution or something and they had to leave…France.  #.  That was, uh, momma’s great grandparents. 

 JD: Your mother’s great grandparents, Agnes’ great grandparents.  Great grandparents!  They came from France at the same time mine did, and mine were also…that was the French Revolution.  They either left or they got their heads cut off. 

 Dot: They had a fortune there.  #.  They had to leave all that and that’s when most of em hid the swamp.

 JD: Now, did they come to New Orleans…?  Oh, you probly don’t know much about their history, eh?

 Dot: No, I don’t. 

 JD: You think your momma knows much about their history?

 Dot:  Very little.  But what I’m telling you is what she told me.  #.  Now, she might, she might know.  And daddy, uh, originally I believe was [from] Spain, you know, far back. 

 JD: Is that right?  That’s where your Spanish blood comes from?  And I wonder about the name Bailey?  That’s English, man, that’s just straight English, or Scotch?  One way or the other, it’s just English.  Somewhere along, he just picked that up.

 Putt: I know back…back in the olden days, the Old Man  set down and tell us that…

 Dot: Oh, he could tell you some stories?

 JD: Who?

 Putt: My daddy.   You know the law [was not] strict.  They used to kill somebody…they’d go up there and come to the parish jail, you know, and…couple days, get all that straight and go on back home.  Somebody mess with you, they’d kill you right now! 

 JD: And go…and get off, of course?

 Putt: They used to sit down up there where Miss Myrtle and thems at, and shoot at one another across the channel.  Get mad at one another, they’d open season!

 Dot: Yeah, open fire, podnuh!

 Putt: They start shootin at one another. 

 JD: Who?  Your daddy’s people? 

 Putt: No, the Burnses. 

 JD: No, but I mean of your daddy’s generation?

 Putt: Yeah, he done got…

 Dot: Wasn’t it your uncle, Clifton…

 Putt: Yeah, he got killed.

 Dot: Killed him and left him in his boat. 

 JD: Just because of a family argument? 

 Dot: Well, I don’t know what it was about, but…shot him and left him in the boat. 

 JD: Now, let’s get me straight on what years that is, now…

 Putt: That was back when the Old Man  was a boy. 

 JD: That’s what I’m talking about…just in general.

 Putt: That was about in…he was born in 1910 [actually 1902].  The way he talk about…this here would be about 1918, or something like that, you see?  #.

 JD: 1915 to 1920, somewhere in there.