Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 14

  

DATE:                        December 10, 1995

INTERVIEWER:      Jim Delahoussaye

LOCATION:              Edward Couvillier’s house on Oxford Loop, Oxford, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.

COOPERATORS:   Edward Couvillier, Lena Mae Couvillier

 JD:      [Talking to the tape]  Ok, I want to summarize in case we didn’t get piece of this on tape.  The first house came over, that was Lena Mae and Edward, built a cabin that was gonna be a houseboat but got built on land and it stayed on land.  It never did become a houseboat.  Did it?

 Lena Mae:     Never did become a houseboat. 

 

JD:      So, they were the first ones that crossed over, and that was 19…

 Edward:        No, we weren’t the first. 

 Lena Mae:     No, momma and them was.  Momma and them was. 

 JD:      Oh, I thought…

 Lena Mae:     Momma and them brought they camp first.

 Edward:        No, the Old Man [Ed’s father] towed his first.

 Lena Mae:     The Old Man did, den Momma. 

 JD:      No, wait.  I guess I misunderstood then.  I thought yall built your cabin and crossed over the levee, the first house.

 Edward:        No.  The Old Man was the first one…..

 JD:      The Old Man was…who’s the Old Man, your daddy?

 Edward:        My daddy.  My daddy.  [Myon Bailey]

 JD:      Your daddy was the first one crossed the levee. 

 Edward:        Right.

 JD:      He pulled his houseboat across the levee?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah.

 Edward:        Yeah.  Sho did.

 JD:      Set it up on this side.

 Edward:        Then Myon…

 Lena Mae:     Then momma and them..

 JD:      Then Myon….more or less where he lived when I met em?  When I came?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, exactly. 

 Edward:        Yeah, exactly where you…

 JD:      That’s where it was, right there?  And then yall moved over.  Yall were the third one and yall moved further down the levee. 

 Lena Mae:     Between his momma’s house and my momma’s house.  We moved between them. 

 JD:      Between them.

 Lena Mae:     From down the levee, by the church, pull our camp between them. 

 JD:      Ok.

 Edward:        Then after that everybody started pullin …..

 JD:      After that everybody started over, and that happened in 1949. 

 Edward:        ’49, ’50…

 JD:      Would you say Myon pulled their house over in 1949?  Just a lil bit before yall crossed over? 

 Edward:        Yeah, wasn’t too long.

 JD:      Why did he do that?  Why did the old people do that, yall think?

 Lena Mae:     I don’t know, it was …I don’t know what…made em pull over the levee. 

 Edward:        When we first got electricity we was all…most of us on the other side the levee.

 JD:      On the other side, on the lake side.

 Edward:        Umhm.  Lake side…run that electric out there.

 JD:      They run a power pole out there and yall could connect to it?  From there…

 Edward:        Phillips 66 had a…had a boat landing and had a generator, and a lot of us hooked up to that generator.

 JD:      No kidding!

 Edward:        Yeah. 

 Lena Mae:     You see, by that time momma and them had done towed they boat, they campboat against the levee.

 Edward:        And then, when they started moving over the levee, well then Teche Electric, the only one would…they tried to get CLEdwardO to come out there.  They wouldn’t come put juice to us.  Teche Electric…

 JD:      Teche Electric came and ran power out there?

 Edward:        Out to us, now your flat rate was $3.50 a month. 

 JD:      Is that right!

 Edward:        And we hardly ever paid over $3.50 a month. 

 JD:      No kiddin. 

 Edward:        Yeah.

 JD:      Well, what happened to the…when, when Myon and them moved over and your father and mother, Edward, moved over, and yall moved over the levee…what happened?  Did boats just gradually then start comin over?  A few at a time?

 Edward:        Yeah, unhun.

 Lena Mae:     See, Abner had already his lil house over the levee when momma and grandma and them…

 Edward:        Yeah, when we got married, his house was over there. 

 Lena Mae:     They had a lil house and they pulled theirs over the levee.

 JD:      Now, Abner is your brother? 

 Edward:        Yeah. 

 JD:      And, and Jesse and your other brother who was already in Myon’s canal when yall came...Lester.

 Edward:        Lester, yeah. 

 JD:      Now Lester, was he, did he, did he die…he drowned?

 Edward:        No, no.  Ah, heart attack.  Clifton, that was his boy drownded out there.

 JD:      Oh, OK.  Clifton?  His son?

 Edward:        Then Ida and them had a boy drown out there too.  On the levee. 

 JD:      Ida and them did?  What was his name, do you remember? 

 Lena Mae:     Jesse.

 JD:      Jesse?  He was Jesse Junior?

 Lena Mae:     I guess.  Ah, they call him Neggy. 

 JD:      Ok.

 Lena Mae:     Everybody knew him by the name of Lil Neggy. 

 JD:      Well, that’s got a lot on tape that I wanted to hear, because I,one of the things I want to write about is, is how the families got onto houseboats, and you telling me you don’t remember why they got on a houseboat.  I imagine its because the levees were built, and it was…you couldn’t live on the bank anymore.  In the Basin.

 Edward:        Well, back in them days people would move from place…wherever the fish would bite that’s where they would go.  

 JD:      But…but…ah, I didn’t say…what I said, I didn’t say it clearly enough.  Ah.  You got everybody livin on land, first of all.  Somewhere, everybody was livin on land.  I have all this stuff from Agnes about how her momma and daddy lived on that farm that her grandparents had, I mean, ah, on Lake Verret. 

 Edward:        That was before my time.  [laughs]

 JD:      I know that, but I’m goin back further than that, you see?

 Lena Mae:     My daddy, they lived on Fourmile Bayou.

 JD:      You talking about Myon.

 Lena Mae:     Myon. 

 JD:      They lived on land?  On Fourmile Bayou?

 Lena Mae:     On land, in a house.

 JD:      Now this I don’t have on tape.  Myon and them lived on Fourmile Bayou?  Myon and Agnes? 

 Lena Mae:     No, no.  Just Daddy. 

 JD:      Just, just Myon.

 Lena Mae:     Before they got married.

 JD:      Before they got married.  He lived on land on Fourmile Bayou.  And if I recall correctly, Agnes lived in Verdunville, her family. 

 Edward:        No. 

 JD:      They weren’t in Verdunville?

 Lena Mae:     Momma met daddy on Big Pigeon. 

 JD:      I missed something, because I had, I’ll go back and get it…I know I just don’t have something right. 

 Edward:        No, not Verdunville. 

 JD:      Ah, OK.

 Edward:        Not Verdunville.  I remember that.

 JD:      So, Myon lived on land on Fourmile Bayou.  His family lived there.  Did he grow up there?  As a boy, you think?

 Lena Mae:     As a boy he grew up there. 

 JD:      He grew up on Fourmile Bayou, and they were fishermen?  His family was fishermen? 

 Lena Mae:     His stepdaddy was. 

 JD:      His stepdaddy was. 

 Edward:        Well, that’s all people did in them days. 

 Lena Mae:     That’s all he ever done for a livin, him. 

 JD:      Some people did some farming, I mean like, like…

 Edward:        That wasn’t over there though, you know.

 JD:      No.  Ok, so Myon lived on Fourmile Bayou and he met Agnes when she was livin where? 

 Lena Mae:     I guess at the canal.  Or Big Pigeon, somewhere up in there because Daddy would come here floatin timbers.

 JD:      He was working in, uh,…timber?

 Lena Mae:     He was workin in them pullboats.

 JD:      The pullboats? 

 Lena Mae:     Yeah.  And uh, that’s where momma met daddy.  Must a been at the canal because they had a lot of pullboats in there. 

 JD:      Now, what was she doin at the canal?  Why…?

 Lena Mae:     Livin with her momma and daddy. 

 JD:      Her momma and daddy were livin…..Ok, that’s interesting because apparently…I don’t have very much about Agnes’ parents.  I have what…I have on tape that her grandparents lived on that farm.  Her father bought the farm when he came over from Spain.  And they lived on that farm on Lake Verret and when their family was, uh, when the children were raised, I suppose that means Agnes.   When the children were raised, her grandfather and grandmother moved to Morgan City, off that farm, and they went to work as cooks on these pullboats.  Agnes’ parents, that’s what I have on tape.  Her grandparents.  But I don’t know anything about her parents, in other words that would be your grandparents.  What can you tell me about them?  Where, where…?  Do you remember much about them?

 Lena Mae:     Jim, I, I know all about grandma.  But my grandfather, I remember some things about him, but I was little when he died. 

 JD:      Yeah.  OK. 

 Lena Mae:     All I remember, he had bought a big radio, big ole thing.  And people didn’t have no radio in them days, you know?

 JD:      A big radio, umhm.

 Lena Mae:     Well, he put him a chair right there and he’d sit me on the arm of the rocker, with him.  I remember that like it would be tomorrow…uh, yesterday.  But, that’s all I really remember about my grandpa. 

 JD:      So, you were real young when he died. 

 Lena Mae:     I was young when he died.  You see, I don’t remember that…now I remember when he died…I remember goin to Morgan City with the campboat…which we brought the campboat down there.  Daddy went and brought him to the doctor and they put him in the hospital.  Then he come back and got the campboat and brought it down there but grandpa never did get out the hospital.  He died in the hospital.

 JD:      OK, so he and his wife, your grandfather and grandmother were livin on campboats…in Blaise’s Canal?

 Lena Mae:     Oh yeah.  Big campboat.

 JD:      Big campboat, they lived there.  Uh, OK.  So where do we take it from there?  Uh, I’m tryin to figure …Agnes, then, ...so that would be Agnes’ momma and daddy we talking about right now.  So, they lived on Bla…were they fishermen? 

 Lena Mae:     Yeah.

 JD:      They were fishermen.  Um, their…their, their names

 Lena Mae:     Fishermen, and working on pullboats.

 Edward:        He was a Sauce.

 JD:      That was Blaise Sauce.  And what was his wife’s name?  Do yall remember?

 Lena Mae:     Rosalee. 

 JD:      Rosalee was her name.  Do you remember what her maiden name was?  Agnes’ mother?

 Lena Mae:     Momma’s momma?  Mayon. 

 JD:      Mayon.  M a y o n ?  Mayon, OK.  So she was already livin …see, I could follow this anywhere we could go but …cause I’d like to know how THEY got to that canal.  How Agnes…now I’m gone talk to her about that to find out…

 Edward:        You gone have to ask [garbled]…

 JD:      Well, I will…how they got to the canal.  You see what I’m tryin to get get to?  How did people get to Blaise’s Canal, and form a community of houseboats right there.

 Lena Mae:     I remember how my grandma got there, daddy’s momma. 

 JD:      You do? 

 Lena Mae:     I remember that like it would be yesterday. 

 JD:      Tell me how that happened.  Myon’s mother. 

 Edward:        Did she live there too?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, see they were livin on Fourmile Bayou.

 JD:      Myon’s family was livin on Fourmile Bayou…he was a boy. 

 Lena Mae:     …Momma and them and grandma [Ernestine Daigle Sauce].  And, uh, they built em a, a lil shack on the bank.  At the canal, they had a hill there, and they build that house on the hill. 

 JD:      OK.

 Lena Mae:     It was just a, a …no petitions [partitions] no nuttin.  Just a…

 JD:      Just a room.

 Lena Mae:     …wood frame, big room. 

 JD:      Ahmm.

 Lena Mae:     And we went got em in a big barge.  I remember that long as I live.  We left…in the boat, me and momma and daddy…Milton, I believe was born by then, I’m not sure.  I don’t remember Milton in the picture, but I should. 

 JD:      OK. 

 Lena Mae:     But anyway, we went to Fourmile Bayou in Daddy’s boat…

 JD:      Now, yall took a barge that was a cypress barge

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, yeah.

 JD:      Made out of wood, cypress barge, and yall pulled it with a Lockwood?

 Lena Mae:     Wit a six horse.

 JD:      A six horse, bateau, big open bateau…

 Edward:        They didn’t have iron in those days…[laughs]

 Lena Mae:     So we went down there, and we, uh, loaded the barge up.  You know, with all they stuff...all they furniture, everything.   Just fixed us a place in there for us to ride…

 JD:      I hear you.

 Lena Mae:     And we all got in there.  Grandma boiled a pile of eggs, I’ll never forget that…

 JD:      eggs.

 Lena Mae:     Boiled eggs and baked sweet potatoes.  And that’s what we had to eat on the way.

 JD:      How long did it take yall to get back and forth, you remember?  One day, I imagine.

 Lena Mae:     One day.  We made it in one day. 

 JD:      Umhm.

 Edward:        Well, it wasn’t that far over there, go straight across…

 Lena Mae:     The barge with all they furniture, everything they owned was in that barge and we brought it and put everything in that house.  And they lived there for a good long while. 

 JD:      They lived in that..that room that… now they left a big house on the bank where all that family grew up and moved into one room on that little levee?

 Lena Mae:     Well, the boys was grown up already, Uncle Ike and all them, they was already old enough…he was already livin with us here [in the canal]. 

 JD:      He was livin with yall?  Ike was livin with yall?

 Lena Mae:     He was livin wit us.  And Norman lived there for a while, but he didn’t stay, he went back home, but they all come back.  They all moved in that house. 

 JD:      So, Myon, Myon was still…how old do you think he was when that happened?  Somewhere in there.

 Lena Mae:     My daddy?

 JD:      Yeah.  I mean, he was still one of the sons of the family, you sayin, and it was his parents that yall loaded up with everything they owned and moved the family over to Myon’s canal [no, Blaise's Canal] to live on the bank..?

 Lena Mae:     Right. 

 JD:      OK, so…well I’ll ask how old that was when that happened. 

 Lena Mae:     Ask daddy, cause I don’t remember. 

 JD:      And Agnes was already there.?

 Lena Mae:     Oh yeah, we were livin there already, us.

 JD:      Yall were already on the canal [Blaise's Canal]. 

 Lena Mae:     We were livin there.

 JD:      OK, so that’s how Myon and Agnes got together?

 Lena Mae:     No, Momma and Daddy was already married by then.  I guess so!  I was born, I remember!  [laughs]

 JD:      I guess that’s true!  I was a little confused there.  That’s right.  OK.  So, OK, so yall went over there and got em.

 Lena Mae:     Got em in a barge. 

 JD:      So the…so you could say it was the old people who were still livin in that house [on Fourmile Bayou].

 Lena Mae:     Yeah.

 JD:      Myon’s parents…

 Lena Mae:     Yeah. 

 JD:      …who were still livin in that house, yall came a brought over here?  OK.  I get a little confused with these…

 Edward:        It is confusin…

 JD:      Ins and outs…

 Edward:        …from that long ago, you know?

 JD:      So, when yall got..yall got those old people on the bank, and they lived in that house, then you had…you had the Baileys, and the Sauces….

 Lena Mae:     You had the Baileys, the Sauces, and the whole shoebang.

 JD:      OK, OK.  That’s good.  You’d be surprised how long it takes me to type all this.  It’s one thing for us to talk…

 Lena Mae:     You see, at one time at the canal [Blaise's Canal], we had…

 Edward:        Stomach growlin, must be getting hungry. 

 Lena Mae:     Uh…

 JD:      Time…

 Lena Mae:     Alcide Verret, the Percles [???]…

 JD:      Who? 

 Lena Mae:     The Percles…

 JD:      The Percles?   That was another family?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah.  And that’s at one time, that I remember.  We had Tootsie and Nig, they was first married…we had Jesse [Daigle], us, grandma, uh, Vina…aunt Vina…

 JD:      Who’s that? 

 Lena Mae:     Edward’s sister. 

 JD:      Vina?

 Edward:        Elvina.

 JD:      Elvina. 

 Lena Mae:     And, uh, my granpa Sauce, that’s my momma’s…wait…what that would be?  Aunt Teah…that was my grandpa’s momma and daddy.

 Edward:        That was before my time.

 JD:      You grandfather’s momma and…your great grandparents were there!!!

 Lena Mae:     My great grandparents.  I remember them good, they were livin there.  They was about ten or twelve families livin there at the time. 

 JD:      Why do you suppose people got together at that place?  That one spot?

 Lena Mae:     I don’t know.  Now the Percles was livin in Morgan City, I don’t know what made them come in the canal, I couldn’t tell you. 

 JD:      The, uh,…I mean you think it was because it was good fishin there?  That was a good place to fish from?

 Edward         ….what it was, move where the fish was at.

 Lena Mae:     In fact, uh

 JD:      But the thing is…interests me about this is…I hear you that they moved where the fish were and that was…seems like what yall tell me is that was the reason for the BIG moves.  People would move across the lake and stay there two years, but, uh, there must have been somethin else why people collected right in Blaise’s Canal. 

 Edward:        People, Jim, used to move just for the hell of it. 

 JD:      They would just pick up and go? 

 Lena Mae:     Just pick up and go.

 Edward:        They had an old man Blankenship used to…George Blankenship…?  He’d pull in a place, might stay a week, and he’d be gone.  He’d pull somewhere’s else another week or two and he’s gone.  You’d see him comin, all you’d see, he’d have a campboat and he’d have barges, had chickens, you’d see chickens all over that place…you talk about something! 

 JD:      Runnin all… runnin loose on the campboat, and everything?

 Edward:        Yeah!  Just load them chickens on that sucker, and take off with it. 

 Lena Mae:     Every now and then…he’d… he’d…

 Edward:        You’d, uh, you’d go to bed at night and get up the next morning…old George Blankenship be tied up next door to you.  [laughs]  Moved in at night.

 JD:      Moved in durin the night? 

 Edward:        Durin the night, oh yeah, that happened many times. 

 Lena Mae:     One time in the lake, we wasn’t livin far from the lake…

 Edward:        …used to laugh about, you how he’d….

 Lena Mae:     …you hear something comin, you’d look out there it was a campboat, either goin up or down…

 Edward:        Yeah, there goes George…

 JD:      Could yall see the…see the lake from where yall lived?

 Lena Mae:     Oh yeah, yeah. 

 Edward:        Oh yeah, could see clean across that lake. 

 JD:      No but I mean…you could…you didn’t live back in the canal back in the woods…yall lived right at the mouth.

 Lena Mae:     No, uhuh, almost at the mouth…not, not quite at the mouth, you know, a little ways back

 Edward:        You could see the lake.

 JD:      Oh boy!  So, there’s no real reason that yall know of why everybody collected around that one spot?

 Lena Mae:     Got no idea, besides, want to fish? 

 JD:      And when yall left, when the four boats left and came across the lake the second time, was there anybody left at Blaise’s Canal? 

 Lena Mae:     There wasn’t too many left.  I seen the time where there was just us livin there.

 JD:      On Blaise’s Canal? You need some help Edward?

 Edward:        I’m gone feed the chickens right now. 

 Lena Mae:     Everybody’d leave, move out, there was just us and my grandma and them livin [there]. 

 JD:      So, people just kind of came and went, came and went, came and went all the time…

 Lena Mae:     That’s right.  Come and go, come and go.

 JD:      And all the time, all those people were fishin for a living? 

 Lena Mae:     Fishin for a livin, working on pullboat.

 JD:      Fishin lines mostly?  Workin pullboats too, but they fishin lines mostly?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah. 

 JD:      And they never… how about with all those people in there, did they have enough space to all fish lines?  Wasn’t any problem?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, man, that was a big lake, man, there was no sandbars.  I mean it’s not like it is today…all dis [east across the lake from Myette Pt.] was open. 

 JD:      I know, and that brings another question up.  Uh, we gonna get into a lot of this stuff a little bit later, cause I don’t have time to stay here long.  I could talk here till ten o’clock tonight, and I’m sure yall could too, but, uh, I have to go back.  Just on an outside thing, just so I can get finished, uh, yall didn’t move – Myon didn’t move – from place to place a lot.

 Lena Mae:     We didn’t move a lot. 

 JD:      Like a lot of people did.  If you had to think back…what you knew…you say everybody knew everybody else, so yall all knew who was what, where, most of the time. 

 Lena Mae:     Everybody was mostly related. 

 JD:      How many, if you can recall, how many “collections” of houseboats were there, when you were a young girl old enough to understand who was what?  How many…do you… for…, in the Basin, that yall knew about?  I mean like Blaise’s Canal was one, let’s say there was ten or twelve houseboats there, you could call that a community.  I mean you could, you could call that a community.  It’s got everything that you needed….

 Lena Mae:     Keelboat Pass, Hog Island was the same thing.

 JD:      Same thing.  OK, that’s another one, that’s two.

 Lena Mae:     Big Pigeon.

 JD:      Big Pigeon?  That’s another one?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, lot of people livin in Big Pigeon. 

 JD:      Now, Big Pigeon, that was in the bayou – close to the lake? 

 Lena Mae:     Well, they was further back than we was. 

 JD:      Further back in the bayou.

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, further back in the bayou.  Where most of the people was livin, you couldn’t see the lake. 

 JD:      OK, you had to go back up in the bayou…

 Lena Mae:     You see, we lived up on Big Pigeon for a while.  It was a lot of people livin, even, uh, colored people livin out there. 

 JD:      How many would you say there was when you can remember…what would you guess would be a number, for the biggest number of houseboats?

 Lena Mae:     At one time, I remember, Joe’s momma and daddy lived out there…

 JD:      Joe…Joe who? 

 Lena Mae:     Joe Ackman.

 JD:      Ackman?  A k m a n? [she didn’t confirm]

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, was married to one of Edward’s niece. 

 JD:      OK.

 Lena Mae:     Well, they were livin there, Old Man Richard was livin there, they had a …

 JD:      Richard who?

 Lena Mae:     Oh, uh, Edward knows, I don’t…

 JD:      OK.  OK.  This is on Big Pigeon, you talking about. 

 Lena Mae:     And they had Fry, the nigger, and they had, uh,…

 JD:      His name was Fry?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, they call him Fry. 

 JD:      OK.  He had a family or he was by himself?

 Lena Mae:     By hisself.  It was us, my nannan and parain was livin next door to us…

 JD:      Who were they?

 Lena Mae:     Brod Verret.

 JD:      Brod Verret, and his wife…

 Lena Mae:     and his wife, his family.

 JD:      His wife was…what was her name?  You remember?

 Lena Mae:     Lola.

 JD:      Low? 

 Lena Mae:     Loge.

 JD:      Loge.

 Lena Mae:     Lola.

 JD:      Lola!  OK. 

 Lena Mae:     …call her Lowg. [pronounced it long “o”].  And, uh, his name was Brod.  But I can’t remember them olther people’s name.  We use to…

 JD:      But, anyway, what I’m interested in, mostly, is how, about how many boats there were.  When yall lived on Big Pigeon…would you say more than twenty?  Or less than twenty?

 Lena Mae:     It’d be less than twenty.

 JD:      Less than twenty.  Fifteen?

 Lena Mae:     Maybe fifteen. 

 JD:      Fifteen.  But it was bigger than…than Blaise’s Canal was.

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, yeah, they had a lot of people lived on Big Pigeon. 

 JD:      And all those people fished, or worked on the pullboats.  So, it was fishin at that time or the timber industry.  That was the two ways everybody made a livin.

 Lena Mae:     That’s about how…you see when we lived on Big Pigeon, that’s what Daddy [Myon] was doin – floatin timber. 

 JD:      Yeah. 

 Lena Mae:     That’s why we moved there. 

 JD:      Yall moved there to be closer to the pullboats?

 Lena Mae:     To be closer to the, uh…

 JD:      To where they were cutting timber…

 Lena Mae:     They find…they’d find the trees that…sinkers, you see, they’d sink them cypress, and they’d find em and go with a thing and pull em up. 

 JD:      They did that “en cachet”, so to speak, what they said “under the table”? 

 Lena Mae:     No, no…

 JD:      Well, Myon was telling me  a lot of times they’d hide those logs when they’d cut em…they’d hide em in the swamp and they’d sink and they’d go back and get em later.

 Lena Mae:     They had to, cause they’d steal em.  That’s why they’d hide em. 

 JD:      [pause]  no, but Myon was telling me they did it on purpose so that they would go back and sell some logs on their own that didn’t go to the lumber company.

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, right. 

 JD:      What was the lumber company’s name at that time, when yall were on Big Pigeon?  What company was it?

 Lena Mae:     Uh, …

 Edward:        Williams?

 Lena Mae:     Williams.

 JD:      Williams?  Williams lumber company?

 Edward:        Williams, and uh…

 JD:      They had sawmills where?  That the logs would go to?

 Lena Mae:     In Patterson…

 Edward:        They had one in Patterson, had one in Franklin…

 JD:      Patterson and Franklin…

 Edward:        Morgan City, had one in Morgan City.

 Lena Mae:     Old, uh, Ben Lard, you remember?  He used to float for him. 

 Edward:        Had a big lumber mill, Williams I think, it was in Patterson.  And, uh, had one in Garden City – that May Brothers.

 JD:      Garden City, May Brothers? 

 Edward:        For years.

 JD:      So the people that owned the land…I mean the people that did the cutting didn’t necessarily own the land or the trees, they just cut em and take em to the sawmill for the owner, is that how they did that? 

 Edward:        Well, a lot of em just went out there and cut trees, didn’t ask nobody, they just did it, you know.  Stole em.

 JD:      You mean the logging companies would just go out there …?

 Edward:        No, individuals.

 JD:      Individuals. 

 Edward:        Yeah.

 JD:      Yeah, Myon used to tell me about that. 

 Edward:        Yeah, used to do that.

 JD:      So, uh, what I was askin Lena Mae was, I’m tryin to get an idea of how many houseboat communities there were, because you’d have to…you’d have to call ten or twelve boats a community.  I mean, yall all lived together, like a group.  And she’s telling me that there was one at Keelboat Pass and one in Big Pigeon.  So that’s three that we’ve…and one on Hog Island you sayin?  That’s four?

 Lena Mae:     Campboats.  See, they had a lot of people livin on Big Pigeon. 

 JD:      Campboats [to Edward, just came back in] that all lived in one place, bunches of em in one place?

 Edward:        Yeah, you had, uh, Big Pigeon, you had Lil Pigeon, Bayou Smith…

 JD:      Bayou Smith?

 Edward:        You had Catfish…

 JD:      Bayou Catfish [Catfish Bayou]

 Edward:        And you had, uh, Keelboat and Hog Island. 

 Lena Mae:     Now Lil Pigeon, they had a lot.  All my kinpeople live in Lil Pigeon. 

 JD:      Lil Pigeon.

 Edward:        Now, goin up, further up, Bayou Chene there was some others…

 JD:      Bayou Chene, that’s where Carl is from isn’t it?  Carl Carline. 

 Edward:        Naw, uhuh. 

 JD:      I thought he was from Bayou Chene.

 Edward:        His wife is from Bayou Chene. 

 JD:      His wife?

 Edward:        Yeah. 

 Lena Mae:     He was born and raised in the lake, just like we was. 

 JD:      Carl was?

 Edward:        He just moved up here by Lil Pass, along the levee up there.

 Lena Mae:     Grand Avoille, around that place.

 Edward:        [that’s] where they was at.

 JD:      OK, all right.  How about below, how about below Pigeon?  Down around Bayou Boutte tere…

 Edward:        Yeah, Bayou Boutte, they was all along Bayou Boutte.

 JD:      Had houseboats all along Bayou Boutte?

 Lena Mae:     Lot of people livin there! 

 JD:      There’s even a cemetery there.  On the island, Fisher Island?  Did yall call it Fisher Island?  What did yall call that island on Bayou Boutte?

 Lena Mae:     And Bayou Fisher, lot of people used to live on Bayou Fisher.  

 Edward:        Bayou Fisher [the bayou on the other side of the island]

 JD:      What did yall call that island, where those people lived, where that cemetery is right now?

 Edward:        I don’t know.  Man, I don’t know Jim. 

 JD:      Didn’t have a name? 

 Edward:        Uhuh. 

 JD:      Just Bayou Boutte, probably.

 Edward:        Bayou Boutte. 

 Lena Mae:     But there’s a lot of people lived there, Bayou Boutte.  

 JD:      And I guess all down below too then, from there on.  All those other bayous, Bayou February, January, all those places.

 Edward:        All down there, they had people.

 JD:      Fourmile Bayou, you talking about?  That’s where Myon’s family was from. 

 Edward:        I had a brother lived on Bayou Boutte…Bayou Boutte too. 

 Lena Mae:     He lived there pretty near all his married life.  Till they moved to Morgan City.  All the Comeaus lived up there.

 Edward:        Comeaus, Duvals,…

 Lena Mae:     Duvals…

 JD:      So, if you had to guess, just for what you could guess…

 Lena Mae:     The Anslems…

 JD:      Anslem?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, Russell’s [Daigle] wife’s daddy.

 Edward:        They had three or four hundred…three or four hundred families scattered around in there. 

 JD:      That’s what I was going to ask you…my next question was…you’re guessing that three or four hundred houseboats lived all around the Basin?

 Edward:        Aw yeah.  All around back in there.

 Lena Mae:     Like Big Pigeon, they had a lot of people livin in Big Pigeon. 

 JD:      And everybody moved around, pretty much?  Or, some of em didn’t move around too much? 

 Edward:        Aw, lot of em had houses on the bank. 

 Lena Mae:     We always had…

 JD:      Oh, they all had houses on the bank?

 Edward:        Not all of em, but a lot of em did.

 JD:      But that was before the water started comin up high, and then they all had to either get on houseboats, or leave.

 Edward:        All your younger generation, when they built, then they built houseboats.

 JD:      Younger generation built houseboats?

 Edward:        Yeah. 

 Lena Mae:     This man, when we was livin on Big Pigeon…….

 Edward:        I mean the younger generation what you’d call, like, I’m 67, they would be about 80, 80 or 90 now, you see.  So, that was the younger generation. 

 Lena Mae:     …..his name was Irvin Gaudet.  That man’s name, he had a house on the bank.  His name was Irvin Gaudet.  When we lived on Big Pigeon. 

 JD:      Irvin Gaudet.

 Edward:        Fargey, the Fargeys used to live out there.

 JD:      Foggy?  Fargey? 

 Edward:        Fargey [s?].  Burnses, they had Burnses.  Aw…

 Lena Mae:     Even had blackslivin out there.

 Edward:        Yeah, they had old Fry, they used to call him old Fry [black man].  Good old… big old black man. 

 JD:      And by himself, he didn’t have a family Lena Mae said. 

 Edward:        By hisself, old Fry lived…old Fry lived up on Lil Pigeon up there. 

 Lena Mae:     I was telling him about old man Richard,  you know more about Richard than I do.

 JD:      Richard who?

 Edward:        Richard Witters [sp?], he used to take care of the lights.

 JD:      Witters.  What lights? 

 Edward:        There used to be a light at…right at the mouth of Bayou Boutte, in the lake, and there was another one at Big Pigeon.  And they had one right at the lower end of Hog Island. 

 JD:      Now that was why?  What lights?  For what? 

 Edward:        Range lights, like if a boat was comin up the lake…for them steamboats and all back in them days, well, they’d go by them lights. 

 JD:      OK, and how…what did…course there wasn’t any electricity….

 Edward:        …ah, all coal oil, they had coal oil. 

 JD:      Coal oil?

 Edward:        And he…he the one took care of em.  He’d go from one….Everyday he’d go oil em up, everything. 

 Lena Mae:     We had one.

 JD:      What was his name?

 Edward:        Richard Witters. 

 JD:      Richard Witters [Wooders?].

 Edward:        Now, he didn’t live out there.  He lived in Morgan City. 

 JD:      He’d come up everyday by boat?  And do all that every day by boat? 

 Edward:        Yeah…I don’t know if he’d come every day, or, ….

 Lena Mae:     I thought he lived on Big Pigeon, for a while.

 Edward:        No, not Richard Witters.  Uhuh.  They had a old man named Richard there but I done forgot his last name. 

 Lena Mae:     That must be the Richard I’m thinking of. 

 Edward:        Yeah, they had another old man over there…lived on bayou…lived on Pigeon.  But, ah, ah, like I say I don’t know if it was every day, or once a week or whatever, but he…he kept oil in them lamps. 

 JD:      And it was three lights that you remember? 

 Edward:        Three.

 JD:      Three?  Three separate lights…

 Edward:        ….one they put on on Lil Pigeon.  They put on on Lil Pigeon, it was later. 

 Lena Mae:     And we had one too.  And uh, but uh, we put it ourself. 

 JD:      Y'all put it yourself?  Is that….come back at night?  Is that why yall put it?

 Lena Mae:     Yeah, to mark the canal. 

 JD:      Yeah.  There’s so much I want to ask yall.  I want to ask yall about how yall did with religion.  How yall did with….

 Edward:        We didn’t have religion, back in them days.  [laughs]

 JD:      Well…

 Edward:        Until, until Brother Marks, the Baptist preacher came down and started…

 Lena Mae:     Brother Gobeil came first.

 Edward:        No.

 JD:      You see what I’m talking about …

 Edward:        That was in the 40s. 

 JD:      Talkin about just that kind of thing.  How did it work, you know, I want to talk about …

 Lena Mae:     Father Gobeil came first. 

 JD:      A Catholic came first? 

 Lena Mae:     And then the Baptist.

 Edward:        He used to come over there.

 JD:      He used to come on…by boat…he’d come up…he had a campboat? 

 Edward:        Old Father Gobeil had one a them ChrisCraft?  You remember them ChrisCraft boats…?

 JD:      You have any idea how he spelled his name… Gobeil?

 Edward:        G o…G o b e l. 

 JD:      G o b e l. 

 Lena Mae:     He’s the one taught my catechism, my first communion, everything.

 JD:      He was a Catholic priest? 

 Lena Mae:     Yeah.

 Edward:        And he, he drink that wine…

 JD:      Now you lived on Blaise’s Canal while you had all that, uh, education for catechism and first communion and all that?  And a whole bunch of yall did, I imagine, more than just you. 

 Lena Mae:     Yeah.  Well, I was the oldest, you see.  The other kids didn’t do their first…uh…

 Edward:        You know what got Myon against priestes? 

 JD:      Against priests?  What?

 Edward:        He say years ago, and I think is was old Father Gobeil [correct spelling], he come over there and he was tryin to get Myon to fix him up with a woman.  [laughs]

 JD:      Oh, come on!  Really?

 Edward:        Yeah. 

 Lena Mae:     I don’t remember that.

 Edward:        Yeah, Myon said that many times. 

 JD:      That’s what got him against priests, eh?  Got him against…..

 Edward:        Got him against the priests.  Well, I had one of em tried to molest me.  When I was a kid.

 JD:      You did?

 Edward:        Yes sir. 

 Lena Mae:     Then after we got married….Little Brown Church.

 Edward:        He used to come out there and, they…they…they’d sleep out there.  They come spend the night or somethin they’d sleep at somebody’s house.  See, that’s…

 JD:      They had a campboat themselves, or just a boat to move in?

 Edward:        No…come in a boat.  They go from house to house.

 JD:      And they had…the priests had Mass?  He would come and say…have Mass in somebody’s house?  And other people would come from other houseboats? 

 Lena Mae:     Some of em.

 Edward:        Most of em didn’t.  He go from house to house.

 JD:      Some of em.  So…so he lasted for a while?  While yall were livin…

 Lena Mae:     Naw, he lived…after we moved over here he died, uh, he lived in Patterson, for years.  Till he died.

 Edward:        He old…Father Gobeil, they called him. 

 JD:      But there were some other religions you said started comin…

 Lena Mae:     Baptist.

 Edward:        Baptist.

 JD:      The Baptist came, at the same time as he did?

 Lena Mae:     No, after. 

 Edward:        No, it was after…Brother Marks came out there and he built a school.

 JD:      Brother Marks? 

 Edward:        Ira Marks.

 JD:      On the bank? 

 Edward:        He’s the one built that schoolhouse out there.

 JD:      At Blaise’s Canal?

 Edward:        No, at Hog Island. 

 JD:      At Hog Island.  Oh, he built the school you talking about that yall went to. 

 Edward:        Yeah, right. 

 JD:      Well then you say yall would walk…sorry, go ahead Lena Mae.

 Lena Mae:     Then he built one on this side the lake.

 Edward:        On the levee…by the levee, on the levee out there.

 JD:      This was…what was his name, his whole name?         

 Edward:        Ira Marks.

 JD:      Ira Marks, was his name.  He was Baptist?

 Edward:        Umhm.

 JD:      He built a school, first on Hog Island, then the one on this side of the lake? 

 Edward:        Then they had the Little Brown Church, you heard [of] the Little Brown church?

 JD:      I guess no. 

 Edward:        You ain’t heard of the Little Brown…?  He built…well, it wasn’t little, it was big.  Big old…aw, it was like one of them mudboats now, see one a them big mudboats…but it was high…[talking about an offshore supply boat].

 Lena Mae:     It was wide…

 JD:      It was on a barge, you talking about?

 Lena Mae:     I have a picture of it on a calendar. 

 JD:      You do?

 Edward:        It was self propelled, he had two V-8 motors in it.

 JD:      that’s Bonnie [Daigle] that said that.  She’s not talking loud.

 Edward:        He had two V-8 motors in it. 

 JD:      Two V-8 motors.

 Edward:        He would go from place to place, and have revivals.

 JD:      On the lake!

 Edward:        On the lake. 

 JD:      No kiddin, Baptist revivals!

 Edward:        Yeah, it was real funny.  Now, we didn’t have no lectricity, you see?  When they’d come with that church…park it, and they had…they had a generator on it, and boy you’d go on there boy that thing be lit up…!

 JD:      Blazin lights, eh? 

 Edward:        It was weird to us because everything was so bright at night, you know?  And we used to live by them coal oil lights.  There was nuttin bright by that.  And that Little Brown Church be lit up, boy, you could see that sucker for miles.

 Lena Mae:     See, when we first got married, they came.

 Edward:        We lived on it, us. 

 Lena Mae:     And uh…

 JD:      Hunh?

 Edward:        We lived on it for a while.

 Lena Mae:     Bernadette, and uh, what’s his name? 

 Edward:        Scadlock?  Sam Scadlock? 

 Lena Mae:     Sam Scadlock and his old lady was…worked for years on that.  And they would…

 JD:      Worked how, you mean?

 Lena Mae:     Take care of the church.  Take care of the building.

 JD:      And the barge and…

 Lena Mae:     So, they wanted to quit.  And the Little Brown Church come over here.  So, they wanted us to take it. 

 JD:      You and Edward?

 Lena Mae:     Me and Edward.  So, Edward say let’s give it a try.  [she said] give it a try but when I want to come home, I’m comin home. 

 [the last few inches of the tape seem to be missing on this copy, but the essence of what is on it is:]

 Edward:        They hired us to work on it right after we were married.  We stayed on it for about two weeks but Lena Mae got lonesome and so we quit and came back to Myon’s Canal.  They never did pay us anything.