Atchafalaya Basin People: 06/18/26

DATE: Side A: November 2, 1996.

INTERVIEWER: Jim Delahoussaye

LOCATIONS: Edward Couvillier’s house, 148 Oxford Loop, Oxford, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.

COOPERATORS: Ida Sauce Daigle; Roy (Bootsie) Millet; Gloria Ann Marcotte; Edward Couvillier; Lena Mae Couvillier; Alvin Marcotte; David Daigle; Ophelia (Yank) Sauce Millet

JD: tell us your full name…your whole name…

Bootsie: Roy Charles Millet.

JD: I didn’t know about Charles. [laughs] I didn’t know about the Charles.

Bootsie: That’s my full name.

JD: So, he’s talking about some things…about his family lived on Myette Pt. for a long time in a house. Well, he says he lived there all the time [his whole life] and uh, he’s about to tell us some things that used to go on.

Bootsie: Well, when I was just comin up they didn’t have nobody else around there. Just one family, that’s all. That’s…I think, about 1945, that’s when people start moving there [to Myette Pt.].

JD: How old were you then?

Bootsie: Uh, you can figure it up, I’m 71 now.

JD: OK, so about 1945, you’re 71 now. OK.

Bootsie: We never did have no…no line fishermens over there. Nobody fished lines. But the reason why, the lake was so big you couldn’t get out there. Just like the bay, it get so rough you couldn’t fish…you couldn’t fish lines. They had a few net fishermen, that’s about it. And all they had was cotton nets out there. About every two weeks they had to pick them things up, tar em. Then when they really got some line fishin, that’s when Myon and them moved over there, to the Point [Myette Pt.]. And they started fishin lines. That’s when the sandbars begin to start building up.

JD: That’s when…now y’all: were livin there before they dug the…before they built te levees, or not?

Bootsie: Aw yeah, we was there long time before that.

JD: You remember when your family settled there?

Bootsie: 1927.

JD: 1927…now, that was the big flood!

Bootsie: Yeah.

JD: That was the year when all the big flood took place.

Bootsie: We was, you know where the channel cuts through [between Goat Island and the mainland]?

JD: The San Diego Channel? The main channel?

Bootsie: The main channel, cuts from Goat Island through Myette Pt., there.

JD: In that lil cut right now, the cut?

Bootsie: We were living on the other side [on what would now be Goat Island]. That was originally old Myette Pt. right there.

JD: You mean at the end of Goat Island, you talking about?

Bootsie: Umhm. Right there, we had a big house built there.

JD: Uh, I’m not sure I understand. You talking…

Bootsie: Now, wait now, in 19…uh, ‘28 or ’29, we moved that house. And we moved it back…

JD: Moved it back?

Bootsie: On this side the channel [the Cut]. That channel wasn’t there at that time, no!

JD: Was there a Goat Island? Was Goat Island…[there?]. There was no such thin as Goat Island?

Bootsie: No. There was no Goat Island at that time. [there was no channel built yet to cut the tip of Myette Pt. off to make the end of the point an island] Now, how is that called Goat Island? I put a bunch of goats on there.

JD: Oh, you did?

Bootsie: Yeah, that’s why they call it Goat Island.

JD: I’ll be damned. I didn’t know that. That’s how it got that name?

Bootsie: Yeah.

JD: Did it have a name before that? Do you remember?

Bootsie: Myette Pt. That was Myette Pt. I, I guess, about 1940, that’s when we began to have people, you know, seeing, come and live out there you know? Old Charles Johnson, I think, was the first one came there.

JD: Came to live in a houseboat, or the bank?

Bootsie: Houseboat. Houseboat. And, I think in 1929, they had old Pete Johnson, that was Charles Johnson’s daddy, he built a house out there. He never stayed there too long.

JD: How could y’all:…how could y’all: be there in a house on the bank in all that high water in ’27? What happened in ’27?

Bootsie: Well, I was too small to know, but, it never did take the house on Myette Pt. No, that’s a high hill out there!

JD: No kidding, huh? Even in ’27 with all that…?

Bootsie: 1945 was just as high as ’27 yeah!

JD: Well, the thing about it is, by ’45 you had levees…no you didn’t…yeah, you did, you had levees out there so you kept the water between the levees and it would be higher in the Basin, I guess. In ’27 it could spread out, I guess.

Bootsie: Umhm. Yeah, that’s right. I can go show you some trees back there, in ’27 where the high water was. And, right now, I guess you must just have about three foot of that tree stickin out.

JD: Is that right!? From the mud, from the sand?

Bootsie: From the mud done built up. From ’27, [all that’s left is] about three foot, now.

JD: No kidding?! Why did your family move there? Why did your family settle there? Do you…?

Bootsie: Well, my great, great grandfather, that was they property out there. The whole Myette Pt.

JD: What was his name, do you remember?

Bootsie: Ahhh, I think Joseph. I think, I ain’t sure, no.

JD: And that’s still [last name] Millet?

Bootsie: They still call it Myette Pt.

JD: I mean, he was a Millet?

Bootsie: Yeah. The only thing I regret, they…they changed spelling of the name of it now.

JD: How was it spelled?

Bootsie: M i l l e t. And the Corps of Engineers, they changed it to M y e t t e.

JD: The Corps of Engineers changed it? That’s when…that’s when it got changed?

Bootsie: Well, they just changed it a few years ago, eh Ed?

Edward: Umhm. Yeah.

JD: Hey David! David Daigle just showed up

JD: Well, I had no idea. So, when you were growing up, your family name was…was Millet, M i l l e t? But y’all: always pronounced it “me yet”?

Bootsie: “Me Yet”.

JD: Y’all: always did?

Bootsie: Yeah, always pronounced it “me yet”.

JD: And was your…was your family French speaking?

Bootsie: Uh, no, the Millets, they wasn’t French. My mother, she was French. She was an [pronounced “ahyo”]. And they was raised right, right on this… [nearby].

JD: You started to say your great grandfather, or your grandfather, what did you say about where he lived, or

Bootsie: Well, they was out here in 1912, they had a house built, right where we had the big house. And uh, that was the biggest high water they had at that time, 1912. They had made a levee, with shovels…see, that used to be all sugarcane out there. They had three sugar mills out there in that lake.

JD: In the lake?

Bootsie: Yeah, it’s lake now, but it was bank at that time. Three sugar mills there.

JD: No kidding!? Sugar mills! So, they lived there, and, they built a house…was the house on…on, on pilings or anything? Or was it…

Bootsie: No, just like these houses here, low…we didn’t have no water or nothin!

JD: I guess so, huh?

Bootsie: No high water. Well, when we was staying in that house back there, we used to raise gardens and everything. Never did get no high water.

JD: What’d your family do for a living back there?

Bootsie: Well, what I can remember…we…my daddy…I don’t know. He was a butcher at one time. We raised a bunch of cattle, and everything, back there. He never did know how to fish, or nothin. We made it all right, though.

JD: Well, now, the story that I have from…from these folks right here [Myette Pt. boat people] is…I was real interested to see when they came in there with houseboats, and when they pulled over the levee, and so on…and I have, I have the years, I think, when that happened. That was in the middle 1940s, early 1940s, I believe, when that happened.

Bootsie: Yeah, the year…I think 1945 or 1946 [when] they pulled them camps over.

JD: You helped pull the camps over, did you?

Bootsie: Umhm. I pulled…my camp…I pulled it across there with a 1935 Plymouth.

JD: You pulled it across with that?

Bootsie: Yeah. I made what they call a “vees pa y’all:”.

JD: What’s that?

Bootsie: That was a pole in the ground… a post, like that,…and they tied off on another tree, and they go round and round with that thing…

Edward: It’s just like a winch.

Bootsie: Just like a winch.

JD: You put a pole in the ground and wrap a rope around it, and then tie the rope to the car, or something?

Bootsie: You know how them cane derricks…them old cane derricks used to be? Them old mules [would] get on there and turn round and round.

Edward: You had bunch of spokes on it, you know, to go around?

Bootsie: And put you a tongue…

JD: And you drove that car round and round, or something like that?

Bootsie: At times, I did. And when we couldn’t…I mean, we pulled it up as far as we could by hand, and then I got in that old car and I pulled [it up like a winch].

JD: Right there and the end of what I call…right there at the end of the canal?

Bootsie: That old Lily Bayou.

JD: Lily Bayou?

Bootsie: That’s what was the name of it, Lily Bayou. [the original name for Myon’s Canal]

JD: And that was a…that was a…a cane field canal? Wasn’t it? A drainage canal for the cane fields?

Bootsie: Yeah.

JD: You say your camp…you had a campboat out there too?

Bootsie: Umhm. I bought a lil campboat, I was livin on the levee.

JD: So, you pulled yours over and y’all: all lived…you lived, where they were livin for a while?

Bootsie: Yeah. Umhm. All livin together on the levee, there.

JD: [to Edward] I didn’t know he was one of the ones who had a campboat in there?

Edward: We lived right in the bend there, he lived a lil bit further…

Bootsie: We was a lil bit further this way [toward the landing]

Edward: Not far, but a lil bit further.

JD: Well, if you grew up with a father who wasn’t a fisherman and y’all: were back there [on Myette Pt.], what did you grow up doing for a living, yourself?

Bootsie: Well, I fished a lil bit. At that time we…we didn’t have much to make a livin on, then, you know? And to live with. Sheee.

Edward: Didn’t need much.

Bootsie: Didn’t need much. No. Buy a sack of flour for nothin, and…

Edward: Jim, if you made six or seven dollars a week, you could live good.

Bootsie: We didn’t…we didn’t know what insurance was. We didn’t know what electricity was…

JD: Or expensive equipment either I imagine, huh?

Bootsie: No. Had them old gas boats. Them old potpots, and if it wouldn’t be that, we’d have a air-cooled [inboard motor].

Edward: Lot of people had push…push oars too.

Bootsie: Yeah. Uh, I think it was…um, I don’t remember when, I think it was in the ‘30s, I bought that…that bunch of hoop nets, and then I started fishin.

JD: You started fishin nets?

Bootsie: Umhm. I never was much of a line fisherman.

Edward: I remember…I remember when we used to catch a gar, a choupique or somethin me and Bootsie took [off] and head to the front with that sucker to sell it.

Bootsie: Aw yeah. [laughs]

Edward: Yeah lord! They had a oak tree about…almost middle ways along the trail [in the fields] goin to the lake, and that’s where you stop and rest, under that oak tree.

Bootsie: Umhm.

Edward: Big old tree, man!

Bootsie: But he [Jim D] ought to remember that, if he come out here with his daddy.

JD: Yeah, but I don’t remember enough about it to say.

Edward: There wasn’t no such thing as ridin…walk to the front, over here. And they had them tokens out here, that’s what they’d pay us for the fish with, tokens.

JD: Tokens? What you mean?!

Edward: That’s what they had at Oaklawn.

Bootsie: Oaklawn Store, that’s all they would handle…them, uh…

Edward: Tokens.

Bootsie: Ah, what we used to call em, instead of tokens? Those old aluminum piece of…

Edward: They had a triangle hole in the middle of em.

JD: Yeah, I remember those tokens. That’s the kind of stuff they used to use during the war when you’d have rationing…is that what it was?

Bootsie: Umhm. Ole Sam Jones…

Edward: Yeah. You had to buy from Oaklawn Store with that.

JD: Wait. I want to get back to the start of that. You say…why were y’all: dealing with the Oaklawn Store? What was that?

Bootsie: That was the plantation store.

JD: Where was it located?

Edward: Across the bayou, right after you get off the bridge…on the right hand side.

JD: Toward Medric’s?

Edward: When you get off the bridge and make a left goin to Medric’s, right on the right hand side.

JD: Yeah, so it was another store like Medric’s?

Bootsie: Well, it didn’t have no wine and nothin… just a grocery store.

JD: But I mean, it was like…it was a grocery store?

Edward: Bigger than Medric’s though.

JD: Umhm? It was bigger than Medric’s?

Edward: Yeah, it was a big store.

Bootsie: Now…

JD: So now, y’all: would deal with it…I gotta keep straight so I can get this typed out…y’all: dealt with that store to sell your fish? Or to buy your stuff?

Bootsie: Buy our stuff.

Edward: Them tokens. You sell your fish, get them tokens. You had to…

JD: So, wait, so who you sold your fish to… gave you tokens for your fish?

Bootsie: Yeah.

Lena Mae: Not many.

JD: Not many? Well, I mean, not…not…

Bootsie: That’s the only place you could spend that…that’s the only store.

David: They were getting paid with tokens too.

JD: Oh, come on now, wait a minute! So, you’d sell your…who’d you sell your fish too?

Bootsie: The colored people.

Edward: The colored folks around there.

JD: Oh, oh, so you talkin about…not a dealer, not a fish buyer or anything. You talking about pedaling your fish…they would give you tokens, to sell [buy] your fish. And you could…and then you could…and then the only thing you could spend in that store was tokens?

Bootsie: No, you could spend cash too, if you had it.

JD: But you could spend the tokens there, but you couldn’t spend the tokens anywhere else?

Edward: No.

Bootsie: That’s why they would pay these plantation people [with tokens] …they call that a “order day”. They go get…if they need some money…they give em that. Now, for payday, they give em cash money.

JD: Now wait, so…so there was as order day? And a payday?

Bootsie: Umhm.

JD: And [on] the order day, they gave the people who worked on plantations tokens, [and] on payday they gave em cash?

Bootsie: Cash, umhm.

JD: Now, where did these tokens come from?

Bootsie: That was just there…there…

JD: So, it was right there for use right there on the plantation? Had they made em? Or something? Bought em someplace?

Bootsie: Well they got em…I guess they did. Somewhere, they get em.

Lena Mae: I don’t know where they get em, but they sure got em, eh? [laughs]

JD: So, it was the way you, the way you handled money right there on the plantation. It was good only on the plantation?

Bootsie: That’s right. That’s all, just right there on the plantation.

JD: So Oaklawn Plantation.

Bootsie: You could go to Medric’s…Medric wouldn’t take em.

JD: Medric wouldn’t take em?

Bootsie: Uhuh.

JD: Boy, you talk about keeping people one…in one place!

David: That’s the thing. If I pay you with [tokens]…how much money I pay, you got to come back to me [to spend it]. Whatever I pay, you gone give it back to me.

Bootsie: You know where that Oaklawn Store was at first? Right in the back of, uh, Myon’s house, there, a lil further back. You know where Liza used to stay? Under that oak tree, that’s where Oaklawn store was, at one time.

JD: At one time? It was on this side the bayou, eh?

Ida: You know, I used to love to go there…because everything was in the same store!

JD: It was a supermarket?! [laughs]

Bootsie: Ay, boy!

Ida: You had everything! And another one was right there, that was that other big store…uh…I don’t remember the name…

Lena Mae: Caffery (store)?

Ida: It burned, I think.

Bootsie: Oh, that’s Viguerie’s store, then, the one burned in Charenton?

Ida: No, no, this way [closer to Myette Pt.].

Bootsie: Well, that’s that way, that’s Charenton.

Ida: I don’t care…this way… [perturbed, confused] [laughter]

Bootsie: Awww, Paul Comeaux.

Ida: Comeaux!

Lena Mae: They called it the Caffery Store…?

Bootsie: No, no, the Belleview Store. [all agree to this]

Ida: I couldn’t think of the name, but I used to love to go there too, yeah! Man, all that things in there! We didn’t have no money to buy nothin, but we’d see…[laughs] we’d go look!

JD: Would you mind givin me your birthday?

Bootsie: My birthday? June 23, 1925.

JD: Now you don’t go…you go by “Yank”, not Ophelia, huh?

Yank: Ophelia.

JD: You go by Ophelia? Would you mind telling me your birthday? [laughs]

Yank: Yeh, you don’t want to know how old I am.

JD: Well, I DON’T want to know how old you are. I want to know your birthday. [laughs]

YM: 1927, March the 16^th. I’m not ashamed of it, I can tell you.

Lena Mae: If she don’t’ want to tell you, I’ll tell you Jim!

Bootsie: I’m tired of her, me.

David: Where y’all: originated from?

Bootsie: Huh? Right here at Myette Pt.

David: I mean your daddy and them.

Bootsie: Ah, right there on Myette Pt.

David: Everybody from right there?

Bootsie: Yeah. My great, great granddaddy used to live out there.

David: Like, all my people came from Bayou Chene. None of y’all: came from Bayou Chene?

JD: Well, you see, it’s interesting, he’s talking about his…his people didn’t speak French, which would lead you to believe that they might a come from up around Bayou Chene, cause that’s where the people who spoke English came from.

Bootsie: Ummm, Millet, that’s a German name. I looked it up, that’s what they say. I dunno.

JD: See what I did here? Uh, I’m showing Bootsie the, uh, the family history here. [chart]. Because I’m writing about the Myette Pt. community, it’s…I’ve got, basically Myon and Agnes’ and Ophelia’s family back as far up here as, uh, Larnce Sauce, and, and your great…your great grandmother was Ophelia…Ophelia Simoneaux.

Yank:: Yeah…not my great grandmother…my grandmother.

JD: Your grandmother…your grandmother was Ophelia Simoneaux. And, and, Claiborne Mayon and Fannie Mae Mason, on the other side. But, uh…here you are, right here…right here. Roy “Bootsie” Millet married her. Anyway, we need to get together and talk some more, ‘cause I’d like to know some more about what your family was, and what they were doin there. My shame is, I got to go at 4:00. [laughs]

Bootsie: Yeah. Plenty people don’t believe they had three sugarmills out there.

Lena Mae: Jim, you ever got them pictures developed we got at the graveyard?

JD: We have the pictures. We didn’t bring em to show em to y’all:?

Lena Mae: No.

JD: I got em. I’ll bring em. We’ll get you some copies.

TAPING SESSION STOPS HERE. THEN START RECORDING AGAIN AT EDWARD COUVILLIER’S HOUSE.

JD: This is Edward talking at Edward’s house about stories, and I don’t know whether to believe him or not [laughs].

Edward: We had two boats tied together, and Pete [who is this?] was gone wash the deck. And we was runnin light [running fast]. And he took a five-gallon bucket and he tied that sucker around his arm and throw it overboard to catch the water. And when he did…it caught!! Boom! [pulled him] Overboard! And a good thing we was lookin, you know? We seen him when he fell [laughs]. [had to] Go back and get him.

Gloria: Well, it’s a wonder he stayed afloat with the five-gallon bucket tied to his wrist!

Edward: Naw, he turned it loose.

Lena Mae: But Carlin [another overboard story], he was worried about Carlin, man. He had went a long ways…

Edward: Yeah, hour, hour and a half before I missed him. It was cold, you know, man, he could’a froze.

Gloria: It’s a good thing you wasn’t in real, real deep water, too.

Edward: Lucky, he didn’t get stuck underneath that boat. That was the lucky part.

Lena Mae: Lucky, he didn’t get hit by that wheel [propeller].

JD: It was a tugboat, or a crewboat?

Edward: It was a tugboat.

JD: Man, I thought everybody knew that story.

Lena Mae: That wasn’t no story, that was the fact. [laughs]

JD: You see, that’s why I don’t have a lot of stuff on this…on this outline, cause every time we get started talkin, you start talking about stories…and I never get to the stuff on here.

Gloria: What is that?

JD: Well, this is a…this is the outline of what I’m writing. [it is the interview matrix] The part about the line fishing only. About what I’m writing. And these are a list of tools, carried on into the next page, and this is the uh, the people that I’ve interviewed so far. And each time one of these things shows up in a box, it means that person talked about this thing on tape, so I have their opinion, their uh, stuff. But I got a lot from Russell, a lot from Joe, and Edward and Lena Mae, I don’t have very much about…

Edward: We talked about a lot of stuff…

JD: Yeah, but not on tape. That’s it. It’s not on tape.

Gloria: Well, you missed just now, they was talking about the shrimp bushes.

JD: Yeah, yeah. It’s hard to know when to turn this thing on because, a lot of what we talk about doesn’t apply to it. To this. But there’s all this stuff, you see, and…if y’all:…if y’all: were part of that…Were y’all: ever involved with fishing, the kids? Hester’s the oldest?

Lena Mae: No, the kids didn’t fish.

Gloria: Harry [Lange] fished.

Lena Mae: Harry fished.

Gloria: Yeah, Harry and Milton [Bailey]. Me and Alberta and Dot used to fish. We had some lines.

Edward: Lee [Lange] didn’t fish. Lee was the lawyer; he didn’t have to fish. [not really]

Gloria: We had some lines across the levee. And we’d get up, I mean there’d be ice in the morning. Me and uh Poona…Dot and Alberta…

JD: Who was that?

Gloria: That’s Aunt Vina…Edward and them’s sister?

Lena Mae: Jack’s [Sauce] momma.

JD: Jack Sauce’s mother?

Gloria: His sister, Leona [Alvina?], we always called her Poona. She was my fishing partner, and Dot and Alberta was fishin partners. We’d get out there…we had lines across the levee in the trees. Me and Poona ran them lines? It’d be ice on the ground; we’d get up and run them lines before we go to school. We never caught a fish. Never caught a fish! Alberta and Dot would catch some every now and then, but me and Poona would get out there just as faithful and run them lines…and we never caught! [laughs] We just did it, and we never would catch anything!

Edward: Old boy was telling me the other day, Jim Back there when y’all: was in the back, I didn’t want to go down that hill? Old boy was telling me he put him a line out in that canal back there, about 40 hooks, he say he caught 10 head of blue cats.

JD: Gaww. In the canal?

Edward: Right there by that tank battery deal, there.

JD: Local fish probly, though.

Edward: Local…next run he say he caught two.

JD: Yeah.

Edward: Sayin they was local. I didn’t think there’d be any fish in there, you know. Apparently, they is.

Gloria: Uncle Edward, you remember those records you had given me, I had copied, those deaths, and stuff? You remember in the back, on a page, I put all of your grandfathers and great grandfathers and all that? You remember I put all that?

Edward: Yeah.

Gloria: Jim might want to see that.

JD: Yeah, I would like to see it, because what I have for Edward so far is, uh, I have…I have his mother and father, Albert and Ella. I have them, and I have their children down here, but I don’t go any further back in his family than his mother and father. So, if you have more than that…

Gloria: He has it. I wrote it down for him.

JD: Edward sure had a pack of brothers and sisters, eh?

Edward: This is all the [?] right here. [looking at his record book]

Gloria: I wrote it in the back…remember I told you, when I brought it back, I said I put this back here for you?

Edward: Right here, eh? Yeah.

JD: I’d like to get a photocopy of that page, if I could.

Gloria: Yeah, start right here with Uncle Edward, and go up.

JD: 1836…1800…1752? Good Gosh!

Gloria: Well, uh, Uncle Edward has a cousin in Morgan City that does that. And she gave me some, and I got some from the Catholic Church, in Charenton. And then, at the library. We went to the courthouse.

JD: 1694, you have somebody in here?!

Edward: Way back, eh? But none of em rich, Jim!! [laughs]

Gloria: You don’t know, there might be some in France rich.

JD: Sonnier [looking at the records she has given Edward]? Marie Sonnier? I have friend in Baton Rouge who’s doing a lot of stuff, and her maiden name is Sonnier.

Gloria: I have a friend that’s a Sonnier. And you see, right here? Gaston Couvillier, that’s married to Celanie [sp?] Robichaux? You know in Charenton, the Robichaux property? Okay, highway 87, you keep on, and you go across that lil bridge in Charenton? Okay, you remember where the grocery store used to be? Okay. On the right, the road that goes down where he used to live? Right past there, used to be the Robichaux estate. Used to have a big white house there. OK, that was grandpa’s grandma. He was a …his grandma was a Robichaux, and they owned the Robichaux estate over there. And that’s where grandpa grew up. He used…he told em when he was dyin, that he had grown up in his grandma’s big house in Charenton, and they still owned the land. That it still belonged to em. And everybody thought that, the property that belongs to the Vigueries on the beach road [Charenton Beach]? Everybody thought that was it. But when I got into that and start looking it up, I found out that it was Celanie Robichaux…was his grandmother. And that’s, …that’s the same family as uh, Coleman Becnel, that’s his wife, she’s part of that family too. And Bubba Robichaux, all that? That’s all the same Robichaux family. And his…see, Alton Couvillier and his wife Celanie split up, and that’s how…why grandpa was raised over there… [with the Robichaux family]

JD: Were any of these people, back in here [referring to the older dates in her chart of information] …the time they came into the United States, do you know if any of them were fishermen?

Gloria: I don’t really know.

JD: ‘Cause one ot the things I’m tryin to trace is…is taking the people and trying to trace how they made their living. And one of the things I’m really interested in is how did the people get from living on land to houseboats. And how long did they stay on the campboats in the Basin before they came back [on land].

Gloria: Well, the way…in the Atchafalaya Basin, the way they got to livin on houseboats…they all used to have…Daddy and them lived on something like a farm out there. They had cattle, they raised peanuts and stuff…but it had something to do with the Corps of Engineers, whatever they did, that caused the Atchafalaya Basin to flood every year, that made em get on houseboats from their houses.

Edward: Lot of people had cattle.

JD: Well, that would have been up around Bayou Chene and those places up there…

Gloria: Yeah.

Edward: Well, Bayou Chene…most of Bayou Chene is people lived in houses, up there.

JD: On dry land?

Edward: Yeah.

Gloria: But then, when it started floodin…you never did read the book by Gladys Calhoun Case?

JD: I don’t believe.

Gloria: OK, she’s got two books now. I have one at home. I don’t have the other one. From New Iberia, it’s all about Bayou Chene and the residents and stuff and why they moved away, and all that.

Edward: I got one…I got a book here somewhere. [one of her’s?]

JD: But you see.

Gloria: They’re in the libraries, probly. But she’s from…she wrote em…she’s a schoolteacher. Gladys Calhoun? And she went out there and she married a Case. And she wrote books.

JD: I need to pick that up, because, you see, Lena Mae’s…Lena Mae’s background is from the other end. It’s from the south end of the Basin. Because her momma was raised around Stephensville, and Myon was raised on, uh, on Fourmile Bayou. And they got to houseboats because that…I never have gotten quite clear why they went…why your [Lena Mae] parents, no, grandparents went from livin on land, because when your great grandparents came over here from France and Spain, they took up farming, apparently. And they were farmers. And somehow, for some reason, they ended up on houseboats. Not farming anymore, but going to fishing.

Lena Mae: When I was, oh, I just barely remember this…because Daddy’s momma was still livin then. She was living with grandma, Daddy’s momma, at the time. But I was real small, vaguely remember this. But at the time, my grandma and grandpa didn’t live on a campboat, they were livin in a house…in Lil Texas.

Gloria: Where’s Lil Texas?

Lena Mae: Somewhere around Fourmile Bayou, Morgan City, down there somewhere. Around, I guess, Fourmile Bayou. But that was the name of the place where they was at, Lil Texas.

Gloria: Never heard of that before. You ever heard of of that?

Lena Mae: That’s somewhere around Lake Verret.

JD: That’s…that’s Myon’s…

Lena Mae: That’s Momma’s…Daddy’s [Myon’s] momma and daddy.

JD: Your daddy’s momma and daddy.

Lena Mae: Yeah.

JD: That would be Victor and Catherine?

Gloria: No. No, uhuh.

JD: That would be Albert [no, Wilson Jean] Bailey, and Ernestine? Daigle?

Gloria: Right.

Lena Mae: Yeah.

JD: Ok. They lived on the land.

Lena Mae: Yeah, they were living on the land...

JD: Well, Myon himself, I believe, was raised on the land?

Lena Mae: Yeah, they was all raised on land, they wasn’t raised on a houseboat. Now, when Daddy [Myon] started in a houseboat is when they started pullboatin up at the canal…where…where I was brought up [Blaise's Canal]. They started cutting them pullboat roads and all this stuff…pullboatin lumber, trees, out of there…

Gloria: All them people from up north, the men would come down here to cut timber.

Lena Mae: That’s when Daddy started, from Lil Texas, comin there, livin on camps.

JD: Is that right? See, I don’t have that on tape. That’s what started him livin…

Lena Mae: That’s what started him livin on campboats, and at the time, Grandpa Sauce and them [Blaise Sauce] was livin where they was cutting the pullboat roads. That’s Blaise Sauce. And his momma and daddy. I remember them too.

Gloria: Now, I have…I have all the genealogy on…on her, Rosalie Sauce?

Lena Mae: Yeah.

Gloria: I have all her family.

JD: I think I’ve got most of that, but I’d like to compare with yours.

Gloria: But, I mean, it goes way, way back.

JD: You got Claiborne and Fanny Mae Mayon?

Gloria: Yeah.

JD: We found their graves; did you know that? We took a ride last Christmas, about seven of us. I wanted to go and see what we could find. So, we took a ride last Christmas, about seven of us, in a…in a cold, cold…it was so cold Agnes wouldn’t get out of the car.

Lena Mae: We passed there a while back.

JD: But we went to the, uh, we went to the two cemeteries where they thought that the people might be buried, one of em was on the Lake Verret road, that road they call “The Canal”. Attakapas Canal.

Lena Mae: And in Pierre Part…

JD: And in Pierre Part. We went to this lil old church on this road they call The Canal, and by golly, there it was… Fanny Mae and Claiborne Mayon. They had the dates on it, 1859 to 1931, and 1856 to 1946. That was a big thing! We got a kick out of finding…and then we went to Pierre Part and we found uh,

Lena Mae: Uncle Bill, and

JD: We found the other two, it was…Bill, and we always thought his name was Laurence, or Laurent, it turns out the name on his gravestone is Larnce. L a r n c e.

Lena Mae: But they always called him Laurent.

Gloria: Who is that?

Lena Mae: My grandpa.

Edward: He was a Frenchman, that’s why, Laurent is French.

JD: Yeah, well, I guess so. And, uh, his wife’s name was Ophelia.

Gloria: Well, the reason I have all that is, uh, Clarence Domingue?, does genealogy, and he gave me a copy of everything he has…[?] And the reason I got a copy of it…because, uh, my grandson, Jill’s baby? Austin Carline? They’re related. Jill’s baby, his daddy, are related to them [Lena Mae’s family], so that’s why I wanted it, for my grandchild.

JD: Once I get an understanding of who the people were, I’m tryin to get…When you get to town, Winn-Dixie, or something like that, you think you could made a photocopy of that?

Gloria: I can give you a copy, I have it all on the chart.

Lena Mae: You can get that and whatever else she’s got.

[conflicting conversations in the background, more about Gloria's family background]

The previous material was done at Edward Couvillier and Lena Mae’s house, on November 2, 1996 and the other people in the room were myself, and, Gloria Ann Marcotte and Alvin Marcotte. Those are the other voices on this piece of tape. Still at Edward and Lena Mae’s house. We gonna talk about some stuff on the list that we haven’t talked about before. We gonna start the recording now, with Edward and Lena Mae, and they just told me that I need to add juglines to uh, to uh, to the list of fishing techniques. Well, since you said that, why don’t we start with y’all: talking about how y’all: did juglines. What you used for floats? How you set em, how deep? The baits you used…?

Edward: You can use anything Jim. You can used coke bottles, or Styrofoam buoys…

Lena Mae: We used to use…uh, cypress knees…dried up cypress knee.

Edward: Years ago they didn’t have Styrofoam, stuff like that. They used to make buoys out of cypress knees. Cut a cypress knee, peel it, let it dry… floats. Just tie a line on there with a hook, about three foot long, four foot, whatever. Bait, we used shrimp, or, cut bait.

JD: And what did you catch with that?

Edward: Catfish.

JD: Catfish? All kinds?

Edward: All kinds, big ones, lil ones…

JD: But, uh, blue cats and goujons, both?

Edward: Didn’t catch too many goujons. Goujon mostly a bottom fish, they stay on the bottom. Blue cats come up, you know? You don’t fish them on the bottom.

JD: You fish the juglines…you fish the juglines about three or four feet deep, you say?

Edward: Yeah, they float. You might put one out here, go tomorrow morning it might be down there close to Franklin if a big fish get on it and drag it, you know?

JD: Well, how many of those did y’all: fish at one time?

Edward: Fished a hundred.

JD: Really? That many??

Lena Mae: Umhm. When we was living across the lake, we didn’t fish that many.

Edward: Some people don’t fish many, some people fish more than that.

Lena Mae: The only thing we fished the juglines for was to catch garfish, to smoke.

JD: Umhm. For yourself.

Lena Mae: For our use. That smoked meat would last a long time, you know?

Edward: Gar fish would take a…

Lena Mae: We used to take that and jar it, you know, and…

JD: Your daddy always had a smoke thing set up wherever he was?

Lena Mae: Oh yeah, always had a…Grandpa, had a lil smokehouse, him. But after Grandpa passed away, and all, we used to use a drum. Daddy had fixed a drum.

JD: So, it was your grandfather that always had the smoke…smokehouse? It was your grandfather [Blaise Sauce]?

Lena Mae: Right.

Edward: You see, to catch a gar fish, you wouldn’t use a hook.

Lena Mae: You’d make a loop.

Edward: You’d make a loop with a piece of wire…

JD: OK, what kind of wire? Any kind of wire?

Lena Mae: Like, what you make schwivels out of?

Edward: Any kind of wire that stay open, you know, it would stay open. And he come up, catch the bait, he’d catch it and take off and it would tighten around his bill. Once he grab that bait you had him. There was no getting off.

Lena Mae: Caught a many of em like that.

Edward: I seen em catch 100…80, 90, 100-pound gar fish like that.

JD: Boy, they must carry that…that float a long a long way…

Lena Mae: No, what we used to do…

Edward: Some of em would just tie it to something, you know, and let it hang.

Lena Mae: What we used to do, we used to make our juglines and then go in the boat up the bayou and then we’d drop our line and come back home. And as the floats would pass, if they had a fish on it, we’d pick it up. [laughs] and that’s how we’d do it. Some time we’d catch a gar fish that was so big daddy had to shoot him. Get there and skin him and smoke our meat, and do whatever we had to do with it.

JD: How did y’all:, uh, how did y’all: season the meat?

Edward: We didn’t season it…really, didn’t season it.

Lena Mae: Really, you don’t season it when you smoke it.

Edward: Tastes good like that.

Lena Mae: Because, uh, I don’t think momma and them put anything on it. But when they’d cook it, mostly we’d cook it down with tomatoes; make a tomato gravy with that smoked gar…boy that was delicious.

JD: You would…you would smoke the gar meat and then you would put it down in those jars [crocks]…or, or you would just leave it like that?

Edward: It would hold like that.

Lena Mae: It would hold like that, after it’s smoked, I mean we didn’t…put it, keep it too far ahead of time because uh, you couldn’t, you know? Once or twice a week we’d catch a gar fish.

STOPPED THE RECORDER, AND RESTARTED, STILL SAME DATE, SAME PLACE

JD: Y’all: were talking about floats, and we talking about cypress knees, and I guess it’s the same thing as everybody else now…I mean, everybody else uses plastic floats, or crab trap floats, or whatever it is. The only thing different from the old days really was those dried cypress knees, wasn’t it?

Edward: Yeah, well, you didn’t have all that stuff…plastic…in them days.

JD: Let’s talk for a minute, if I can start from the top of the list, just for the heck of it. Let me start with uh, what I’m callin anchors. It’s not for boats, I’m talking about, it’s for things to anchor something like a crossing in the channel. The big anchor you put in the middle?

Edward: You used big rocks.

JD: That’s what y’all: used in the old days? A big rock?

Edward: Well, yeah, whenever you could get one.

JD: If you couldn’t get one, what did you use for an anchor?

Edward: Um, mostly it was iron. Scrap iron, whatever you could find. But as far as jiggerpoles, back in them days, you didn’t hardly see…like a jiggerpole now?

JD: Well, but you couldn’t, uh, what I’m talking about is crossings in the main channel like that, where a jiggerpole wouldn’t do you any good.

Edward: No, uhuh. No, it would have to be a rock, or driveshaft off a old car, or whatever.

JD: A driveshaft off an old car?

Edward: Yeah.

JD: Or an axle, or something like that?

Edward: You drop that sucker there, it ain’t goin nowhere.

JD: Uh, how about bridle lines? Talk about…if you can remember what y’all: used to use for bridle lines way back then, and up to now.

Edward: The same line you use for your uh, line, that’s the line you use.

JD: So y’all: used the main line.

Edward: Main line. You didn’t have all this nylon stuff like you got now…all this rope. Most of your line…most of your bridle line was raw.

JD: Raw?

Edward: Yeah. You put it out there. It wouldn’t last.

JD: You didn’t dip it or anything, you didn’t treat it or anything?

Edward: It didn’t last anyhow. It wouldn’t make any [difference]. You could tar it and it wouldn’t last.

JD: Cause it was cotton?

Edward: Cotton. And uh, you put a line out there and it might last you, in the summertime, if you got two months out of it, you got a lot. The hotter the water is, the worse it was. Cool water, it would last a little longer, you see? Warm water? Rotten, you couldn’t pull on it, it would break. Nylon, now, you can leave it out there for years, and go back and get it and it would be just like you left it.

JD: What was it like when nylon first came out? What…do you remember when that happened? How did that happen? I mean, when y’all: went from line made out of cotton, which didn’t last atoll, to nylon which lasts almost forever, that must have made a big difference in…

Lena Mae: That really happened after we moved on this side the lake.

Edward: Well, I guess so. That happened, uh, in fact I think the nylon must of come out in the late ‘40s.

Continued on Chapter 47

Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 46