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Eugenie CHAUVIN LAPEYROUSE Oral History tape.
Note from Glen PITRE: The official project was named “Memories of Terrebonne”. Glen PITRE was project director. “We were funded by The Terrebonne Parish Council, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and Library of Congress”. This interview was conducted by Emelia PITRE, an associate of Cote Blanche Productions, recorded on December 11, 1984 at Chauvin, LA. Transcribed by Phillip CHAUVIN Jr.
Tape # 188
[We would like to have your name, when you were born and where you were born.]
My name is Eugenie C. LAPEYROUSE, I was born December 18, 1895 on Little Caillou. I was married {16 Oct. 1921} to Eugene LAPEYROUSE {s/o Zephine LAPEYROUSE & Louise BENOIT}. He died in {16 Jul.} 1944, he was 50 years old, he was born in 1893, I have three children. I have two daughters, my son {Wallace LAPEYROUSE} died in 1937. I have one daughter {Jennie} married {26 Jul. 1941} to Earl {Joseph} CHAUVIN and the other {Dulcie Mary b. 1 Jan. 1926} is married to Lawrence {J. B.} TRAHAN. They both live on Little Caillou.
[Can you tell me about when you were growing up and how things were then.]
[What did your daddy do for a living?]
My daddy {Louis Volcar CHAVUIN} worked at a farm. I worked on the farm. I went to school on Little Caillou. Mr. Edgar LAPEYROUSE was my teacher. I had several others before, but I went to school when I was six years old. I went until the ninth grade. I had to quit school, because I could not go to Houma to school. I stayed in the ninth grade but one year. He taught me other subjects. The school was close to my house.
[Why you couldn’t go to school in Houma?]
Because we could not afford it, we were too poor. We were poor like rats. There were no busses then, nothing. When the family used to go, we would go by horse and buggy.
[Your father owned a horse and buggy?]
No my grandpa {Aploda Louis CHAUVIN} had a horse and buggy. We would ride in it. We didn’t have any. We would borrow it, to go to town.
[Were you born in this place?]
I was born on this side of the fire station.
[Did your father own the farm?]
No my father owned this farm. We lived with my grandpa and grandma, {Adele DUPLANTIS CHAUVIN} after mama died {Euphrasie Frances STOUFFLET b. 6 Mar. 1870, d. 9 Mar. 1905, bur. Bisland Cem., Bourg, LA}. They took us down there, after mama died.
[How old were you when your mother died?]
My mother died when I was ten years old.
[What did she die of, do you know?]
She died of a tumor and she had a little baby, with that. My sister {Blanche CHAUVIN} is in New Orleans, in the hospital.
[Is she there now?]
She is there now.
[How old is she?]
I was ten when she was born.
[When your mother died, you lived with your grandpa?]
My mama gave the baby to her sister [1920 Census Ward 6, listed her in the family of Leo ROBICHAUX and Odelia STOUFFLET ROBICHAUX, as a niece}. They were living below Montegut.
[Is that the one that is in New Orleans now?]
Yes, she is in New Orleans now {Blanche CHAUVIN w/o Walter DUPLANTIS of Metairie, LA d. 30 Jun. 1989}.
[When your mama died, she went to live over there?]
She was a little baby.
[You stayed with your grandpa all the time?]
For ten months.
[Where did you go afterward?]
We came and lived with daddy. We {siblings Adele Marie, Bernice Helene and Josh Joseph} took care of daddy.
[Your daddy stayed here?]
Yes we took care of my daddy.
[You were by yourself?]
Me and my sister {Adele Marie}. She is dead, Mrs. Dave REDMOND {Adele Marie CHAUVIN m. 6 Jan. 1922 David REDMOND}. She was my other sister. I have another sister {Bernice Helene CHAUVIN} that was married {23 Jun. 1919} to a {Lucius} LOTTINGER. She was married to Judge LOTTINGER’s son.
[Is the Judge dead?]
No, the Judge is not dead, but his daddy is dead, his uncle, my brother-in-law.
[How was it growing up with no mother?]
It was hard, I had to work in the fields.
[You did not go to school then?]
No I quit school. I was thirteen.
[Were you married then?]
I was almost twenty when I married.
[You did the household work?]
The household work. We had a great big house.
[When you got married, you lived with your daddy or moved?]
I lived with my daddy after. My sister got married after.
[Your husband stayed here?]
My husband stayed here until he died.
[Your husband was a farmer, too?]
My husband was a fisherman. He hunted and trapped, and then he went on the boats. This and that, all kind of things.
[Did he talk to you about the hunting, fishing and trapping?]
[Was he gone for a long while, when he left?]
Sometimes, I had my little girl, my little baby, I don’t remember how old my baby {Daisie}was.
[Do you remember any epidemics? Like yellow fever?
We had the flu, it was very bad, in the First World War. My husband went in there.
[Was it bad?]
[Your husband went in the war?]
The World War I. I belong to the American Legion.
[Did he go overseas?]
Yes, he went overseas. He was in France and went to Germany.
[Do you have any pictures?]
Begin French conversation, interpretation by Jess BERGERON.
[Would you rather converse in French or English?]
I would rather speak in French.
[Ok, we will do it in French.]
My husband was in World War I.
[Do you have any pictures?]
I have pictures of him. I belong to the American Legion.
[Were there any stories he told you about the war?]
While my husband was in the service, he got the mumps and had to go in the hospital.
[Were you married then?]
No, he was a widower, he had been married to somebody else {m. 1st Elvine LEBOEUF d/o Etienne LEBOEUF & Elizabeth GUIDRY}. When he came back, that is when we married.
[What about the hurricanes?]
The hurricanes were very bad. The water was high. The water came all the way up the big oak tree, we had in the front yard. We saved ourselves. We went to another house. When we came back, the chimney was gone. The water did not come to the house, only to the oak tree in the front yard.
[Did anybody lose their life?]
No. Some of my husband’s family had died. Some of them drowned and the water brought them way up into the woods. My husband and his family passed a lot of misery, because of that hurricane.
[What did you plant?]
We planted onions, cane and two types of potatoes.
[How many onions did you plant?]
It was a hundred and something, but I can’t remember. They hired somebody to help with the crops. He also spent time in the war.
[Are you still planting the land today?]
My son-in-law plants the land.
[How far does the property go?]
It is 40 acres deep.
[Do you have oil wells on your property?]
No.
[What did you do with all you planted?]
We used some and sold some.
[How would you sell them?]
We had a wagon with a top on it and another wagon.
[What was your job, when you were planting all that?]
We would do a lot of hoeing. Planting onions, planting cane, planting corn and cutting cane. We had a lot of misery, but I don’t regret any of it and feels blessed, for still being here.
[When cutting the cane, you did it yourselves or had some help?]
We hired somebody, we would hire people to help with the cane harvest.
[What would you do with the cane, after you cut it?]
They would haul it to the bayou, and then we would put it in a barge and it would make the round.
[Where did the barge bring the cane?]
I don’t really know.
[How would you do that?]
My husband was handling the hoist, and I would do the weighing.
[How would the cane get to the mill?]
Later they had a little track, with a train.
[What mill did you use?]
I don’t know.
{She started crying, thinking about the past.}
[Well, we will stop now.]
[Do you want to stop again.]
Do you have enough?
[Not really, but if you want to stop, we will stop.]
We will start again.
[Did the little car, just haul cane?]
It only hauled cane.
[In 1950, they had a sugarcane strike, do you remember that?]
There was no money, and they did not want to pay anybody. There was a man from the South Coast, who said they had to pay the people who were working. They did not want to pay me what she was worth, because she was a lady. She was doing the work of a man. The man said yes, you have to pay her the same wages as a man. They would come get her, and bring her to Montegut, so she could weigh the cane. She was making the same amount of money as the men.
[When did the electricity come down? I know you were using coal oil.]
They passed around to see if enough people wanted electricity. They said if enough people wanted electricity, they would give each family an electric iron.
[They gave you an electric iron?]
Yes.
[You must have felt like you were in hog heaven.]
It was very good to, have the electric iron. One time it caught a house on fire.
[How was the depression?]
It was bad. A lot of people were hurt by it.
[Did the government assist you?]
Nothing at all. People had no money. People would come around looking for work. She was getting old and could not take care of herself. She hired some one to take care of the housework. We signed papers and everything, and then we started getting some assistance.
[Was this in the depression?]
No, we did not get any assistance during the depression.
[Do you remember the first tractors, did you get a tractor?]
No. The father of her son-in-law had a tractor.
[When you were a little girl, were there a lot of blacks around here?]
Yes, there were a lot of blacks on the ridge and she cooked for some of the workers when they were here.
[Did they mix?]
No, the black and white didn’t mix. When my husband died, there were a lot of blacks, asked if they could come see him and pay their respects. I said oh yeah. There was a bunch that came and saw him. Some of the whites had big eyes, seeing the blacks paying their respects.
[They didn’t like that?]
They didn’t like that. The blacks were good to us, we all worked and we all worked together. My husband would go to the store and there was a good black man working at the store.
[What did you call the ridge?]
That is Smith Ridge, it was all black in there. There was a gathering we would go to, we got on the bus, and it would make the rounds, and pick up some blacks too.
[The bus picked up some blacks?]
Oh yeah.{It probably was a bus for the sugar mill, it would pass and pick up the workers, there was probably just one bus.}
[In the olden days the whites treated the blacks like animals?]
Now, when you see them, the blacks invite you to go set at the table with them.
[Do you remember when the water and gas came?]
[Did you have cisterns?]
Yes.
[Did it run out?]
Oh yeah, when it didn’t rain it would run out. We went to the South Coast and get the drill and drill a well. Just go in the garden and drill down until you hit water. They used well water to give to the animals to drink.
[How did you wash your clothes?]
We used cistern water, and if it went dry, we used bayou water.
[How did you wash your clothes?]
Ritcha, ritchha, ritcha.
[On the scrub board?]
Yes, on the scrub board. It was my job every Monday morning to wash clothes.
[What did you do with the clothes, put it on lines?]
Yes, we had clotheslines. We still hang it on lines.
[How did you warm yourself?]
In front of the fireplace. We would get the wood from the woods. We would just go in the woods and get some wood.
[How did you get the wood from the woods?]
By wagon.
End of tape # 188, begin tape # 189.
[Do your children speak French?]
Yes, all but one, that is learning to speak French, so we have to translate.
[Your grandchildren speak French or English?]
They talk English, but they understand.
[Do your children speak French {repeat}?]
Yes, my children talk French.
[When you was a little girl, did the people talk English or French?]
Everybody spoke French, no English at all.
[The blacks, did they speak French?]
No, they all spoke English.
[I heard that you are a “treater”, what do you treat for?]
I treat for sore throat and I treat for worms.
[How do you treat?]
For sore throat, you rub and gargle with baking soda, now we don’t do any of that, we take Alka-Seltzer. {laughing}
[How do you treat for worms?]
Well, you take (?), garlic and turpentine and put it on a string around the neck of a kid. It was kill or cure.
[Do you still treat for worms?]
No, they all go to the doctor now. I went to the doctor and he asked me, do you treat? I said oh yeah, I treat. Then I will have to learn from you. {laughing}
[What do you do for earache?]
You use a rubber pump and flush the wax out of the ear.
[Did you have any doctors around?]
There was an old doctor at Montegut.
[Was it Doctor DUVAL?]
Yes.
[Were there any Priests around?]
Yes, we went to Catechism. We went to a church higher up, it was a chapel. {St. Elie?} It was a church called Notre Dame. It was a chapel. We would go to St. Joseph Church. When we went to church, we would walk, that was on Sunday. Sometimes we would go during the week, too. The Priest would come from Montegut, the day before, in horse and buggy. He would come down and stay with an old widow, and spend the night at her house.
[Did you make your communion and all of that?]
Yes, we had to go to Montegut. We had to go to retreat. We had to walk there. It was only a mile.
[Did you have to have a white dress to make your communion?]
Oh, yes. The white dress and the veil. For confirmation, we did have that. Her and her husband made their first communion together, but did not know one another.
[What religion were the blacks?]
The whites were Catholics and black were Baptist.
[Do you remember when oil was discovered?]
I don’t remember.
[Do you know when the supermarket opened?
That’s a lot of years, I can’t remember.
[When you were a little girl, where would you go to get groceries?]
We would go to the store. There were stores around. We had to buy on credit. It was a cousin that had a store.
[What was the name of the store?]
It was Felix GUIDRY’s store.
[Was there any trucks passing to sell groceries?]
Yes, a SAVOIE from Bayou Blue would pass regular. He had a big truck.
[How would you pay for your groceries, did you pay with money or pay with goods they raised?]
We paid with money. When we sold stuff, we had the money, so we paid for what we needed. We never had any problems to buy groceries. You did not buy anything you didn’t need.
[Would the people make their clothes or buy their clothes?]
We would make our clothes. There was an old lady who would come and show you how to sew your clothes. The lady did not want to charge anything, but she was raised very poor, so we would give her something.
[Would you go to Houma to buy clothes?]
Whenever we had a chance, a buggy would go. Sometimes grandpa would come and we would go spend a few days with grandma.
[You would go to Houma to buy clothes, it wasn’t too often?]
It wasn’t too often.
[When was it you got your first automobile?]
It was after we were married. After a while, my husband sold it to my brother. You couldn’t go hardly anywhere. The roads were always muddy.
[Was there any gravel roads?]
Oh, no.
[Was there any stories told you by your parents, anything about the rou-ga-roo’s?]
I don’t remember none of that.
[Did you go visiting?]
Yes, we would go visiting other people. We would go play cards. They would play some card games, when they came back, they had to wash their faces.{smut?}
[Were there games the children played?]
There were plenty games the boys played, the girls played. They had trees around the house and they had a covered porch and they played there. Her husband would go play cards in the barn. It had a wooden floor. We would set up a table.
[Do you still have the table, they were playing on?]