Center for Louisiana Studies Archival Catalog

00:00:30 - Intro: Interview with Daize Cheramie at his home in Cut Off, LA on June 12th; Mr. Cheramie is 84; His daughter is there translating;
00:00:52 - Thomas Weisman owned a small piece of land on Little Temple; Bo Berrett;
00:03:20 - Chinese workers; There were 15 houses at Little Temple on one side; 10 houses on the other; Little Temple is bound on one side by Bayou Rigolet and the other side is Bayou Pierrot;
00:05:50 - They own one part of Little Temple; There are two churches: one for Little Temple and one for Clark's Chenier;
00:07:00 - More than 100 people lived at Clark's Chenier; Catching shrimp waist deep in the water with a net;
00:07:45 - Bayou Cutler; Bassa Bassa; Manila Village; Bayou Collas (?); Grand Lake;
00:10:30 - The men that worked there had their families with them; No school at that time, but a Catholic Church; The priest would visit both churches every Sunday by sailboat;
00:11:55 - People moved after the storm, so he built a platform where the old church was; Their cemetery was in Grand Chenier; Grand Bayou;
00:14:00 - People got lumber from Harvey by sailboat; They didn't have a garden, but Thomas Weisman had one;
00:15:15 - Her dad had a few grocery stores; Only one grocery store;
00:16:10 - These villages in 1909 were around 80 years old; Old houses from Little Temple;
**Chris***00:18:30 - Little Temple had a store, houses, a church, a club, and a platform; They had dances on the platform; Men would play fiddle, harmonica, and guitar;
00:19:10 - Bousillage; Lulu Cheramie; 5 houses in Golden Meadow in 1914;
00:20:45 - Some people lived in houseboats, called flatboats; La cordelle; Bartering; He would go to Golden Meadow to sell oysters;
00:24:15 - Selling oysters; He used to sail to New Orleans;
00:25:55 - Logging for cypress; They used to sleep on corn husk mattresses; Gun powder;

Different interview;
00:29:00 - People moved in to trap; Workers came from the Philippines and France and started building camps; They displaced some of the Spanish settlers who were descendants from the Canary Islands; They started trapping;
00:30:00 - He wants to have a panel to discuss these things; A lot of records were lost in the fire of 1915; He's been looking at records in different courthouses; Burning camps down; Sheriff in Plaquemine was killed;
00:31:45 - Around 1945-1946 people had to start paying for the rights to trap; Fresh river water flooded the marshes which led to grass growing more; Oil companies ran pipelines all over the area;
00:33:00 - Salt water intrusion and storms/hurricanes wiped out most of the muskrat population; No trapping anymore; In the 1940s, they had ditch diggers; Leboeuf's Cut; Shell Beach;

Back to interview with Mr. Cheramie and his daughters;
00:34:17 - He was orphaned at the age of 8; He was born in Chenier and his father was born in Lafourche Parish; Corn husk beds, cypress houses about 3 feet above ground; Palmetto roofs or shingle roofs;
00:36:23 - People building houses at Little Temple;
00:37:55 - Work throughout the year; He would fish for 8 months and trap for 4 months; He would dig trainasses; Her sister arrives;
00:39:20 - The workers would boil the shrimp at night; He would get wood with Joe for the boilers;
00:41:00 - Trapping; They could trap anywhere (before leases); He would go to Fourchon; Periat/Periac?;
00:42:10 - Story about his brother breaking his arm; Medicine; Remedies using salt meat;
00:44:30 - He was a teenager before he ever had shoes; He dad worked in Timbalier; People lived on islands around there; There was one store; There were larger pieces of land in the bay, but the land is gone now; Hammock Bayou;
00:47:10 - Grand Bayou goes into Fala; Four houses on the east side of Grand Bayou and 2 houses on the west; Lesquine (?); Little Felicite;
00:49:15 - Pointe-aux-Chenes; Isle de Jean Charles; Calumet; Farming;
00:52:25 - People started moving to higher ground after storms wiped out many of the villages; Some people would live on a flatboat seasonally; Story;
00:55:40 - Baby pelicans; Hunting egrets for plumes; Bootlegging;
00:58:00 - Chinese workers; Mapion family; Eating raw shrimp;
00:59:35 - Bassa Bassa; Dancing; Cheniere Caminada; Story about the 1893 hurricane; Davis reads the story about the hurricane;

00:00:10 - Interview with Milton (?) Chouest; Wednesday, June 13th at their home in Golden Meadow;
00:00:30 - In 1917 she helped start the first school in the area; At 17 years old, Mrs. Chouest taught 1st-3rd grade (125 children); Mr. Scott was the principal; He taught 4th-7th grade all together (35 children); Half of the students came in the morning and half in the afternoon;
00:01:33 - She didn't speak local French; She took some classes in college; Her students didn't speak English; Some were older than her;
00:02:30 - The war broke out and Mr. Scott had to leave, so she became principal and taught 4th-7th grade;
00:02:50 - The children would peel shrimp at the factory instead of going to school; They helped change the laws so children couldn't work at the factory;
00:03:50 - The families in the area were more interested in educating the boys and not the girls; She built the school up; At first, children came from Golden Meadow and Leeville (later from Grand Isle); She coached the boys basketball team for years;
00:04:50 - Their house was brand new; The school only had four rooms, so they wanted to buy the land where their new house was; So they agreed to sell the land if they school moved their house to a new piece of property;
00:06:20 - She started the church; Catholic; She went with Ernest Falgout and his father to the archbishop and asked for a priest; The school children loved her and listened to her;
00:07:00 - Jim Perrin's dance hall (no longer there); They used to dance until 2 or 3 in the morning; Her and the kids would wake up early, scrub down the dance hall, and set up an alter; The priest would travel by boat from New Orleans; They knelt on the floor; She raffled all of her wedding gifts in order to buy an organ and start the church;
00:07:50 - She helped with the choir for 16 years; She would teach the songs to kids after school; She said she could get anything done with the help of the schoolchildren and their parents; The priest was named Father Bell (he passed away);
00:08:30 - Davis asks if their was a school on Grand Isle, but they don't think so;
00:09:05 - Some of the students commuted from Leeville and Golden Meadow; Much later, students came from Grand Isle and Cheniere Caminada; The school got too big; She told the superintendent that she would teach 9th grade at the elementary school salary to keep her boys from going to Cut Off for high school; She taught everything but science because they had no lab;
00:11:00 - The fathers caught shrimp, oysters, and trapping; The would bring the shrimp to be processed; Camps in the marsh made of palmetto; Flatboats; Families would go into the marsh in the winter; Trapping season was about 3 months;
00:13:05 - At first, the school only allowed white children; Once they got the high school, they allowed non-white students;
00:15:30 - Drying platforms started around 1918-1920; No Chinese workers in the area; Trapping in the winter and fishing/shrimping in the warmer months;
00:16:45 - 8-10 families lived at Fala; Sabine; People would come by boat to Golden Meadow to get groceries and supplies; Ernest Vadin; Texas wharf; Lester Plaisance's father had a grocery boat and would go to Timbalier; 10-15 families in Timbalier bay;
00:18:45 - They didn't have any law enforcement; She taught 54 years and never had trouble; Unspoken laws/rules in the community;
00:20:18 - 1917; Lumber yard at Larose; Sawmill; Cypress;
00:21:20 - Great-grandparents from France, Spain, Italy, Germany; During the lumber period there was also a lot in people from the north; Yankee canal; Called it Golden Meadow because there was golden (?) everywhere; Most people around there are French;
00:23:35 - Oil industry brought people from all over to the area; During prohibition, people brought in illegal whiskey; 1929-1930; Bob Collins;
00:25:30 - Story about a terrible storm that opened up the tombs; People would leave right away when there was a storm;
00:26:00 - Different types of houses; Bartering/trading instead of cash; In 1917, there weren't many people; People starting coming there when the oil industry took off; Around 1931;
00:29:00 - She was assistant principal because it was customary to have a male principal; Forced into retirement; She taught in Lockport at Holy Savior;
00:30:30 - Types of boats; Cypress boats; Sailboats; Perdiac, between Leeville and Grand Isle; It was a trapping outfit controlled by outside interests; People were there only for trapping season; Cheniere Caminada –– oyster and shrimp; Tonging oysters; Sell oysters in New Orleans;
00:35:45 - Sailing to New Orleans would take 2-3 days; Beef cattle; Salt meat; Sack of oysters was around $0.50;
00:39:11 - Selling oysters; The doctor had to come by boat from Raceland when she gave birth; Folk medicine; Herbs; If anyone was sick, the whole town would help; Story about her daughter when she was sick; Snake bites and gunpowder; Relying on nature because there weren't doctors; Story about a snake bite;
00:45:00 - Trainasse; Former students;
00:46:50 - The Chouest family; His father was born in Gheens; Lake Salvador; Lumber companies; Her paternal grandparents came from Ireland and maternal grandparents came from Germany; Harvey canal; Germans came in the 1780s; The German coast;
00:50:10 - Him and his brother had to walk for miles to go to school near Bayou Vacherie; Teacher was Lena Bourgeois; His father raised sugar cane; Jone Gheens from Kentucky had a mill;
00:51:05 - Not a lot of rice farming in the area; Bayou Lafourche was plugged at Donaldsonville in 1905, which stopped the fresh water flow; Can't use salt water to flood the field; Switched to corn and cane;
00:52:20 - Trainasses east and west of Bayou Lafourche turned into canals by the current; At Timbalier bay, the coast used to be eight miles south; Story about going there in the summer; Lighthouse is now a quarter mile or mile in the Gulf;
00:54:25 - Her salary was $55/month when she first started teaching; Went up to $130/month when she became principal; In 1917, she moved to teach at the age of 17;
00:56:35 - Smuggling during the Great Depression; Story about Chinese workers being smuggled; In St. Bernard parish, they would go offshore to get alcohol; Story about a smuggler; Bootleggers; Jumped out of the boat and swam 5-6 miles to the coast; Sharks;

00:00:05 - Interview with Mr. and Mrs. Angello Angelette at their home in Golden Meadow on June 14th, 1973;
00:00:20 - Her grandmother came from Bayou Teche and traveled by boat to Cheniere Caminada; His great great grandfather came with Lafitte; Her grandfather on her mother's side also came with Lafitte; He washed the dishes in the boat when he was 12;
00:01:45 - Platforms at Basa Basa, Manila Village, Bayou Collas, Bayou Beullot (?), Bayou Rigo (?); Before 1893, there was an oyster shucking house; One room house made of plank and the roof was sheeting;
00:03:35 - After the hurricane in 1893, most of the people moved to Westwego, Larose, and Leeville; Before 1893, there were more people at Grand Isle, Cheniere Caminade, Leeville than at Golden Meadow and Cut Off;
00:04:20 - Gardens; Lumber came from the sawmill;
00:07:00 - Boats; Ice for shrimp; They would bring a load of ice from New Orleans;
00:09:35 - Chinese workers in Collas and Rogers; Timbalier; Atchafalaya Bay;
00:13:20 - Some people lived in Esquine (?); Fala; Bayou Blue; They say people prefer to be called Indian instead of Sabine;
00:15:20 - 100-200 people living in Esquine; Isle de Jean Charles; Terrebonne Bay had more platforms;
00:17:40 - Seine with floats; Scott Terrebonne recently passed away; He was 11 when he started a seine crew;
00:22:00 - They had a wood burning stove; No stores or churches; They had a cemetery in Leeville, Grand Isle, Cheniere;
00:24:15 - More platforms in Terrebonne Bay; Oyster houses in the marsh; He just worked shrimp, but his father worked oysters; They used to work in the cold weather;
00:25:38 - His main income was shrimping; He didn't trap much; The marshall came get him for trespassing; Trainasse;
00:30:18 - Her family trapped for a living; They claimed a place before leasing/rent became the common practice; They would hunt to make money; Keep things fresh by packing on ice;
00:32:25 - There were no lazy children during that time; They all worked hard; They would put moss in the duck to keep flies away, then gave the ducks to the shrimp man to put on ice; They would make mattresses and pillow with the feathers; She still has some pillows from 56 years ago;
00:35:15 - Her father would catch 50-100 rats (?) depending on the weather; Mink;
00:36:43 - Perdiac;
00:39:00 - The made their own seine nets; Twine; She makes cast nets; She makes one for all her grandchildren; Tar the nets;
00:43:30 - He caught 3,200 drum fish in one haul; His uncle would make the sails; People in Leeville made boats;
00:45:40 - There were a lot of seine crews;
00:46:10 - She made mosquito nets; She has a sewing machine; Center board on boats; Talking about boat designs;
00:49:50 - People smuggled in for work; Bootleg; Seine skiff with six oars; There were a lot of boats in Cheniere Caminada;
00:53:15 - Selling shrimp; Little Caillou;
00:54:30 - No law enforcement back then, except for trapping land; Building a trainasse; If you don't help build it, you couldn't use it;
00:55:40 - They would go to a dance hall for fun in Leeville; They had church in the school house and a priest would come every 6 months;
00:57:20 - You had to pay a toll to use a canal; Wooden bridges; Groceries came from a store in Leeville; Groceries and ice were delivered by freight boat;
00:58:55 - They had no doctor; They would make their own medicine; Story about the only time she saw a doctor; She misses the old times; People helped each other;
01:00:52 - They don't remember when the first platform was built; Her husband's uncle had a platform at the Fourchon; The kids would stomp on the shrimp for $0.10/day; In the summer, they'd work in the field (?) for $0.25/day;
01:03:00 - They would boil the shrimp at the platform; They could boil 20 hampers at a time (a hamper is about 65 lbs.); People used to live on houseboats/flat boats;
01:04:35 - Bousiller; Mud and moss; Her dad lived in Leeville and would trap everyday but return home at night;
01:05:20 - Discussing boat designs; 30 ft sail;
01:09:00 - There houses weren't built on stilts; Different routes to New Orleans; Lake Salvador;
01:13:45 - Catfish; Stingray; Muskrat; Bringing shrimp form Timbalier to Westwego; Wilkinson Canal; Myrtle Grove; Grand Caillou;
01:18:10 - Davis asks about where Basa Basa and other names come from; Diez Cheramie (?); Little Temple;
01:23:00 - He was the captain when he was 17 years old; Sternwheeler boat; People around there built sternwheeler boats; He had two skiffs;
01:27:30 - People would take oysters to New Orleans; A lot of them lived in Grand Isle and Cheniere Caminada;
01:29:35 - Last Island; People would get drunk at the dance and they had a hotel out there; No one lived at Lake Pelto;
01:30:50 - Changes in the marsh; There used to be different plants and animals; Now it's all saltgrass;

(Was listed as Aypolite Matheane, but his name is Hypolite Matherne);

00:15 - Twenty families lived near Bayou Perot; Cemetery; Bayou Vilar; Little Temple;
01:45 - Had to go to Des Allemands for groceries; Selling fish; Lard;
03:20 - Made a living trapping and fishing; Isle de prince noir (?); His grandpa died at 97 years old;
05:00 - Explaining the name Des Allemands; Deux means two; Describing the areas around Des Allemands;
07:30 - The two Schmiltz brothers; His uncle had a cow pasture that would flood; People lived in the marsh to be near the fish; Charlie Hopkins' saw mill;
09:30 - Farming and gardening; Lake Buck (?); Vacherie Canal;
11:15 - Changes in the marsh; Nutrias; Selling ducks between 1912 and 1917;
12:40 - Dances in Des Allemands and Vacherie; Every Saturday; People drank on the first floor and dance on the second floor; He would borrow his brother's boat;
13:50 - Camendale Village (?); Trapping before leasing; They had their own canal;
15:15 - He worked for Steinberg for 25 years; He retired in 1968; Working;
18:10 - Bayou Gauche and Des Allemands; They had a grocery store there, so people traveled to it; Choctaw had two grocery stores; Bayou Perot had a grocery store;
20:25 - They bought their seines instead of making them; People from Des Allemands would troll in Lake Salvador; Lafitte and Barataria;
23:12 - Shrimping;
24:50 - They are looking at photos; Bayou Terrebonne; Grand Lake; They don't have any pictures of their old house;

Next interview with ?;
29:28 - Sister Lake; Crevasse;
30:35 - **Audio goes out;

Next interview with the Matherne's again?;
31:07 - Carmendale Village (?), Bayou Gauche; They've been married 60 years; Fishing; Skiffs and oars;
34:00 - Seine fishing; Four men in a crew;
37:00 - He built his house for $250; Bousiller; Fishing in Des Allemands;
39:38 - Lake Cataouatche; Bayou Segnette;
41:50 - Trainasse / canals; Trapping; Farming;
43:30 - People living on Bayou Segnette;
45:50 - Pointe Chicot / Stump Point; Bayou Matherne near Lake Salvador; Fishing;
49:00 - Selling fish; Fish buyers; They got married in 1912; People lived at Bayou Cuba and Bayou Perot;
52:10 - Hill of berries; Cemetery; E.P. Brady; Groceries;
54:45 - Louisiana Cypress Lumber Company; Hauling timber in 1912;
56:50 - Houseboats; Building boats with cypress; In 1934, shrimp sold for $5 a barrel;
01:00:20 - Manila Village; Camp Dewey; Bayou Bardeaux;

Beginning at 49:40 min until the end is an interview with Mark Hebert of Vermilion Corportion, Oct 19, 1971.