Atchafalaya Basin People

Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 04

DATE: 1974

INTERVIEWER: Jim Delahoussaye

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

COOPERATORS: Putt Couvillier, Dot Couvillier

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putt: Catch your drinkin water.

Dot: Catch drinkin water, cooking water.

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

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

JD: So, you kept your wood inside?

Dot: Umhm.

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

Dot: Right. Had kerosene lamps.

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

Dot: Umhm.

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

Dot: Dying out.

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

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

JD: To get away from your mother?

Dot: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

JD: And tell me, what’s a fishcar?

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

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

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

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

JD: Your boardwalk to the bank?

Dot: Yeah. You slide that on there too.

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

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

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

JD: Alum?

Putt: Yeah. Settle the water.

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

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

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

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

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

Putt: Still had to strain it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

JD: Gas?!

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

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

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

JD: Are you serious!?

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

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

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

JD: Like iron, made out of iron?

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

JD: Brass?

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

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

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

Putt: Well, used to use that Ocatgon soap.

JD: And you bought that off the fishboat too?

Putt: Yeah. They had all of that?

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

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

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

JD: By the sugarmill?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JD: is that right?!

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

JD: What you mean by a “crib”?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JD: But those trees were planted on that levee?

Dot: Yeah.

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

Dot: Right.

JD: Coal oil and sugar?!

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

JD: Swamp roots?

Dot: Umhm.

Putt: Still good for fever.

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

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

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

JD: Kind of arrow pointed leaves?

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

Dot: And put it around the neck…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putt: When you swallow it, it’s cool.

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

Dot: Just about.

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

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

Dot: No, just thought it was bad weather.

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

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

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

Dot: At night.

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

Putt: Yeah.

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

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

JD: The radio at night, huh?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putt: We got one.

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

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

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

Dot: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

JD: Walk where?

Dot: Daddy had…what, uh…’39?

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

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

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

JD: And nobody got smashed, I bet.

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

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

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

Dot: Uhuh. No.

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

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

Putt: They used to have a school boat.

Dot: Yeah, and…

JD: A school boat, like a school bus?

Dot: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

Putt: They made a camp out of it.

Dot: They also had a hospital out there.

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

Dot: Must be so.

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

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

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

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

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

Dot: They move with the fish.

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

Dot: Fishin, moss pickin, about everything.

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

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

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

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

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

[some talk about domestic chores]

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

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

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

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

JD: You were livin in it!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JD: And that was around 1950?

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

JD: A good what?

Putt: A good hurl.

JD: What’s that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putt: Yeah.

JD: What part of Europe, do you know?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putt: Ah, I couldn’t tell you.

JD: Dot? You got any idea?

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

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

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

Putt: My grandpa.

JD: Oh, is that right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dot: No, I don’t.

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

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

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

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

Dot: Oh, he could tell you some stories?

JD: Who?

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

JD: And go…and get off, of course?

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

Dot: Yeah, open fire, podnuh!

Putt: They start shootin at one another.

JD: Who? Your daddy’s people?

Putt: No, the Burnses.

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

Putt: Yeah, he done got…

Dot: Wasn’t it your uncle, Clifton…

Putt: Yeah, he got killed.

Dot: Killed him and left him in his boat.

JD: Just because of a family argument?

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

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

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

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

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

JD: 1915 to 1920, somewhere in there.

Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 03

DATE: 1974

INTERVIEWER: Jim Delahoussaye

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

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

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

Putt: [something about turning the TV off]

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

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

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

Agnes: I don’t remember.

JD: Approximately?

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

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

Myon mmmm, ’35.

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

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

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

Myon: 1905.

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

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

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

Myon: On the bank.

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

Agnes: That’s alright. 1912.

JD: And where was that?

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

Dot: Yeah, Bayou Long.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Myon All they lives.

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

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

Myon: I don’t remember.

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

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

JD Your father died when you were young?

Myon: Yeah, a year and a half old.

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

Myon: Fish.

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

Agnes Fished, picked moss, hunt frogs…alligators.

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

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

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

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

Agnes When I was small.

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

JD: Two months closed season?

Myon: Three months!

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

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

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

Myon: I think so.

Putt: April, May, and June.

Myon: Yeah.

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

Myon: About the same.

Putt: Two months…the closed season on frogs.

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

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

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

Agnes [had to] do it!

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

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

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

Agnes No, Sundays, that’s all.

JD: But he did take his Sunday off?

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

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

Agnes: Fishboat would come get em.

Myon: Fishboat

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

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

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

Myon: No, he had ice.

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

Myon: In liveboxes.

JD: Yeah, ‘till he got there.

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

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

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

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

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

JD: Tow the boxes?

Myon: Yeah.

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

Edward: No. made like a skiff.

Putt: Make like a float, like a pontoon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agnes: Cent and half.

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

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

JD: A pound, you talking about?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JD: What island…what island, Hog Island?

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

JD: Is that right?!

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

JD: What year you suppose that was, Putt?

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

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

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

JD: You mean by Charenton [comin from]?

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

JD: Right at that corner it would meet?

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

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

Putt Lester Couvillier.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putt No, one of us.

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

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

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

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

JD: He used what?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putt: Oh yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dot: About ’42, or ’43.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putt Yeah.

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

Putt Well, they had cane fields out there.

Dot: That was all cane fields, Jim.

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

JD: I remember, I saw those, uh,

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

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

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

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

JD: Now, where were you born, Dot?

Dot: Uh, let’s see, momma told me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dot: Oh yeah. Towed everything.

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

Dot: Yeah, I was born in The Pit.

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

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

JD: Oh, they did?

Dot: Yeah.

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

Dot Midwife.

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

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

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

Dot: No.

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

Dot: Umhm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

JD: For what reason?

Putt Jim, when I was…

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

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

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

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

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

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

JD: Get it higher and higher.

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

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

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

JD Takin water for what reason? Waves?

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

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

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

JD: What did you caulk with in those days?

Dot: Cotton, I believe.

Putt: That, oakum, stuff like that.

JD: What was oakum? What was that like?

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

JD: It’s black?

Putt It’s, brown. Sort of brown.

JD: And it swells when you pack it in…

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

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

…you were which one of how many kids?

Dot: Of six. I was the fourth.

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

Dot: Tiny was the youngest.

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

Putt Eight.

JD: You were which one of eight?

Putt Six. No, no, seven.

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

Putt No, Hoss is the oldest.

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

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

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

Putt Yeah.

JD: Well, who’s younger than you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putt I can show you the pictures, there…

JD: I know, but can you describe it?

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

JD: Now, that’s the barge, or…?

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

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

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

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

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

JD: Why?

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

JD: That much heat!

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

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

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

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

Dot: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

JD: Pass where?

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

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

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

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

Putt Yeah.

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

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

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

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

Putt: They had a few families livin along here.

JD: In houseboats all of em?

Putt: Yeah.

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

Putt They was them…back…old time…

JD: In the back?

Putt Yeah.

JD One big, big wheel in the back?

Putt One big wheel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JD: Say ’44, 45?

Putt [?] I believe early ‘40s.

JD: 41, ’42?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putt No, sure don’t.

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

Dot: Umhm.

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

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

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

Dot I’m December 24.

JD: Go ahead Putt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

JD: The survey markers?

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