T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Collection

ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE NAME:   Leander Curry                   COLLECTION:   4700.2085

IDENTIFICATION:   Resident of Bayou Chene, Louisiana

INTERVIEWER:   Sue Hebert

PROJECT:   Sue Hebert Series

INTERVIEW DATE:   October 4, 1979

FOCUS DATES: 1920s to 1970s

ABSTRACT:

Tape 43.2
Introduction; he made a living doing “everything he could do”; raised ten children; worked for Texas Oil Company and drove school transfer boat from Lake Chico, Bloody Bayou, Jake’s Bayou, Bayou Pigeon, Sorrel Bay, to Bayou Chene; brought students to the school on Bayou Chene and picked them up at the end of the day, almost fifty children a day; his boat was eight feet wide and twenty-six feet long, ran with the engine of a Model A Ford with tractor fuel; people who owned boats; detailed description of his boat; he had bad kids on his boat; story about children is cut off by break in the tape; teachers and students at Bayou Chene and Plaquemine; he doesn’t remember what he got paid for his school transfer boat job; story about poor family, mother started cussing at him so he left the kids, never went back there because it was over his mileage; students sometimes had to walk another three or four miles after getting off the boat; school at Bayou Chene started with one room, eventually had three rooms; fishing, story about catching 1,237 pounds on buffalo fish in seven nets; he left 100 cotton nets on Bayou Chene when he left; nylon nets are better because they don’t rot; cotton nets would be tarred every three weeks; process of tarring; alligator hunting story about his brother-in-law from New Orleans, trying to hook the gator with a wooden hook, trying to hit it with a hatchet; hunted gators at night; prices for hides, salting hides for preservation; meat wasn’t used and was thrown into the bayou; process of skinning gators; prices for hides are much higher now, $18 per foot instead of 75 cents for a whole seven-foot gator; stories about gators eating dogs, hogs, deer; other wildlife, squirrels, ducks; story about going hunting on a Sunday morning with a single-barrel gun, killing seven ducks with one shot; no game wardens back then so hunting anything at any time was allowed; mail service for Bayou Chene; people went in boats to get mail; moss picking was how he made part of his living; he and two of his cousins could pick as much as 400 pounds per day; he got $1.75 per 100 pounds; tape cuts off.

TAPES:  1 (T43.1)                                                     TOTAL PLAYING TIME:   28 minutes

# PAGES INDEX:   2 pages

RESTRICTIONS:   None