Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 37

DATE:                        January 4, 1996 

INTERVIEWER:      Jim Delahoussaye

LOCATIONS:           At Ida Daigle’s house at Oxford Loop, Oxford, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana

COOPERATORS:   Ida Sauce Daigle

 Continued from Chapter 36

 JD:      You make the corn…the…the..

 Ida:     On the hill, the corn, the…the potatoes, and the beans and every…everything, on that big…it was a big wide, wide, levee you see.

 JD:      And, uh, y’all must have stayed in one place a long time?

 Ida:     Oh God, yeah.  I stayed till…you know when we…when we part [left]?  After my daddy died.  Well, then, we couldn’t stay there no more.  Myon and them left, Momma and them left…and I was there by myself, Just me and Russell and Jesse.  And I stayed there a long time, and then they all went to Morgan City, then we left from there, we went to…

 JD:      Now wait, let me get straight on that, it’s important to me.  Y’all were all living on a…on Blaise's Canal and then your daddy died. And then Myon and them left first?  They went to Morgan City?

 Ida:     Yah. We stayed there a long time after he died.

 JD:      A long time?  Like years?

 Ida:     Yah.  Maybe a couple, three years.  But then Myon wanted to leave, and the boys wanted to leave.  So, they all left.  Me and Jesse stayed.  We had a lil house there, you see? 

 JD:      On the bank?

 Ida:     Yah.  On the bank.  And I had fig…we had fig trees, we had peach trees and all planted.  I had…in front of there from the property here where the camp was, I had flowers planted.

 JD:      So y’all moved off of the campboat onto the bank?  On to land?

 Ida:     No, I didn’t have no campboat when I got married.  No, I moved in that lil house…[when] I got married.

 JD:      Jesse built that?

 Ida:     Yah.  Jesse and, uh, his daddy build that.  And uh, Momma and them was livin in the campboat, you see.  And Agnes and them was.  So, but I didn’t have no campboat, me.  I lived in that lil house, as long as I lived at the point [Blue Point]. 

 JD:      How many years would you say that was, just so…just to guess?

 Ida:     Just to guess…let’s say Russell was four years old when I left…when I left.

 JD:      When you left the canal [Blaise's Canal]?

 Ida:     When we left the canal.  But Momma and them had left before us, you see.  But Russell was four years old when I moved into a lil camp [boat].  We was gone floatin…we was gone floatin timbers above…You know uncle [?] Mayon?  You never knew him?  You never knew about him?

 JD:      What was his name?

 Ida:     Mire Mayon.  That was my momma’s uncle.   That was my great uncle. 

 JD:      What was his name?

 Ida:     Uh, Mire.  Mire Mayon.  Well, he floated to [for] Mire Mayon every year for a couple, three years.

 JD:      So, he floated.  Now what you mean by you say he “floated

 Ida:     That…cut trees down and float em in the water.   Make booms with it, you know, so the boats could take em. 

 JD:      So that was…you saying…

 Ida:     That was my…my momma’s uncle…that was my grandpa Claiborne’s brother. 

 JD:      Mire Mayon.  And uh, and you and Jesse left the canal…

 Ida:     Yeah, to go float with him. 

 JD:      Where’d y’all get the lil houseboat y’all had to do that?

 Ida:     We had a…it was a big, great big bateau, like, you know?  Had a floor in there, and well fixed.  And we moved the stuff…I couldn’t bring all my stuff. But I moved what I could to camp, like, you see.  And we stayed up there, I guess, about three or four months. 

 JD:      Where did y’all go to do that? 

 Ida:     Uh, at uh, the slough where was…was named Gay’s Slough.  That was way over there by Bayou Sorrel.  Way up there.

 JD:      And y’all cut timber up there and floated it out of the swamp?

 Ida:     Yah, floated it out the swamp.

 JD:      And, Mire…Mire Mayon was somebody that had a contract to do that? 

 Ida:     He had a contract.  Yeah, he contract for another company.  And, Jesse worked for him, years and years before…

 JD:      Did they use pullboats and everything?

 Ida:     No, no, they used to cut that with saws.  Yeah, you know, they’d chop it  with an ax,  chop like that, make an [?], and then you take the saw and saw it, and the tree would go down.

 JD:      So, you’d chop it with an ax first to make a place for the saw, and then you cut it down with the saw.

 Ida:     Yah…used to say undercut.  And they’d do it with the saw.  And Jesse worked for years, and I think…

 JD:      So y’all stayed up there for three or four months the first time?

 Ida:     Oh yeah, as long at the water was high enough so they could take [float] timbers out of the woods.

 JD:      That’s what was…that’s what made the difference, was the water?

 Ida:     Yah.  And I used to fish.  [laughs]

 JD:      You fished while he was doing that? 

 Ida:     I used to fish.   Mertile Theriot was our man that used to pass and bring us our groceries…

 JD:      The fishboat?  Mertile Theriot. 

 Ida:     And buy the fish. 

 JD:      From Morgan City?

 Ida:     Yah.  And he died not too long ago, he was living in Calumet there.

 JD:      So y’all uh, so he stayed up there and…and floated timber for three or four months and then y’all came back?

 Ida:     Yah, we come back, we was by ourself.  We stopped at the canal [Blaise's Canal] but it was so lonesome without all of them there.  And Jesse started fishin, and I couldn’t go because, you know, I didn’t want to leave things, you know, by itself to go fishing.  And, Jesse say “Well, you stay and watch things [them?]”.  And I stay by myself in that house all day long, just not a soul around.  Nothing but the flies and the mosquitoes.

 JD:      And Russell? 

 Ida:     And Russell.  But I had to have Russell under a mosquito bar all the time.  And mosquitoes was bad..  And I couldn’t…you know, they’d bite him and he’d…gets all swolled up, so…

 JD:      He was four years old?

 Ida:     He was four years old.  And he’d play under there, too.

 JD:      He’d play under the mosquito bar?

 Ida:     Yah.  You don’t think, now, I’d like to see a lil kid four years old and stick him under the…or stick him in a tub with a mosquito bar on him!  See how long it takes…

 JD:      And that’s what y’all did? 

 Ida:     And that’s what he did.

 JD:      Put him in a tub?  With a mosquito bar over it?

 Ida:     Yah.  You see, because the tub was big, and you could tuck the mosquito bar all the way around.

 JD:      Big, like a number 3 tub?

 Ida:     Yah. 

 JD:      And you’d hang it on something [the bar]?

 Ida:     Yah.  I’d hang it on something.  So, the mosquitoes wouldn’t eat him.

 JD:      How about at night Agnes [wrong name, she is Ida]…I’m sorry…

 Ida:     At night we had mosquito bars on our bed.  Like a screen, you know, over your bed?  And then we’d spray good in there and then we’d all get in there.

 JD:      What would you spray with? 

 Ida:     …that Black Flag.  You can’t get it no more, but I wish I could. 

 JD:      It was good, huh?

 Ida:     Yah, it was good.

 JD:      It would kill all the mosquitoes it would get…it would touch?

 Ida:     Yah.  It would kill all the mosquitoes in there.  They didn’t have none, we’d go to bed and sleep.  But, you could sleep with your windows open, with your doors open,  nuttin would worry you.  But go do that now!  And it wasn’t hot.

 JD:      Well, you would stay at the camp while Jesse was out fishing because y’all were afraid somebody would steal something?

 Ida:     Well, yeah, and that’s what they do.  You see, Jesse build a set of gunnels, to build a campboat, them thing was that thick [4 inches] and around 40 feet long.  And, we had that there.  And Momma and them left

JD:      You talking about the gunnels for a…for a barge for…how high were they?

 Ida:     Yah, on both sides…they were about like this…

 JD:      About 30 inches?   Big board?  How big are the boards?

 Ida:     Oh, the boards…the boards must have been about that wide.

 JD:      Well, it wasn’t just one board from the bottom to the top, eh?

 Ida:     No no…uh, Yeah!  It was about this high, the board.

 JD:      One board?   Forty feet long? 

 Ida:     I had…I had…I had two like that, we had two.  [four inches thick, 30 inches high and 40 feet long].  One for each side, you know?  To build a barge.

 JD:      [whistles] One piece of wood for each side! 

 Ida:     Yah, it took a cypress Jim, that…the cypress was a big as this table, here.

 JD:      About four feet across.

 Ida:     And he worked that cypress.  And I helped him and we made us a set of gunnels.

 JD:      Yall planed that by hand?!  Yall…

 Ida:     He planed that by hand, with a, with a ax.  Yeah, and to split it, you know them big thing…that you bore hole with?

 JD:      An auger, yeah.

 Ida:     Yah, well that’s what he had.  Every six inches, he bored a hole. 

 JD:      So, he was…so, let me understand, he planed it so it was about six inches wide, like six or eight inches wide…

 Ida:     Yah, it was about, it was wider than that…

 JD:      About a foot wide? 

 Ida:     Yah, about like that.  Because you see, by the time he split it,  and then take the…the rough part off…

 JD:      Umhm.  So, it started, like 12 inches thick, 40 feet long, and he split that down the middle with an auger.

 Ida:     He split that down the middle.  And he made a set of gunnels for it, and we build the campboat and that campboat was just as straight on there, like a bow and arrow, just as straight…you ought to seen that.  And he built…and they build the campboat…

 JD:      How about the bottom, what did he do for the bottom?

 Ida:     The bottom, we had some lumber sawed. We…well…he was floatin, you know.  Uncle Mire used to give him all the short pieces.

 JD:      Uncle Mire…Mire Mayon?

 Ida:     Mire Mayon.  And give him the short pieces…you know… we wanted to build it 14, 14 by 38 [feet].  And, he give him all the short pieces and we had…we hung that…we build the barge first.   We build the barge.  Then he hung those pieces on the side, you know, just so they wouldn’t turn over the barge.  And then he put his boat…and it was a whole week before we could get to the saw… the mill… with it. OK, him and Monug and Tootsie had come.  OK, you see that campboat Neg got?  That’s it!  That house?  That’s the lumber they had sawed. They build the barge with it, and they build the cabin.  The cabin [is] cypress, cypress cabin.  And I had one too, like that.   But I traded mine to Uncle Joe.

 JD:      So, they had…two…two people were building a campboat at the same time [?]. 

 Ida:     Yah, at the same time. 

 JD:      So, let me see if I understand.  Yall made the gunnels.  Jesse made the gunnels for the barge, and then he needed the wood to finish off everything, so…

 Ida:     Yeah, the bottom…

 JD:      The bottom…

 Ida:     Yeah, the 2 x 8, they put the 2 x 8 and the 2 x 6s for the cross piece on there.

 JD:      For the frame, to build inside?

 Ida:     Yeah.  And then the…the 8 x 8 for the length.  They’d put, in other words…I’d have paper I could show you. 

 JD:      [getting paper and a pencil] Wait…wait…wait…I got some paper here.

 Ida:     Draw a barge.  You got to have crosspieces on the bottom.  Now, uh, you gotta have pieces like this.

 JD:      Go from front to back.

 Ida:     Yah.  I shoulda made it square but I didn’t.  But it’s just to show you.  And then you put a cabin.  This is the porch.  It’s not straight.  It’s not straight.  The porch.  And you put porches all the way around.  This is the door, right here, to go in.  On both ends.  And then this is windows.

 JD:      Usually three windows?

 Ida:     That’s all we’d put on the front of the…this here, there, this is gone be the…the…the peak.  That’s the peak, this is the tin, goes there.  Yah, put tin on the roof.   I can draw a pretty one.  I can draw that, look just like the campboat I had.  [laughs].  I should a drawed good if you gone take that and show it to somebody.

 JD:      No, I’m gone fix it up if I have to.

 Ida:     Yah.  Because that’s the way they used to build campboat.

 JD:      So…so, y’all took the barge to the…you were telling me y’all took the wood to the sawmill though…

 Ida:     Listen, we took the…the trees to the sawmill, not the gunnels.  Jesse made the gunnels, like this [thick].  And I helped him, whatever bumps they had, I plane it for him.

 JD:      Now, why didn’t he take the trees for the gunnels to the sawmill and cut em?

 Ida:     Because it was too big, the sawmill couldn’t handle it.  It was too big, you see?  He cut all the sap [wood] off.  Just the red wood left.  And that camp is still in The Pit, over there.

 JD:      Is it?  Is it really?

 Ida:     The barge is.  Because we sold the barge.  We didn’t sell the…we traded the barge for a bunch of cattles.  OK, builded that.  Jesse had the lumber sawed for the cabin.  The lumber sawed, almost everything but the window facings.  Dat’s all we had to buy, and the windows.  And it was a three room camp.  And so, after we got it all done, then we moved out, us too.

 JD:      You moved…you moved into…into the houseboat, the campboat?

 Ida:     I moved into the campboat and then we took off too.  And Momma was mad because we…I say “Y’all left me by myself”.  I say, y’all didn’t realize that I was gonna be by myself?. I say y’all left, and I say Jesse say there wasn’t no way I could keep staying by myself all the time.  So, and then we left. We went tied way over there in Big Pigeon, next to a friend we had.  And we stayed there a long, long time.  And then when they [the family] come back [to Blaise's Canal], they was huntin for us all over.  Then Momma sent Monug to try to find us.  And then they come back.  We didn’t stay no time there, we all left, we all got scattered.  Every one of us got scattered. 

 [short break]

 JD:      You were sayin, and I didn’t quite get to understand…y’all left…y’all left the canal…

 Ida:     We left the canal.  We went to Big Pigeon and then from Big Pigeon we went on the Boutte.  All the way back down.  We went to, the last part, just before you turn in the lil bayou to go and take the Morgan City Bay, you know?  Six Mile Lake.  And uh, we stayed there for the longest, until the water start comin up, and when the water start comin up we didn’t have no bank.  So, we went in Lil Bayou Long, way back there, they had a levee.  And, we stayed in Lil Bayou Long until the water took the hill [covered the bank].  Then we come back…

 JD:      There was more bank on Little Bayou Long than there was Bayou Boutte in high water?

 Ida:     They didn’t have no more at all on Bayou Boutte.  Then we went back on the Boutte and met my uncle…

 JD:      After the water went down?

 Ida:     No.  The water was high.  And then we went over there and my uncle was there.  Alvin Mayon, the one we had [been with] a while ago, there.  And my cousin was there, so we tied all the camps together. And we fixed so we could go to the camps, you know, one to the other.  And we stayed up there until Leroy was four months old.

 JD:      And how long was that?  You think.

 Ida:     Well, I guess, he’s born in February the sixth, and we stayed in there until way after…almost to August before the water went down.  And, uh ok, so we stayed there and then Momma was worried to death, her, you know how Momma is.  To see that we would stay that long away from her. 

 JD       And she was…by this time she was in Myon’s Canal?  Is that where they were?

 Ida:     No, no, they was on Lil Bayou Long too. But they were [?] than us.

 JD:      Myon and Agnes were on Little Bayou Long too? 

 Ida:     Yah.  They’d follow Momma, them. 

 JD:      They followed together, the two boats?

 Ida:     Yeah.  So, OK…

 JD:      Preston was with your momma?

 Ida:     Yeah.  Preston and Neg and Robert.   The three stayed with Momma after [Blaise] died, and Yank.  Anyway, Momma was worried, so she sent Monug to see, but we still didn’t have no bank.  But the hill where they was, the hill was comin up you see, coming out the water.  So, we went over there for a while.

 JD:      Back to Little Bayou Long?

 Ida:     Back to Bayou Long for a while.  Then Jesse, him, he wanted to come back to Blue Point, he could taste it.  He say “Tomorrow we takin a ride”, he say “We gone live over there”.  And we had...we just had one of them two horse Lockwood boats?  So, we got in there.  I brought some lunches, and I brought some coats, and I brought umbrellas, and things in case it would rain.  And the hill was up!   The hill was out.  Well, that satisfied him, his heart.  We went back over there...Jesse say “I’m leavin in the mornin, me”.  Ok, we come back to the…to Blue Point Canal [Blaise's Canal], me and Jesse with our campboat,  [laughs at what followed] About a week after, you could see the campboats comin in the lake!.   Momma and them and all them was comin back.  So then, we stayed there for a long time, but they didn’t have nothin.  All our fig trees, all our peach trees there had died in the water. 

 JD:      Why?  The water?

 Ida:     The water killed em. 

 JD:      The water was comin up higher and higher? 

 Ida:     Higher than that hill [bank].  It was a high, high water.  So, Myon and them left.  They left, we stayed over there, us.  Myon and them left and crossed the lake over here.

 JD:      They come to Myette Pt.

 Ida:     Myette Pt.  So then, uh, Jesse say “I don’t want to go over there”.  Furthermore, they ain’t no place for us to put our camp. 

 JD:      In the canal over there?

 Ida:     Myon was up at the front.  He had Momma’s camp tied right along…right to his.  So, Jesse…we went and visit.  And Jesse told him “If I could pass my camp in the back” he say “ I…I’d come over here with y’all”.  But he [Myon] say “You can’t, you can’t”.  And don’t tell me, he could have moved those camps and let us pass, and then put his camp right like it was, he didn’t want.  So, Jesse…we went back, we went back home.  [other interviews tend to suggest that the water was too shallow behind Myon’s camp to put another one there]

 JD:      Back to Blaise's Canal?

 Ida:     Yeah, and I had a…I had a pig, a big pig.  And it was raised in the house.  And I had a sack of sweet potatoes, a sack of Irish potatoes.  When went back, I had potatoes all over the place!  The pig had ate em all.  So, I kept on…we kept on staying there for a while. And then, Jesse’d go in the lake, I’d be by myself with all four of my kids. 

 JD:      Let’s not forget about the pig in the house.  I want to find out how you raised that.  But, anyway, go ahead. 

 Ida:     [laughs]  Lil bitty thing.

 JD:      Uhhmm.  That’s how it started off.

 Ida:     Yeah.  He was that big and that wide.

 JD:      He was, three feet tall…

 Ida:     The kids didn’t want us to kill him!

 JD:      It was a pet?

 Ida:     A pet.  They’d ride him, and all. 

 JD:      And he lived in the house?

 Ida:     In the house.

 JD:      There was no bank?

 Ida:     Yeah, there was bank. He didn’t want to stay on the bank.  He wanted to be in the house!  So, and Russell, he’d take care of that pig, it was just like we killed him [if killing the pig was discussed].  He’d scream blue murder.  So, Jesse say, “Well”, he say “What we gone do with the pig?” he say, “if we move?”.  He say “Russell don’t want to put him outside, and the pig don’t want to go” [laughs].  But we didn’t have no more potatoes. 

 JD:      In the campboat he ate those…?

 Ida:     Yah.  His belly was that big when we got back, with all that.  And we’d feed him, yeah.  So, OK.  Then we come…Jesse say “I know what I’m gone do”, he say “We gone spend the day at your momma’s tomorrow”.

 JD:      At the canal, at Myette Pt.?

 Ida:     Over here [Myette Pt.].  He say, uh “ I bringing my shovel, and everything I got to cut” he say “Me and Russell gonna…I gone let Russell chop the lil weeds, you know, and I’ll chop the big weeds.  We gone clean a place.”  And he got in there with a shovel, and he shovel that dirt, and he made a big old pocket, slipped the camp in there.

 JD:      He made a pocket on the side of Myon and them’s canal…uh, camp?

 Ida:     Yes.  Right here at…along the big…the big cut.  On this side it was, I still can show you the place.  So, OK, we put the camp in there and we put logs in front, you know, so the waves would wash.  We stayed in there for the longest.  Well, Leroy was there…he wasn’t walking yet when got in there.  And he learned how to walk in there.  When we was living in there.  So OK, we lived there for a long time.  We could walk to Momma’s.  It was a long ways, but we’d walk. 

 JD:      Y’all would uh, so y’all didn’t pull in beside Myon’s camp then?

 Ida:     No, no, uhuh. 

 JD:      So, where Jesse cut a hole, it was where?  Right alongside the big cut?

 Ida:     Along the big cut.  The big cut, yeah.  The cut that you go in and out.

 JD:      And there was a headland where y’all could walk to your momma’s camp?

 Ida:     Yeah.  This side of the channel, it was.  And he cut a big old slip, and he slipped the camp in there.  And he throwed the mud on the side, you know, make like a hill all the way around so...if the waves…if the water would come up you know, so it wouldn’t wash… and we stayed in there a long time.  Well, I guess so, Leroy was climbing all over the place, and that was when he was a baby.  Until he…I had a lil rocking chair, something like this, but a rocking chair. He’d get in that rocking chair, and he’d rock as far as he could and back and forth.  And he’d stay in there.  We could take him down, but it didn’t do no good.  I turned the chair over…Russell and them used to laugh to see him do that. They’d raise it up, and go again.  And he cut his finger.  You can go look at Leroy’s finger today.  He cut the end of his finger clean off.

 JD:      He cut it off?  How?

 Ida:     The chair dumpted.  And the doctor say he had his finger in his mouth.  He cut it with his teeth.  His chin hit, you see. 

 JD:      Umhmm.  And he bit his own finger off?!

 Ida:     Yah.  Bit his own finger off.  [laughs] and we took him to the doctor, and I picked up the piece of the finger off the floor and I wrapped it up in a lil handkerchief and I went and bury it.  And Jim, every time I’d go outside I would see the end of his finger, and I told Jesse, I say “I’m getting away from here, if you don’t want to get…” I say, “I’m goin!”.  I say “I’m not gone stay here.”  “Why?” he say “Tell me why.”  And I started telling him why.  I say “Every time I get out of that door” I say “I can see Leroy’s finger” and I say “I’m not gone stay here”.  So he took it out a way, and he went put it alongside…now, Agnes can tell you that, as good a me if she want to…

 JD:      He moved the campboat, you mean?

 Ida:     Yah.  We went and put it…you know when you go into the canal, you know, from the lake? You go in, you know them…you remember them cypress they had?  At the end of the…canal?  Well, that’s where he dug, leveled off the place…and that’s where my camp was.

 JD:      So, your campboat [was] more or less out in the lake?

 Ida:     It was in the lake!  When that norwester would come?    I had to keep bailing all night long because…you see…the floor and the hull…in between the pieces…the floor pieces… it was open.  And the water would wave and keep throwing water in there

 JD:      So, Jesse was shrimping?

 Ida:     Yah.  Jesse come back with some money, him. But, we stayed tied in them cypress there for the longest.  And that night the norwester come and my camp was sinking, and I had to go on the porch and holler at Momma.  Tell her to send Monug to come help me, I say “I’m sinkin.”

 JD:      So, you were there by yourself.

 Ida:     By myself, just me and my kids.  Russell was a lil fella.  And I was trying to keep up with a five gallon can, but look, I couldn’t raise too much of em.  We had to dip em out of there and go dump em on the porch. 

 JD:      You had to walk it?  You had to walk?

 Ida:     We had to walk it.  So, then they come and they helped me.  And Monug put boards, you know, along the…

 JD:      To keep the water from comin in.

 Ida:     Yah.  The wind was hittin on the side.  So, he put boards under there, keep the water from comin in.  And they helped me to bail it dry

 Ida:     Myon make Jesse put fish in the fish box.  Him and Jesse put…but Jesse’d mark his…

 JD:      How’d he mark them?

 Ida:     You know that lil fin on the back?

 JD:      Right on the back, before the tail?

 Ida:     Yeah, right at the end of the tail, they got a lil fin, lil round fin?  Well, OK.  Jesse would mark his like that.

 JD:      Cut that off?

Ida: I say “You gonna…you know what you gonna do?” I say “We gone split some pews, me and you” I say “We gone make some poses [posts]” and I say “You gone build your own fish box”.  And I say, “You not gone put it over there, you gone put it over here right in front of our place”.  So, we got two...two logs, you know, to float it?  We nailed a piece like this, a piece like that.

JD:      Cottonwood logs?  Two big cottonwood logs?

Ida:     Yeah.  And uh, we fixed that so you had place, you know, to dip the fish.   And all.  And we made a good living after that.  Jesse would go, rain or shine he was goin, him. 

JD:      What kind of fishing did Jesse do? 

 Ida:     He catfished.

 JD:      Bentlines?  Bentlines, or what?

 Ida:     Bentlines.  He’d fish as high as 40, 50 bent…sometime as high as 100 bents, in the lake

JD:      How did Jesse set lines, when he set lines?  Can you describe to me how he would go about doin it?

 Ida:     Yeah.  Bentlines?   Well, he’d drive those big poles.   Each one pole had a flag.   A flag, at the top.  Because some time it was foggy in them time, Jim, and sometimes you couldn’t see.  But with a flag you could always see.

 JD:      A flag of what?  Cloth?

 Ida:     No, no.  It was, uh, it was a cloth, but a cloth that don’t rot.  Like a  fiberglass cloth

 JD:      Where’d he get that?

 Ida:     He’d buy that by the yard and cut pieces.   And he’d put on each one of his poles. 

 JD:      So, he would the poles down…

 Ida:     He put the poles down, put em all.  With a mall.  Put em down.  And when he put a pole down, it was down to stay. Then he’d stretch his line on top.  On top, all the way.  Then when he’d pass back, he’d tie his bridle and then he’d untwist his line…

 JD:      Tie his bridle…tie his bridle… low on the pole?

 Ida:     On the pole, yeah.

 JD:      Under the water?

 Ida:     No, no, not under the water.  Just above the water. 

 JD:      Now, bridle would the same thing as the main line?

 Ida:     Yah, that’s right. The same kind of string.  And Jesse used to fish…he was a fisherman, too. He was like Russell.  Now Jesse used to work, Jim, he was a working man.  But after he got sick, he couldn’t work no more

 JD:      So, he would put a line…tie the line across the top of the poles, all the way to the end…

 Ida:     And I mean sometimes…the lake was wide in them days…sometime he’d start from one side of the lake and he’d go clean through.  [whistles]

 JD:      How many bents would that be, you think?

 Ida:     Bet you 60 bents, maybe more.  Jesse used to fish…and bushlines?  He used to fish the bushlines to catch goujons.  He caught goujons like that [gestures big fish], head like that [wide].  And uh, Jesse did good fishing bushlines, and fishing goujons.   After [running the lines] we’d go fish the perch, all evening [afternoon].   Fish the perches, and then at night, late in the evening, we’d go put our live perch…live.  And he knewed how to hook em so they stay live.

 JD:      How did you hook em.  Where did you hook em?

 Ida:     Right at the top.  You know…you know the lil fin they got on the top?  Well, right…right…a lil bit.  Don’t bite too much [hook them too deep] because they gone die.

 JD:      Just in front of that fin?

 Ida:     Yeah.  Just in front…just in front of the fin.  Just so they could…

 JD:      And they stay alive…they stay alive good?

 Ida:     Oh yeah.  You see, we didn’t even bait all of it every day.  We’d go…[and] where they were dead, we’d take em off.  But where they had a lot of em [still alive], we’d leave it on.  And I wish you’d a seen the boatload of the goujons that man caught.

 JD:      So, blue cats too? 

 Ida:     Sometimes, Jim, but not too often. If it was a blue cat it was a great big one.  But…he used to fish…sometimes he used to cut the perches and bait.

 JD:      Cut em in pieces?

 Ida:     Yeah.  And bait with that.

 JD:      Uh, now, after he would tie the line on top and he would put uh…he would put the bridles on there…then…

 Ida:     Yeah.  watch.  [drawing and explaining how they did a bentline].  That was tall, tall poles, you see, he’d have.  Then he…he’d twiddle [?] his line like that on the top, like that, and then the line…he wouldn’t leave it go stiff, you see, he’d make a bag in it, like that.  And then when he’d come…he’d put another one…do another one...like that…and then you’d come with your bridle and you’d tie your bridle about right here, then you take the end of your line and tie it on your bridle…then you leave it go about the length of this pole here that would be under water.  Then you tie it.  You tie this line onto this.

 JD:      Ok.  So, you try to make it so that it would, go close to the bottom. 

 Ida:     Yeah, he’d put a sinker in the middle.  And a sinker on each one of the bridle.  And that’s the way…that’s the way I put line a lot of times.   But I’d catch fish, too. 

 JD:      OK, now, how far apart would he put the hooks.  About like we do now?

 Ida:     One like dat [marking off the hooks as placed on the main line she drew already].  About four or five foot apart.   Because Jesse didn’t like a hook too close to each other.  He say “A fish ain’t got no chance if [it tries to choose between] this hook and that hook, it don’t know which one to go.  He had a good head for fish.  But I guarantee, with this here…now by the time you…you put your bridle, you see, your line would be driftin like this. 

 JD:      Now, a strong, strong current would probably give you trouble…?

 Ida:     No, you just longen your bridle.  You longer your bridle.  When you got strong, strong current, that’s where your slack comes from, your bridles.

 JD:      Where your what comes from?

 Ida:     Your bridles? Well, that’s where your slack for your line comes from, from your bridles.  You just lengthen your bridles.

 [some sort of shifting of the recorder or similar causes  a break in the talking]

 Ida:     Jim, I had a boat full of fish, that time, I made Neg sick.  He had about eight fish in his boat, and I had about 300 pound, or better.  In mine.  And I went to him and he was fishin, and uh, the current was getting stronger.  Now,the water wasn’t comin up, but the current was getting stronger.  Now, I lengthen my bridles, and I went and told him.  I say “Neg, lengthen your bridles” I say “That’s what’s the matter”. “Ah, you don’t know, ah…you don’t know”. But, he didn’t catch no fish either. Well, I say “l lengthen mine, I wasn’t catchin none, I lengthen mine” and I say “Look my fish”.  “Gawlee, you doin the shockin machine, eh” I say “If I had one, maybe I would”.  But I didn’t have none.

 JD:      Did anybody do that back in those days?  Use shocking machines? 

 Ida:     Uh, yeah, Milton [Bailey].  Milton stayed out there, him. 

 JD:      Is that right?  With shocking machines?

 Ida:     You know that lil house we was livin in at The Point, you seen it?  You never seen it?  Well, they moved it somewhere in Charenton.   They used to call it the lil shocking machine house.   He built a lil house…to shock. 

 JD:      To shock fish, eh?

 Ida:     To shock fish.  And he caught beaucoups of em.  And Myon would get up before daylight, throw them fish in his truck and haul at Oscar, over there…

 JD:      To Oscar Lange?

 Ida:     Oscar Lange.  

 [a couple sentences from someone unidentified in the room]

 Ida:     If you want to do it right…do it the right way, Jim, you can make the best living fishing that there ain’t no job can give you.   But it’s got to be done right!

  Continued on Chapter 38

Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 36

DATE:                        January 4, 1996 

 INTERVIEWER:      Jim Delahoussaye

 LOCATIONS:           At Ida Daigle’s house at Oxford Loop, Oxford, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana

 COOPERATORS:   Ida Sauce Daigle

 JD:      Well Ida, that’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, was…in the old days that you can remember, when you were a girl, a young girl…which course wasn’t that long ago…

 Ida:     Naw…it uh…it pretty long.  [laughs]  You know I’m 77 years old yeah.

JD:      I want to talk to you about…when you first got started being interested in fishing.  How did that happen?  What do you remember about…

 Ida:     What I remember?  I been fishing since the age of eight years old.  I started in a pirogue.  In the woods.

 JD:      It was your daddy’s pirogue?

 Ida:     No, no.  that was my own pirogue.  My grandpa made my own.  Umhm, and uh, made my own paddle, and I bought my own lines…because he gave me the money.

 JD:      I was about to say how’d you get the money to start off?  Did he give you the money?

 Ida:     My grandpa did. 

 JD:      Your grandpa who?

 Ida:     Grandpa Claiborne.  His name…

 JD:      Mayon.

 Ida:     He…he gave me the start.  I started just at the edge of the woods, where they could see me. 

 JD:      Where were y’all living then?

 Ida:     We were living at Blue Point Canal [Blaise's Canal].  The one they call Blaise's Canal?  That’s where we was living.  And uh, we was living there alone, just the family.  And uh, we was bored, you see, all the time.

 JD:      Oh yeah?

 Ida:     Because we didn’t have nothing to do.   My daddy say “Well”, he say “I’m gone put y’all to work, then”.  Then, I say “What you gone put us to do?”.  He say, “You gone fish, you.  You a fisherman”.  My daddy made a good livin, fishin.  He was a good fisherman. 

 JD:      That was Blaise Sauce?

 Ida:     Umhm.  So then, uh, my granpa who was livin with us at the time, and my granma…

 JD:      Claiborne and Fanny?

 Ida:     Umhm.  Well, uh, he say “You gone put her fishing?”, he say “I’m gone build her a pirogue”.   He build a wide pirogue, high borders.

 JD:      High sides?

 Ida:     High sides.  And he built me a paddle.   And he say “Well, you need some line, now”.  So…So, he got me some lines.  He showed me how to fish em. 

 JD:      Your daddy did?

 Ida:     No, Claiborne.  My grandpa showed me how to fish.  And, when the water start comin up, he say “Well, you on you own now”.

 JD:      That was in the spring probly, huh?

 Ida:     Yeah, in the spring, when the water was comin.  So, OK.  I started at the edge of the woods.  Daddy say “Don’t go too far back, stay at the edge of the woods so we can see you”.  And I started there, and I seen, man, the further I’d go back the more fish I’d catch [laughs].  And then I took the whole woods, and I fished.  And I’d come back with that pirogue that full [gestures].   So, my daddy put my brothers to fish too, you see, Monug and Tootsay.  Neg was too young, him.   But then he say, “Y’all got a…y’all can make a livin on y’all own”, he say.  So, that’s what we did.   They started fishin too.  Monug was older than me [and] Tootsie was older than me.  And I’d catch more fish than they do.  Pappa say “Y’all not fishermen like Ida” [laughs]. 

 JD:      Ida [Eye-DAH] he called you, Eye-DAH?

 Ida:     Ida, he say, “Ida can do anything better than y’all” he say “Why? And y’all older than her”.

 JD:      Oh, and bigger too, probably.

 Ida:     Bigger, yeah.  My oldest brother was big and fat.  Big and fat.  Neg got a picture, I don’t have none, me.

 JD:      That was Preston? 

 Ida:     Preston, yeah.  We used to call him Monug.  And uh, so, I kept on fishing, and when the water went down, I said “Now, what we gonna do?”.   He say, my daddy say “I show y’all what to do”.

 JD:      So, he took over from Claiborne to show you?

 Ida:     Yeah, he took over from Claiborne to show me what else to do.  He say “We gone go pick moss”.

 JD:      Umhm, and you were just eight years old?

 Ida:     Yeah.  I climbed the trees.   I’d go get that moss up there.   I was light, I was like a squirrel.  In other words, Jim, I wasn’t meant to be a girl.  My daddy said it was a…it was meant to be a boy.  And I turned out to be a girl.  [laughs].  My daddy would give me...he say, he built a scaffold on a…on a barge, a big barge.  As big as this house here.  And you know for [?], me and my two brothers we had that barge full, stacked with mud…with moss.  And, then he’d come get us.  We’d push the barge from tree to tree, and just before dawn [dusk?] he’d come and get us. 

 JD:      You’d pushpole, y’all would pushpole? 

 Ida:     Yah, we had poles on the barge, you know? to push the barge.  And then, we, we quit picking moss when it was time to fish again. 

 JD:      And when…you went from…you fished in the wintertime, well, when the water came up, in the woods.

 Ida:     Yah. When the water came, and then pick moss.

 JD:      And then you picked moss…what time of year, if you started fishing when the water came up in the spring, was it in the summer you picked moss? 

 Ida:     Yeah, after the water would go down. Because my daddy say it was too hot for us, you know.  [this is confusing, it’s hottest when the water is low]  After it started coolin off then…because he say it’s too hot to pick moss, he say, y’all gone smother up there.  So, after, we pick moss, and I picked moss until I got married.  My daddy would get sheds full and sell that. 

 JD:      But you would fish too? 

 Ida:     Well…yeah…would fish in between.  In the evening when he come get us early we’d go run our lines in the lake.  But my daddy didn’t like for me to go in the lake too much.  He said they had too many people that would go and come.  I was a young girl you see?  In them days, they was particular.  So, ok, when, I picked moss for my daddy and them until just before I got married, and fished.  Then when I got married I got…Jesse didn’t want me to fish “You don’t have to do dat” [he said].  It was killin me Jim!  I say “I want a skiff and push oars”.   And I say “I’m gone fish too”.  I say “You can say whatever you want, you not satisfied, pack you clothes and go”.  But I say “I’m gone fish”.  Ok, and I started fishing.  I got pregnant for Russell [her oldest son], I fished until almost the time he was born.  And then after he was born I used to have one of them big [number] 3 washtubs ?  I’d put a blanket filled in there, I’d put him down in there and I’d take off.

 JD:      Well, no wonder Russell turned out to be a fisherman!

 Ida:     His bottle, I’d bring his bottle, his milk, and all, and I’d leave him sleep in that tub, and all. 

 JD:      Where did you get the push…the push skiff, who made that for you?

 Ida:     That was my grandpa. 

 JD:      Your grandpa made that for you?  He was good at building boats?

 Ida:     He had…oh, yeah, any kind of boat…any kind of campboat.  Anything.  He was a good carpenter.

 JD:      Did he fish Ida?  Claiborne?

 Ida:     Oh yeah.  He used to fish for a living.   Yeah.  And uh, I’d make more money than Jesse did.  He say “I guess I’m gone have to leave you fish”.  I say “You might as well”.  I say “You might as well go” [if you don’t?].  And that’s why when we moved back here I was so…I was so upset.

 JD:      When you moved back here? Uh, over the land…over the levee?  When y’all moved over the levee? 

 Ida:     Yeah.  I was all…I was all messed up, you see, because I couldn’t fish. 

 JD:      You couldn’t…you didn’t have a truck, or something to pick the boat…?

 Ida:     I didn’t know how to drive.  If I’d a knew how to drive I’d a bought me a truck and a boat trailer.  But I didn’t know how to drive.  I fished all my life.  Lena Mae?...Me and Lena Mae?  Used to get both in the pirogue, before I got married, she was little.

 JD:      They lived close to y’all?

 Ida:     I used to bring her with me.   Lena Mae…me and Lena Mae…Lena Mae worked for a living, well, from the time she was old enough until she got married.  And she’s still working. 

 JD:      The old, uh…when you first started fishin, you said that you worked…you, you fished in the woods.  That was…that was uh, bushlines? 

 Ida:     Umhm.  In fact, uh…

 JD:      Tell me how you would fix em.

 Ida:     Well, [for tightlines] we’d tie our lines tight, tight.  And you hang your hooks.  From tree to tree. 

 JD:      About how far apart?

 Ida:     Three feet.  Oh, in the woods, about that far.

 JD:      So, three feet, three, four feet apart in the woods. 

 Ida:     Yah.  And you’d take the…the, the, the bushlines, whatever you find a straight limb…big enough limb ?...you tie them bushline and leave it drop.  You’d bait it and keep on… trees to trees.

 JD:      And how…how uh…?

 Ida:     And I caught some big fish in there!   Ummm, the goujons!  And I was in a pirogue, but I had a hatchet.  I’d thump em on the head [laughs] .I..’d make em come up [laughs]…I’d thump em on the head, and when they was stunded, then I’d pull em in.

 JD:      You didn’t use a landing net for the big fish?

 Ida:     No, I couldn’t use it.  [and] My daddy didn’t want me to use no gaff because he say “It’s still alive and it’s gone pull you out”.  And I didn’t know how to swim. 

 JD:      You didn’t know how to swim?

 Ida:     Uhuh.  I didn’t know how to swim.  But, I made…I made my livin. 

 JD:      So, what you had to…what you had…what you had to fish with was the fuel [??], and…

 Ida:     Yah, uh…[when] the water was clear, we’d fish with lil live perches.   And if the water was drugy [muddy], we’d fish with shrimp.

 JD:      Umhm, how did you catch the perch?

 Ida:     Fishin.

 JD:      Fishin with a hook?

 Ida:     Umhm.  And Russell was a lil bitty thing, and he used to have his lil line and every now and then he’d catch one.  I’d bring him with me, he’d follow me all over.  He was…he was something else when he was little.  One day he…we had run out of bait and he didn’t want to go home .  He was I guess…about like that…

 JD:      About two feet tall.

 Ida:     Yah.  “Momma they still bitin!”, yeah, but I say “We ain’t got no bait”.  He put a piece of water lily on his hook, and throwed overboard, and catch a perch!.  So, that’s the way I got started, Jim.  And I raised my kids.  Jesse workted, now, don’t get me wrong.   He workted, as long as he could.  But he was only 36 years old when he had the first stroke.

 JD:      Is that right?!  Thirty six was all he was? 

 Ida:     Thirty six years old, and I couldn’t get no help. 

 JD:      When he had the first stroke, what did it do to him?

 Ida:     Oh, he couldn’t walk.  Couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk. 

 JD:      Couldn’t talk either?  Could he use his hands and his arms?

 Ida:     No, not his hands, one hand, his right.  This’n here was like this [gestures a crippled hand].  Couldn’t hold nothin.

 JD:      Thirty six!

 Ida:     That’s all Jesse was, and I had four kids.  Lil bitty ones.

 JD:      And how old were they?  How old were they when Jesse had his stroke.  How old were the kids?

 Ida:     My kids, the oldest one, it was Russell, was 14.  Russell was 14 and all the rest of em was lil bitty things.  That’s why…Russell knows the situation him, you know, he was old enough to remember the situation. But the others don’t.  Now, after they grew older they seen how much I had to work, because EJ was gone take the footballs, you know, game, and it costed around $50 a month to play football.  To be…to be a football player, you know?

 JD:      This was at the school in Franklin?

 Ida:     Yeah.  And he was in…he was living with Russell.  And every week I’d send him…every month I’d send him $50 so he could pay, you know,…

 JD:      He was living with Russell in town, or something?

 Ida:     He was…yah…because we didn’t have no car, and he was with Russell and them.  Cause they lived in town.

 JD:      And he could go to school that way?

 Ida:     And he’d go to school, and then go play ball in the evening.  He stayed out there, and then uh, his daddy got mean.  That’s when Jesse started getting mean.  So, he quit football.  Then he come and fished.  He didn’t have but, uh, 11 weeks to finish school, he’d a graduated, you see.  And it hurted me Jim, because I had worked to send him that far!  And Jesse started…and he [EJ], he quit.  EJ quit.  I say “Why you didn’t leave that kid finish school!?”  But he quit completely. 

 JD:      He got fed up?  He got just…tired?

 Ida:     He got fed up with his daddy telling him “You big enough now to be on your own, you big enough now to do this”, but a child go to school ain’t got time to do that.  And uh, I had Leroy, I had Leroy in school, I had EJ, and I had,, Wayne.  All three of em in school.  And then we had to pay for the lunches, you see.

 JD:      You had to pay for lunches?

 Ida:     Yah.  We had to pay for lunches.  That was each a 35 cents, I had to give em each, every morning.  To pay for the lunches.  And I couldn’t get no help, no kind of way, I tried my best.  Howard Thibodeaux tried.

 JD:      Help in what way?

 Ida:     In a…a…welfare, or food stamp, or anything would have been a help, you see?  The only people that helped me…it was the Lion Club…one Christmas, for the clothes.  You know, they gave me clothes for my kids.  But that’s all, Jim.  That’s all I ever got. 

 JD:      Did Leroy and Wand Wayne finish school? 

 Ida:     Leroy finished school…they all finished school, but finish after they grow up, so they could…Wayne finish school in Lafayette, him, and EJ finish school right here at the courthouse. EJ had straight A’s, Jim.  I mean straight A’s in everything!  He had as high as 26 and 30 A’s on one report...card.  And I…I fussed at Gayle, she threw em away.  I say “I wanted that, so show”.  Leroy had A’s too, I mean, you know, Wayne had A’s, but not that many, him.  But believe me, that …if Jesse wouldn’t a…wouldn’t a been fussin, at EJ, I could a sent him…you know, where he wouldn’t have to work today.  But Jesse started fussin.  It’s not me…

 JD:      You think he got mean because of his stroke? 

 Ida:     I don’t think so, not too many of em that I heard [of].  Because it wasn’t a lot of woman that was working, you see?  Woman didn’t work in those days, they always, you know, take care of the kids.  The man would work.  But me, I had to work.  You take me, I…I was born, I guess, to work.  And I couldn’t [?], I did my housework, I took care of my kids, but I…I…I worked, I worked to make money. Because me, I wanted to make my own money, I didn’t want to go to Jesse and hang my hand [to him].  Me, I didn’t think that was right.  He was working for the money.  He’d buy the groceries when he’d make money and I didn’t need to be…[talking to the dog].  And uh, so, I was a working person.  I still feel like that too.  I want something to be done, I do it myself. The only thing, the kids don’t want me to climb no more, so…

 JD:      To climb?

 Ida:     Yah, [laughs] they scared that bones…if I fall and break a bone, old like I am, I’m gone stay crippled.   I am crippled in this arm.  So, that’s why.

 JD:      Could I…do you mind telling me what your birthday is?

 Ida:     My birthday is December the first, 1918.

 JD:      OK, so you’re uh…you’re older than Neg.

 Ida:     Oh yeah, I’m 5 years older than Neg.

 JD:      But you’re younger than Agnes. 

 Ida:     I’m younger than Agnes.

 JD:      Agnes is six older than you.

 Ida:     Yeah, I know.

 JD:      …I’m just…I’m just keeping track of what I have on this sheet.  I got everybody…I got everybody on this sheet that I can.  As I talk to em I get their birthdays and everything.

 Ida:     Umhm.  When… I’m born December the 1^st…and, uh, I’m born in 1918. 

 [question from young girl at the table about why I’m doing these interviews]

 JD:      You know, we found your…we find your grandfather Claiborne’s grave.

 Ida:     That’s what EJ told me. 

 JD:      We found his grave.  That was fun.  That was good, yeah.  It was exciting.  [laughs]

 Ida:     Yeah, it is exciting because that’s a long time ago. 

 JD:      And Fanny, your grandmother…

 Ida:     That was my grandmother.

 JD:      Fanny.  She’s buried right next to him.  Same place.  And your grandmother and grandfather on the other side, we found them both in Pierre Part.

 Ida:     Yeah, in Pierre Part, yeah.  That’s where they buried. 

 JD:      We found both of them in Pierre Part. 

 Ida:     They got a lot of their relatives there…that’s there too.  

 JD:      Your daddy died early, didn’t he? 

 Ida:     My daddy…they tell me…Agnes got the papers, Jim.  If Agnes would show me them papers…they tell me he was 44 years old when he died.  But my daddy…I was real young when my daddy died.  Neg was real young.  Neg, I believe was 5 years old when daddy died.  And, Agnes has got the papers.  Agnes will show you and you could mark it down.  And if we’d need it, then we’d know, you know?  Agnes has got the paper.  She got the paper on Preston Sauce too. 

 JD:      Preston also, Monug? 

 Ida:     Yah.  And… I don’t know if she got the papers on Tootsie.  I don’t believe, his wife must have that – that’s Robert. 

 JD:      Gertrude?

 Ida:     Gertrude.  His wife, must have that.

 JD:      Jesse.  Jesse was Myon’s half brother?

 Ida:     Yah, Jesse was a Daigle, and Myon was a Bailey.

 JD:      So, Jesse’s daddy was Homer Daigle.

 Ida:     Yeah. 

 JD:      I’m beginning to tie all these people together, you know?  Back in the old days, when you got started, just…if you can remember what it was like when you were a lil girl.  When you were…

 Ida:     Oh, I can. 

 JD:      You know, nobody knows what it was like to live on those campboats.  And everybody had different…different memories about what they found, and how it was…

 Ida:     In the campboat was fine, it was a nice livin in a campboat because wherever, you see, you…let’s say you living in Big Pigeon.  The fish would quit bitin and they was bitin in the Catfish [bayou].  Well then, they’d untie the camp and they’d go over there where they could fish, you know, right close.   Just like us, we was livin in Lil Pigeon.  And the fish wasn’t doing anything.  So, my daddy moved from Lil Pigeon to Big Pigeon.  And he wasn’t satisfied; momma didn’t like to live there.  No.  He say “Well” he say “We gone go ride and see”.

 JD:      Why didn’t your mother like to live there, you think?

 Ida:     I don’t know.  I really don’t know why.  She didn’t liked Big Pigeon for some reason.  I believe it’s because her sister was livin there and her husband…her husband was mean to her. 

 JD:      You talking about Rosalie, was…

 Ida:     Rosalie, that was my momma.

 JD:      And she had a sister Lydia. 

 Ida:     Yeah…no, uhuh.  Elaine.  That was my momma’s sister, that was my godmother. 

 JD:      You have any idea who she was married to?

 Ida:     Yeah, she was married to Artie [Henry?] Domingue. 

 JD:      OK, so you see that’s…that’s four of them.  I only had three…I only had three people that were…that were brothers and sisters to your mother, but there was four, at least.  There was more than that?

 Ida:     There was some more.  They had…they had Olivia.  She died when we was young.  Olivia.  Now, they had Lydia.  And they had…they used to call her Dod, leaving her name [?]…put Dod anyway.  That was another one of Momma’s sisters.  And Emma.   Emma was another one of Momma’s sisters.  And she was married to a Duval.  And she was married to Solivan Duval.  But Dod, I don’t remember her husband’s name. 

 JD:      Well…that’s seven so far, we got.  Do you remember her brothers?  Alvin and Ivy.

 Ida:     Yeah, Alvin Mayon, and Ivy, they used to call him Boy Mayon

 JD:      Ivy? 

 Ida:     Yeah, Ivy, that’s two brothers.  They had two brothers.

 JD:      Which one they called Boy? 

 Ida:     Uh, the oldest one.  Alvin, that’s Alvin.  [this is kind of confused]. So, they had two brothers.  And…and…and she has sisters, you see.

 JD:      Five…five sisters. 

 Ida:     Yeah, five sisters. 

 JD:      Lydia, Elaine, Olivia, Dod and Emma.

 Ida:     Yeah. 

 JD:      So, which one lived on…on Big Pigeon…on Lil Pigeon?  Oh, you said that was Elaine.

 Ida:     Elaine.

 JD:      She’s the one.  And it was Henry Domingue that was mean?

 Ida:     And Henry Domingue…he was mean.  And momma was tied right next to him.  And make em get up at two or three o’clock in the morning.  He had a crib, you know, floatin on the water.  And he’d beat her ass right in front of the kids, there, until she couldn’t move no more.  And momma didn’t like to see that.  Because she didn’t want to see her sister mistreated…I don’t blame her.   And so my daddy, we went ride.  I remember the big old skiff.  Had us all in there…

 JD:      Old Lockwood?

 Ida:     Old, old uh…six horse Lockwood.  And we went in that them canals and when we got to the end of this Blue Point Canal, you know? They had a pocket, like this, and they had a big hill on that side…

 JD:      A big hill?

 Ida:     Yeah.  And, when we got…we could see the lake, you see, but we was far from the lake but we could see it.    He said “This is the place, right here!”  He turned right back.  He went and  untied the campboat and brought it on Momma’s Hill.  That’s why we called it Momma’s Hill. 

 JD:      Momma’s Hill, yelled called it?  Rosalie?  Now, is that the canal that became called Blaise's Canal? 

 Ida:     Yah.  That’s the canal.  Now I went since then, and it don’t look like the same place.  Uhuh, there ain’t no more levee, and they had a high levee there Jim.  Where momma had the campboat tied, they had a great big old hill.  My daddy planted a fig tree right on top of the hill.  And that fig tree got so big on that hill!  Figs, the figs was that big around [two inches].  And then he started patching [planting] fruit trees.  Oh, he planted all kind of trees.  But it was a levee, it wasn’t nothing like they got now. 

 JD:      That hill is gone?

 Ida:     Oh yeah. 

 JD:      You can’t find the hill at all?

 Ida:     I can spot the place.  But the hill, no.

 JD:      How about that pocket where y’all tied the campboat? 

 Ida:     That pocket, you can see the pocket.  You know, it’s still there.  Now, I used to live, after I got married, Momma used to live…[gestures] this here was the pocket, Momma used to live on this corner and I had a house on the other corner.  And Agnes…Momma used to live like this, her, and they they’d have big old crib, you know, and Agnes was tied on the other end of the crib.  And that’s the way we lived for years. 

 [Yapping-dog problem]

 JD:      When your daddy found that spot on the canal, was anybody else with him in there?

 Ida:     No indeed.  Nobody before we got married and then, you know, Agnes was married, her, already.  But they was off trapping, and then she moved [into the canal] after we was in there. 

 JD:      Let me ask you this, you say Agnes was off trapping, she and Myon.  Now, where were they trapping?

 Ida:     On the…somewhere around Belle Isle, I believe, or somewhere. 

 JD:      Oh, so they went to the coast, then?

 Ida:     Yeah. 

 JD:      They went to the marsh, to trap.

 Ida:     Yeah.  Belle Isle, that’s where they were. 

 JD:      So, Myon trapped for a living sometimes?

 Ida:     Myon trapped every winter.

 JD:      Did they take the campboat…their campboat with em?

 Ida:     Yeah.  They was livin in a lil campboat not big like my kitchen here. 

 JD:      A small one, huh?

 Ida:     A small one.  It was only 18 foot long.  But it was 8 foot wide.  And, he would trap.

 JD:      Lena Mae…it looks like…she was uh…she was 11 years younger than you. 

 Ida:     Lena Mae…yeah…Lena Mae’…in other words, we worked a lots together after…after she got old enough

 JD:      You did?

 Ida:     I did.  And we stayed three months in Morgan City over there.  Before Milton was born.

 JD:      Three months? Yeah.  To get back to…to get back to what it was like when you were a little girl in the campboat.  Just start…if you could tell me…let’s say you would get up in the morning at, what time did y’all get up in the morning?

 Ida:     Oh, we get up early!  My daddy used to get up early, and I was the first one behind him.  Just before daylight, I guess. 

 JD:      And he would go off and fish, or whatever…

 Ida:     Yeah.  He would go off and fish, and we’d go and…and haul…me and Monug and Tootsie.  We’d go haul some pieces of cypress to make kindlings.

 JD:      To make kindling for the fire?

 Ida:     I got the mark [scar] just back of my ear, here.  My momma cut me with an ax…

 JD:      She cut you with an ax?

 Ida:     I was…went haul pieces of kindling, and, when I got back I guess I got too close, you know, when she swing the ax [the backswing]…

 JD:      Behind her, when she swung the ax behind her?

 Ida:     Yeah, I was behind her.

 JD:      Ah, she couldn’t see you.

 Ida:     When she did that [swung the ax back], well, she didn’t do [it] on purpose.   When she did that to chop the kindlin [she hit her in the head].  [and] I got a [another] mark over here where Agnes hit me with a iron skillet.

 JD:      A iron skillet.  Y’all were mad at each other?

 Ida:     She’d get mad.  She wanted me to do…like she’d do, you see?  And, ag I was young, I didn’t know how to do it.  …[?] to learn.  And she hit…she knock me out.   Knock me out, because, we was washing dishes.  I was washin em and Momma…for pots…you could see yourself in it, and that’s the way we had to do it.  And I was rubbin the pot, I mean I didn’t have the strength.  My poor lil hands, lil bitty hands, and…I couldn’t get it off, [from the pot], you see, burnt on the bottom of the pot?   And uh, I washed what I could and then I put it…after I rinsch it, and uh, she looked in the pot and she threw it back in the [dish] pan and then she caught the skillet and hit me on the head because the pot wasn’t clean.  You don’t know nothing [about these things].  I know…it makes her mad when I start tellin her

 JD:      But when y’all would get up, y’all would get up…y’all would eat breakfast, I guess.

 Ida:     Yeah, Momma would bake biscuits and we’d eat breakfast. 

 JD:      Is that what she had for breakfast a lot?

 Ida:     Yeah.  Chocolate milk with biscuits. 

 JD:      Chocolate milk.  Now, where did y’all get the chocolate? 

 Ida:     Uh…well…my momma used to make her own chocolate. 

 JD:      She did?  How?

 Ida:     Uh..uh, she had the seed, I don’t know where she got it.  And she used to grind it up.

 JD:      She’d grind it up…she’d grind the seeds and make chocolate?  And…mix that with milk or water or… 

Ida:     Yeah, with milk, water and milk.  But she’d use the sweet milk.

 JD:      Like Pet Milk, in a can?

 Ida:     No, not the Pet Milk, they didn’t have any Pet Milk.  The sweet milk, it’s a lil can about that high, about this high.

 JD:      Oh, condensed milk?

 Ida:     Condensed milk?  The Magnolia condensed milk.  That’s what I raised Russell on.

 JD:      So y’all would have chocolate that she would grind herself, and biscuits?  What other things did y’all eat for breakfast? 

 Ida:     And, well, almost every morning she make those fried biscuits, sometime you know?  But we always did have a good dinner [lunch].  My daddy was a hunter.  And my momma used to…sometime he’d come back with a boat full of ducks.  And, he’d uh, she’d clean all that, Jim.  Pretty and clean, you wouldn’t believe. 

 JD:      She’d pull the feathers, or she’d skin em?

 Ida:     No, no, she didn’t skin em!  She pull all the feathers.  Clean that… You know how you buy…bought your chicken how pretty it is?  Well, that’s the way she cleaned that.  She’d put that in a big pot with a lot of grease, throw em in there. 

 JD:      She’d cook em first?

 Ida:     Fry em.  She had cans about that high.

 JD:      About two feet tall…

 Ida:     About that big around.

 JD:      Big, big around, about a foot and a half.

 Ida:     And she’d put that all that in there and then she poured her hot grease in there.

 JD:      So, she’d cook em first, and put em down in that big can, and poured hot grease on top of em…

 Ida:     And poured hot grease on top of it, and she’d put that in the hull of the camp, where it would be cool.

 JD:      In the hull of the camp, down below the house?

 Ida:     Ice, we didn’t have no ice.  And she used to do that with rabbit.  She’d take rabbit, she’d debone em all.  She’d ground that meat.  Yah, ground that meat and make patties…big patties.  She’d fry good her patties and put em in that can, and then take a lot of grease and pour on em. 

 JD:      Where did y’all get the grease? 

 Ida:     Uh, hog grease. 

 JD:      Did they buy it?

 Ida:     No, my daddy used to raise hogs.  He used to melt that grease. 

 JD:      OK, so he used to melt the grease when y’all made a boucherie or what you call it?

 Ida:     Yeah, melt the grease and put in there.  She used to make boudins, she used to make sausage and all, and that’s the way she’d keep it, in that can.  [And then also] They had the big crocks [for salting] But then she used to salty her meat, and things in there.

 JD:      She didn’t salt the rabbit and stuff?  Just cooked that…

 Ida:     No, no, she salted turtle, and, and her meat.  Her…her hog meat.  Salted it and put it in there.

 JD:      Why do you think she salted the turtle and the hog meat and she didn’t salt the rabbits and the ducks and stuff?

 Ida:     Yeah, but my daddy used to smoke the rabbits, and he soaked em in grease, like I tell you.  

JD:      Oh, he smoked al that.

 Ida:     And, when…we always did have something to eat.  And cabbage?  He’d plant cabbage.  Well, he’d make that sauerkraut, and I used to love that stuff. 

 JD:      Make sauerkraut?

 Ida:     Oh yeah.  He’d make that but the big old crock, plumb full.  And we had something good to eat, all the time 

 JD:      Y’all would have something like one of those ducks, or some of those ducks…

 Ida:     Yah, momma used to go in her can when…now, if we could get it fresh, we’d get it fresh, but when we couldn’t get it fresh, she’d go in the can and get it.  And we’d cook it, you know, with onions and all?

 JD:      Recook it…recook it?

 Ida:     Yeah. 

 JD:      Was it…was it as good out of the can as it was fresh?

 Ida:     It is.  If…good down, you know [cover with grease]…make sure they don’t spoil.  But I don’t remember momma ever lost one of em.  Not a rabbit, no, nothing.  In other words, she’d put rabbit in there, she’d put ducks, poule d’eaus,   She’d put the uh, those white cranes? [ibises?].  My daddy used to kill that, too.  And bring that, and momma used to have cans full.  Now, she’d make spaghettis with that.  You talk about a good spaghetti! 

 JD:      Now, the white cranes you talking about, is that those, the bec crosse, the ones with the bill [curved down]?

 Ida:     No no, no no, the ones that stayed in the fields.   In them times they used to rob the nests.   And my daddy would come back sometime with a pirogue plumb full.  And the boys…the boys and momma, I was too little, me, I remember it, but I was too little to clean em, you see.  But after I got big enough, I took my job too. 

 JD:      That was the young ones, the young ones out of the nest, that couldn’t fly yet. Did y’all… how about grosbecs?

 Ida:     Grosbecs too.  Momma used to put that in the can too, when my daddy’d get…I used to love that grosbec season!  My daddy used to sat on the hill I’m talking about?  OK, used to sat on that hill, and he’d call “Now watch, now!” and he’d whistle, just like a grosbec with his finger in his mouth.  And he’d…they’d come…

 JD:      Circle.

 Ida:     And then, “Watch him, watch him now, he’s comin close”.  He shoot em, and boy I’d run, pick up that duck [grosbec] and I’d go find him…hurry up, I wanted to clean im, clean em as it go. 

JD:      Oh?  You’d clean em as it go? 

Ida:     Umhm.  After I got big enough.  And I’d bring it to momma.  Sometime, big old dish pan full.

JD:      Big old dishpan full, of grosbecs!

Ida:     Grosbecs.

JD:      Did y’all put those down in the can too?

Ida:     Momma’d put them down in the can too, if she…well, she’d cook some, you see, for the meal, and she’d put the rest of em down. 

JD:      And cabbage, y’all had a lot of cabbage?

Ida:     We had a lot of cabbage, we had a lot of turnips.  That’s something, turnips, you couldn’t keep.  Now, she used to pick corn.  She used to jar the corn, like the figs, the figs, the peaches and all.  She used to keep all that because she…she knew how to jar it.

Continued on Chapter 37