Percy Blum:

-Dr. McNeely's wife was Mike Broussard's daughter. Mike was in the army with them. Dorthy McNeely, she keeps all the records. Mary Alice Fontenot from Rayne keeps all the history;
-Born in 1895;
-WWI, he was in the grocery business with father? He was born in New Orleans and brought here as an infant;
-His father and uncle married sisters. Eats Roots Company?;
-He was in the National Guard. Sent to Texas with Pershing/Perkins?;
-Called up again in April. Going to camp, then guard duty on the docks and sugar refinery in New Orleans. Camp Nichols. Alexandria and built Camp Beauregard in the pine forest;
-Officer training school in Georgia. He was commissioned. Company sent over seas, he was left here as a Second Lieutenant training men how to build camps. After the armistice in 1918, coming back home;
-Only rice grown in Crowley at that time. Then, cattle and soybeans;
-Mexican border was kind of rough. San Benita about 18 miles north of Brownsville. Building camps. 8 men in a tent. No barracks. Finally put a wooden floors.
-Cleaning a patch of cactus with rattlesnakes and bumblebees. It rained so much when they got there, digging a canal to drain the campsite. Storm destroyed everything except the kitchens;
-Sergeant in the National Guard. No action because of the storm. Every other kitchen and dining hall went down;
-Schools in Marrero? Mule-pilled wagons lined up the day the storm hit. Rebuilding;
-Not mounted, infantry. Company B?;
-Chasing Pancho Villa? after raiding New Mexico. They found him inside a school. He was a bandit;
-Married after the war. His wife is older than him? Her first husband was in the A company and Percy was in the B company;

American Legion Post in Crowley, one of the biggest in the state. The old city hall (10:15);
-Mike Broussard was a company clerk in Crowley. Percy was on the road for Wholesale Grocery Company. Vincent? Daigle was a cashier for Bank of Acadia;
-Dr. Ellis owned the hospital and died. The Chamber of Commerce asked them if they'd take it as a city project. They didn't have any money;
-Armistice Day Celebrations. Raising a few thousands of dollars. Buy the hospital or Kaplan's home/mansion. Buying the Hospital. Broussard took care of the books, Daigle the money, Percy the supplies. Percy got $75/month from keeping the books and working with the head nurses. $25/month for buying supplies for the hospital. The Legion still owns the hospitals;
-Started with a 2-story building with 16 rooms and an operating room. $4/day. Nurses paid $50/month;
-Mr. Larson, president of the Bank of Commerce, loan to finish. Legion put out $8,000. $2 million + now;
-Man paying using sweet potatoes. Woman paying with guineas. They took anything;
-Dr. Peterman operating on garters?;
-Mustard out in Georgia. Paid his way back to Louisiana. Bonus of $200 or so;
-Things had changed. The government was buying so much of everything;
-Camp in Atlanta, Georgia. Yankee boys who had never eaten sweet potatoes and grits;
-First time a lot of people had been away from home. Company made up of men from all over Acadiana. More men from Crowley in his company. A lot spoke French better than English, but they knew enough English to understand commands;
-Most people around Crowley spoke English, country people spoke Cajun/French;
-2 boys from Church Point and 2 from Ossun? Older brother liked whiskey. Alexandria, Camp Beauregard. Percy was a supply sergeant. Going to Alexandria to get a quart of whiskey for $1 and he'd hide it in Percy's tent;
-Captain was afraid of snakes. Killed a big snake and wrapped it around his tent pole, he passed out;
-People who spoke French were assigned to officers and were interpreters. Mike Broussard saw some action, he was in command of a squad. Losing some officers. Dorthy would have all that.

-Mike was clerk of city court (19:46);
-Training for gas, gas masks. Only had one tent, lining up and going through the tent with the gas mask;
-Camp Beauregard Pine Forest. Conical stove with stove pipe exiting out the tent. When it'd get cold, by Pineville, pine nuts and putting them in stove. Stoves red hot in sand. Making the pipe red and catching tents on fire;
-Winter was bad that year. String of latrines on the backside of the camp. GI can in the middle of the street to urinate. Tables in the back to wash clothes. Army, yellow soap;
-Outfit in Alexandria contracted with the government to have laundry done for them. Cold showers. Pipe on the ground from the hospital. First guys got the warm water, the last got cold;
-Squad of four men, dragging a man to the bathhouse and giving him a bath. 60-70 years. 1915/1916;
-Mexican border. In the army about 1914 when the war started in Europe;
-Before President Wilson?;
-America was all for the war. Enthusiasm, patriotism. Absent today. If a man didn't work, he didn't eat. Farmers paying men dragging rice sacs 50 cents a day. A nickel back then is worth about $4 today;
-Calcasieu Mercantile? Company making $175/month. He had to furnish his own car and gas. Company for 41 years, comfortable life;
-Two bits. Pieces of paper;
-New Orleans before the war, Italian stores on every corner of every block. Flour, rice in newspaper from a big wooden barrel, to a smalle wooden tray;
-Beans, macaronis, spaghetti, all bought loose;
-Not as hard as finding jobs as they are today. Always enough work to eat. Raising livestock and gardens;
-Drivers got $18/week for Wholesale. Sent kids to school, fed them, and built houses with that money. People had to work to eat, nothing was given away;
-Patriotism before and during the war. Parades in New York when soldiers came back;
-It went wild when the armistice was announced. Captain told the soldiers about the armistice, they were going home. Army stayed in Europe on occupation after the war;
-Percy was in position of authority;
-Black soldiers were separate;
-Barry talked to a mechanic in Opelousas yesterday (Leo Lafleur?);
-They didn't get trucks in the war at first. They got them a couple months after. Mules hauled things at first. Hard rubber tires and metal springs;
-Building the Legion home in Pineville;
-Attitude concerning the French and English. Supplies and the men. U.S. sending a lot of money and not getting anything back;
-Communism was just taking root there, Bolshevik revolution;
-Reading news in the paper. German bombing supply boats - when U.S. declared war. Russia was fighting the Germans too;
-Russia didn't have a lot of things that the U.S. did;

Percy Blum