T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Collection

ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE NAME:    Lucille D. Duminy                COLLECTION:   4700.1685

IDENTIFICATION:  Hurricane Betsy survivor; Ninth Ward resident

INTERVIEWER:  Nilima Mwendo

PROJECT:   Hurricane Betsy

INTERVIEW DATES:    November 19, 2003       

FOCUS DATES:   1950s-‘60s; 1965

ABSTRACT:

Tape 3337, Side A

Introduction; Duminy is the interviewer’s aunt; bought inexpensive house in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward circa 1949; street was so muddy she cried on moving day; no lights in neighborhood, scared when her husband had to work nights; horses running in backyard because Claiborne Street barn just behind them; put up fence to keep horses out; Ninth Ward at that time: “It was real country, like the way I was brought up”; street first paved with rocks and tar; neighborhood effort to get street paved with real blacktop; becoming attached to her neighborhood and neighbors; conscious effort to forge neighborhood ties by including neighbors at barbecues and other gatherings; looking after the kids in the neighborhood whose parents worked; Uncle Joe played accordion at night; inviting neighborhood kids to a weenie roast; loved to be around children, always wanted to be a teacher; occupations of neighborhood men and women; love of neighborhood:  “I’m still satisfied right here.  I am not leaving my home until they take me out of here in a box.”; neighborhood improvements in early sixties; grocery stores in neighborhood; transportation in Ninth Ward; petition to keep large garage from being built in neighborhood; welcoming new neighbors to neighborhood; first warnings of Hurricane Betsy; distress when hurricane turned toward mouth of river: “Because you right at the mouth of the Gulf, and the sea could come just right over and that’s it.  And that’s just what it did.”; relatives from Empire, Louisiana, came to Duminy house to wait out storm; eating supper, watching TV with relatives; no warning to Ninth Ward residents: “And never mentioned evacuating, they didn’t have no evac.  They wanted us to die right down here.”; heavy rain, then silence, then a truck passed by with someone hollering to evacuate; water coming from behind house, from direction of Florida Avenue; panic at how to get pregnant aunt, aunt’s little boy, arthritic mother and partially ambulatory grandmother out of her house; “We can’t walk now, it’s too late because the water was by your ankle, and as you walk, it was coming up.”; National Guard drove through neighborhood, announcing evacuation on their loudspeakers; managed to walk to McCarty School; man who helped carry little cousin and grandmother to safety; fear, saying rosaries at school; man who took her family out in a small skiff, a few people at a time; evacuated to Poland and St. Claude, which was dry; cattle trucks came to transport them: “Cattle trucks?  We’re like slavery in here!”; cattle truck took them to City Hall; husband Walter vomiting blood, Red Cross unable to help; man transported Walter to Charity Hospital; getting upset at Charity over having to answer so many questions and getting so little help; Walter was a nursing assistant at Public Health Hospital, used his contacts to get good room at Charity; while at hospital, getting separated from their children; family reunited at Nanny’s house, everybody accounted for; scary conditions at McCarty School, with winos and dopers.

Tape 3337, Side B

After hurricane, trying to get help from City Hall just to eat, told to come back tomorrow; losing patience with people who were there to provide assistance; negotiating with assistance people for money; returning to see her house, everything destroyed; discrimination at the grocery store after the hurricane; trouble with daughter’s school because uniform was destroyed; Mama got trailer from Red Cross in Belle Chasse; taking sandwiches that were put out for white people only; got SBA loan to fix up house; took job at St. Maurice Church rectory to pay off SBA loan; spending a year fixing the house back up; hardwood floors ruined; damage to uncle’s house; Walter in hospital two weeks with kidney stones; getting hand-me-down clothing; discrimination in assistance process; replacing household goods and appliances; levee intentionally busted; the water filling the Ninth ward was dirty river water, not rain water; levee busted to protect city’s major resources, which were on other side of river; her children’s fear every time it rained after hurricane; uncle fixed the refrigerator; survival of her family: “We were strong, and nothing was going to put us down.”

TAPES:  1 (T3337)                                       TOTAL PLAYING TIME:  1 hour, 32 minutes

# PAGES TRANSCRIPT:  53

OTHER MATERIALS:  Correspondence (2 pages), Interviewee Biographical Form

RESTRICTIONS:    None