00:00:15 - Introduction; Interview with Ms. Iona Bourg at the Cornerstone Retirement Community in Lafayette, LA;
00:00:40 - Iona Marie Bourg; She has never been married; She worked secretary, book keeping, and accounting jobs her whole life;
00:01:30 - She worked for the Caffery's in Franklin, LA; Sugarcane plantation in Columbia between Baldwin and Franklin;
00:02:35 - Her father was Gerson Paul Bourg (G.P. was his nickname) and her mother was Ellen Boudreaux; They lived in Lafourche parish; She was born in Baldwin in 1915 (she is 89 during this interview);
00:04:30 - Working; She had four years of accounting classes in high school, then went to USL to study book keeping and tax work; She learned a lot more through work experience;
00:06:35 - Her dad worked at the dairy in Baldwin and at Oche's (?) grocery store; Her father knew book keeping; She was two when they moved to Florence plantation; Her father did book keeping and payroll for the plantation and the store; Her and a siblings helped her father in the store;
00:08:55 - Florence is 3 miles from Louisa; Her brother managed the store at Louisa plantation;
00:10:20 - Building St. Helen's church; No air conditioning or heat; Fasting from midnight until after mass;
00:11:30 - Dennis Burguiere was married to Alice Broussard; Alice was a recluse and went to mass everyday; Trying to figure out which house Alice lived in;
00:15:40 - They moved one of the plantation houses by barge next to the ex-governer's house; She worked 7 years in the Caffery's office and never went inside that house;
00:18:00 - She played paper dolls on the front porch of the Florence house; They would make paper dolls out of the Sears catalog; Millie Miller was her playmate (She got married to Lawrence Simon from New Iberia); Millie's sister Betty would bring them expired patterns from Wormser's in Franklin;
00:19:30 - She lived across the bayou from the quarters and the plantation; The house and store were next to each other; The Burguieres owned it all; They were surrounded by sugarcane;
00:21:22 - Her sister played the organ and she sang in the choir at St. Helen's church; Playing at funerals; Poor people couldn't afford flowers so they used narcissus flowers;
00:22:05 - The quarters was where the black people lived at Florences; 10-12 small houses;
00:23:00 - They had a huge fig tree in their yard that she would climb; She was a tomboy; Her sister took piano lessons for 7 years from a woman in Franklin; She was always outside;
00:23:35 - Her mom would make fig preserves and they would eat fresh figs for breakfast; Her father had a beautiful garden; He planted artichoke; He was an excellent cook; Her mom did all the sewing, so she never learned how to cook; Her dad taught her mom how to cook;
00:25:30 - He cooked smothered okra, chicken okra gumbo (he never put sausage in gumbo), bread dressing with oysters; He probably got fresh oysters from Cypremort point; He also cooked butter beans with chicken, eggplant and chicken, fish courtbouillon, crabs;
00:29:25 - They would go crabbing at Cypremort Point; They'd go swimming at Côte Blanche; It would have made a beautiful resort; It had trees and bluffs and the water was salty; She liked it better than Cypremort Point; Her brother and his friend from Lafayette ran a restaurant out there;
00:32:00 - The Intercoastal Canal; The store burned down and they moved to Baldwin;
00:34:10 - The early days of the store at Florence; One side had groceries (canned goods, lard, cheese, etc.) and the other side was dry goods (material, thread, sewing materials etc.);
00:36:20 - In the summer, all of the plantation kids would bring an egg to her dad in exchange for cream soda and animal cookies;
00:37:30 - Other white families on the plantation; Mr. Byrd Miller, Mr. Robert Brown, Mr. Tommy Stroud;
00:39:50 - Only the black families lived in the quarters; The Rollins' were a white family that lived near the quarters;
00:41:00 - Hurricane when she was a girl; They were in the eye of the storm; It damaged the houses in the quarters; An older woman died;
00:42:25 - She would talk to the black people on the plantation; There were about 20 black families living at the plantation; Some of the children would leave the plantation and others would stay and work in the fields;
00:44:20 - She went to grammar school at Glenco; Mr. Compton Frère was the principal; Mr. John Caffery's wife Mary was a Frère; He was a good teacher;
00:46:40 - The black children didn't go to the same school at that time; There was another school in Baldwin called Sager-Brown Orphanage;
00:48:00 - Martha Chapron Boudreaux's book about Baldwin; They finished school together in 1932; She went to Franklin High School, which was 25 miles away from her house; They starting having buses the year she started school;
00:50:30 - The Miller's lived at Florence; His daughter was Millie; Fig trees and Chinaberry trees;
00:52:00 - Mr. Jules Burguiere came from New Orleans to take over after Mr. Dennis died; He lived at Louisa; She doesn't think he ever got married;
00:53:00 - The store; They would take grocery costs out of their pay at the end of every week; He would pay the bills; Kerosene lamp;
00:55:30 - Hearing frogs at night; Mosquitoes; She got tropical malaria when she was a teenager; 105 fever; Dr. Pharr from Weeks Island treated her; It stays dormant in your spleen; It affected her memory;
00:59:20 - They would go see Dr. Pharr at Weeks Island; She was driving when she was 12 years old; He moved to New Iberia;
01:00:20 - Midwifes would help with delivery; If anyone had issues, they were taken to the doctor; Story about a black couple on the plantation and the wife was dying of pneumonia; She has a vivid memory of this experience from when she was 12-13 years old;
01:01:50 - They had a black church with a cemetery; She can't remember where it was located;
01:03:40 - She taught literacy classes when she was a teenager during the depression; Teaching people how to sign their names;
01:05:50 - Jerry's brother Malcolm (Macky) and his wife Peggy help Leroy (Yiggins) out; They live in Berwick; Louisa plantation;
01:07:50 - Jerry's father worked at the store at Louisa; Jerry was born there;
01:08:50 - Looking at old photographs;