T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Collection

ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE NAME:    Lucy Boyer Thomas                   COLLECTION:   4700.1687

IDENTIFICATION:    Long time resident of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward; Hurricane 

                                        Betsy survivor

INTERVIEWER:     Nilima Mwendo

PROJECT:    Hurricane Betsy

INTERVIEW DATES:        November 21, 2003   

FOCUS DATES:      1920s - 1965

ABSTRACT:

Tape 3340, Side A

Moved from Algiers to Chalmette when Lucy was a baby; Levee Board stole land from her father to widen canal, never paid him; family had cows, pigs, chickens, and terrible kicking horse named Jelly Bean; song her father used to sing to his old mule; drinking sheep’s milk to prevent whooping cough or sometimes horse milk; selling milk in cans; Lucy born in 1923; Lucy’s five brothers and one sister; Brother Joseph was one of the men who planted flag at Iwo Jima, never got credit for it; grew up in all black village of Fazendeville, near Chalmette; attended one-room schoolhouse for first grade; then went to McCarty School, Holy Redeemer and Albert Wicker in New Orleans for later grades; attended school through eleventh grade; old woman that scared them as children; fond memories of childhood neighbors; neighbor who made up a song about Lucy’s daughter Bibiana; her father grew lots of vegetables to eat and to sell; fruit orchards where Kaiser Aluminum is now; cutting through a cow field, watching out for bulls; walking to school on train tracks, fear of the trains; mother was great seamstress; her mother threw a brick and accidentally broke a Syrian storekeeper’s window, got taken away to mental hospital for six years; all the kids slept in one room; brothers helped her make first communion; older brothers and father took care of younger kids while mother was away; father’s French cooking skills; bread old people used to make in cast iron skillets; father was French, from Lafayette; father’s family, mix of French and black Louisiana Creole; Lucy was close to her Aunt Cecile; kids’ chores; killing pigs; salting meat; iceboxes; rich neighbor who had tennis court and grew grapefruits and tangerines; frightened by snake in persimmon tree; healing vine called blackjack that father gathered in woods; uses of l'hèrbe à malot, or swamp root; children dosed with castor oil; cartoons they enjoyed as children, Howdy Doody and Betty Boop; brother Gabe’s artistic rendering of cross; father died when she was nineteen; went to stay with Uncle Ed in California; Uncle Ed passed for white, so Lucy had to stay outside like a serving girl; studied nursing at UCLA; returned to Louisiana, worked at Charity Hospital; Friday nights at Charity: “Everybody’s guts was cut out”; uncle in California kept every door inside house locked; Los Angeles apartment she stayed in where the landlady sent a man to her room as though she were a prostitute; terrible, unfriendly people of California; apartment where she caught someone coming in her room with a pass-key to steal from her; experiencing earthquakes; refusing to bathe a male patient; working at Charity; attending St. Catherine’s, a black church; eating delicious lunches with the well fed nuns; got married, moved to Ninth Ward.

Tape 3340, Side B

Married Francis Thomas at St. David Church; had first baby while living in Chalmette; moved to current residence at fifty-one years ago; met her husband while they both attended Grunewald School of Music; Lucy sang, Francis played tenor sax; sings “Our Father”; still sings at St. David Church; has five children and twelve grandchildren; husband worked at Kaiser Aluminum; husband died five years before interview; son Peter takes care of house, has power of attorney; whereabouts of other children; in 1952, Ninth Ward was more country; veteran and government housing in Ninth Ward; houses built by Good Citizen Insurance Company; used to be a canal outside her house, full of fish, frogs, turtles and snakes; had septic tanks instead of sewage; daughter Valerie saved small child who was drowning in septic tank; used to be lots of animals and songbirds; neighbors she remembers; oldest houses still standing; area developed because government built $9,000 houses for veterans; Lucy points out tile work and other upgrades her husband made to house; women in the neighborhood stayed home instead of having jobs; when Lucy’s kids got bigger, she babysat and did housework for people; close-knit neighborhood; her good friend, Mrs. Garcia; church gives special scroll to couples married for fifty years; Lucy’s medical problems: breast cancer, lymphedema; escaping Hurricane Betsy flood waters; nobody had televisions then, some people had radios; warnings from neighbors about severity of Betsy; took cover in building at Derbigny and Tupelo streets; had to get eleven children through water five feet deep; floated children on mattress; rescued from two story building by National Guard; husband separated, wound up at the Port of Embarkation; Lucy and kids got ride on boat through river to an auditorium; water especially deep at end of Poland Street, where some people drowned; confusion over identity of drowned child, afraid it was one of hers; Lucy and eleven kids stayed for a week with a lady who offered to take them in; five feet of water ruined everything in the house; Lucy’s computerized stove; lady they stayed with after hurricane would steal Lucy’s groceries; Lucy’s six nephews and nieces were visiting during storm, giving her eleven kids to watch; memory of Kennedy assassination; mother-in-law said there wasn’t room for all those kids in her house after storm; husband helped National Guard rescue people during storm; army trucks; overcharged for bread in aftermath of storm; when water first started coming up, put kids in attic; at daybreak, preparing for departure.

TAPES:  1 (T3340)                            TOTAL PLAYING TIME:  1 hour, 33 minutes

# PAGES TRANSCRIPT:   67 pages

OTHER MATERIALS:  Interviewee questionnaire, correspondence, obituary

RESTRICTIONS:  None