Memories Podcast

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Katheryne Dollar, director of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program in association with the Natchitoches Area Action Association arranged interviews with senior citizens around the parish. The interviews were conducted between 1971 and 1974 by David Dollar. Recordings were originally aired on KNOC Radio.

Tags: natchitoches, oral histories, oral history

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July 23, 2026

78. Mrs. Vernon C. Cloutier

Transcript

Jim Colley: Good morning. This morning, we're bringing you The Memories Program from Beaufort, the home of Mrs. Vernon C. Cloutier. And we'll be back in just a few minutes after this word from Peoples Bank and Trust, our sponsors.

Ms. Cloutier, we're glad to be visiting with you on The Memories Program. I'm Jim Colley. This is a beautiful home.

Mrs. Cloutier: Thank you so much, Mr. Colley. I am glad to be here. Glad to have you with me.

Jim Colley: Thank you, ma'am. We were talking before the show began. You said that you were the eighth generation to live in this area.

Mrs. Cloutier: I am. I am. And I've only lived in two houses in this area.

Jim Colley: Which two houses are those?

Mrs. Cloutier: The present home of Beaufort and the present home, which was my home where J.H., my brother lives. J.H. Williams lives up on Williams Avenue.

Jim Colley: You probably remember a lot about growing up in Natchitoches Parish since you were born and reared here. What was it like growing up in Natchitoches?

Mrs. Cloutier: It was small, country and wonderful. We knew everybody and we did everything in a wonderful way, in an innocent way, and we had a great rearing.

Jim Colley: I'll bet it was. What was school like? Did you go to school?

Mrs. Cloutier: Oh, yes. I went to school at St. Mary's Academy from the first grade through the 12th grade. There were only about 36 to 38 in the four grades, and we were all in one room. And it was like a big family, we had a wonderful time. When I graduated, there were only 12 in the class. It was a big class in those days.

Jim Colley: Can I ask you what year you graduated in?

Mrs. Cloutier: Yes. I finished St. Mary's Academy in 1922, and college in 1926.

Jim Colley: Where did you go to college?

Mrs. Cloutier: Right here in Natchitoches, four years.

Jim Colley: At the Normal School?

Mrs. Cloutier: Louisiana State Normal. And we had to sign before we entered that when we got our two-year certificate that we would promise to teach not less than one year in the state.

Jim Colley: They wanted all those people to teach.

Mrs. Cloutier: That's right.

Jim Colley: Who was the president of the school when you were there?

Mrs. Cloutier: Mr. V.L. Roy, and he was hard as tacks, one of the few men in the world that I was afraid of.

Jim Colley: I can't imagine you being afraid of anybody.

Mrs. Cloutier: Well, I was scared of him and the devil.

Jim Colley: And that's about all.

Mrs. Cloutier: Yes.

Jim Colley: You were saying that while you were in public school you had tutoring in the afternoons.

Mrs. Cloutier: At private school.

Jim Colley: At private school, right.

Mrs. Cloutier: I was tutored by my grandmother's sister, Mrs. Edwina Sutter, the first postmistress of Natchitoches. And she lived across the river from my home. But I had to walk up there carrying my books in a book satchel every day. Then coming back down front street where I meandered and maundered, looking in the windows and having fun talking to everybody until I got home. It was generally around five o'clock when I reached home.

Jim Colley: Now when you told it this time, you left out an important detail. Do you remember what that was?

Mrs. Cloutier: Walking across the bridge.

Jim Colley: And all the boys that were on the bridge.

Mrs. Cloutier: Seeing the boys on the bridge. But I happened to be tutored about 10 years so the boys wasn't interested to me at first, but there were towards the end.

Jim Colley: I see. You said that you used to wear a hat all the time.

Mrs. Cloutier: Oh yes, and sometimes the boys would take my hats off and throw them in the river and I'd come home hatless.

Jim Colley: I see. What was dating like in those days? Could you go out and date a lot?

Mrs. Cloutier: Well, we didn't know much about dating until we were finishing high school. We were just about ready to start dating. But having a half-sister who lived in Colfax, I visited her two weeks every summer, and that was where I made my debut and started going with boys when I was about 15, a very early age to date.

Jim Colley: That was very early in those days.

Mrs. Cloutier: Yes, indeed.

Jim Colley: Did they let you go out with boys who had cars?

Mrs. Cloutier: I was not allowed to ride in a car after dark until I was 21, and you know who he was?

Jim Colley: Who was the first one?

Mrs. Cloutier: A gentleman named Reverend Tenney, named Baptist minister, a very charming man. And he asked me for my first date when I was 21 years old, and I liked him very much. He lived with us at that time.

Jim Colley: And you got to go riding in the car with him at night.

Mrs. Cloutier: With a man, a Baptist preacher.

Jim Colley: That was something else.

Mrs. Cloutier: It really was.

Jim Colley: The events that happened and living in the country, you used to go up to Shreveport to the fair. What was the fair like?

Mrs. Cloutier: Oh, we had certain events like the Shreveport Fair all during high school. We thought that was great, that was something. And the Paul English shows that came, and tent shows, that was really something for us country girls. We had a great time.

Jim Colley: What was the fair like?

Mrs. Cloutier: Very similar to what it is today and even though we were juniors and seniors in high school, we didn't miss riding on one thing.

Jim Colley: That was quite an exciting thing to do.

Mrs. Cloutier: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Jim Colley: I want to talk to you about, did you call them the Paul English shows?

Mrs. Cloutier: Yes, they were the tent shows. Vaudevilles and minstrels.

Jim Colley: Let's talk about those shows in just a few minutes, but we'll take a break right now and let our sponsors, Peoples Bank and Trust have this commercial word.

In case you've just joined us, this is The Memories Program. I'm Jim Colley and we're visiting with Mrs. Vernon Cloutier. We were just talking about the Paul English Show. What was that?

Mrs. Cloutier: Well, they were mainly vaudevilles, and I just thought acting on the stage was great, and sometimes minstrels. And we heard that Paul English was coming to town, it was exciting days for us.

Jim Colley: I'll bet it was. Did they come in a tent?

Mrs. Cloutier: Yes, they did. And the tents, well sometimes they would come annually and then sometimes every other year. And they would pitch a tent either up at West Natchitoches, where the old ballpark was, I think now stands the present of federal project. Or, sometimes in that very bad section below the main bridge of town they call Lower East Natchitoches, very de fondue, where the present shopping center is at.

Jim Colley: So the Broadmoor Shopping Center used to be where-

Mrs. Cloutier: Was a woodland, and wasn't a road anywhere near there.

Jim Colley: And wasn't a very nice place to go.

Mrs. Cloutier: That's right.

Jim Colley: And that's where they had put the tent for the minstrel show and the vaudeville.

Mrs. Cloutier: It was a vacant slot there you see, and it had been cleared off and we could go there.

Jim Colley: Someone was telling me one time about the circuses that used to come to Natchitoches and the trains that would pull up and-

Mrs. Cloutier: Oh, yes. The circuses were held and sometimes they'd let us off from school to go see them unload the elephants. And that would be in the afternoon and we'd all be excited and watch and sometimes go walk down the parade with all the animals. It was a big to-do in Natchitoches.

Jim Colley: Where would they water the elephants? They'd get off at the rail yard and walk the elephants down, to what, the Cane River to water them?

Mrs. Cloutier: Yes, yes, yes.

Jim Colley: And that I'm sure was pretty exciting.

Mrs. Cloutier: Yes, it was, for all of us children.

Jim Colley: We were talking about your four years at the Normal School. What was life like living at the Normal School?

Mrs. Cloutier: Well, it was rather tough. The girls on Northwestern campus were, I would say 80% and the boys 20, sometimes maybe 10. And the girls were not allowed to come to town except on Saturday mornings. And oh, it was a to-do for the girls to come walking two-by-two, four-by-four, to do their shopping in Natchitoches once a week. We town girls would ride up and watch them because they couldn't ride in cars, they had to walk.

But the rules at Northwestern was something terrific. I don't think the present generation could stand it. There were many deans, whereas today the deans are not needed because the boys and girls stay in the same dormitories. But Mr. Roy, our president, was so strict and I was so afraid of him. I guess I wasn't afraid of anyone in those days, but Mr. Roy and the devil.

Jim Colley: Did you ever get into any trouble while you were in school?

Mrs. Cloutier: Oh, I stayed in trouble. I stayed in trouble. I got shipped, which it means, being sent home indefinitely, about five times.

Jim Colley: Ms. Cloutier, five times?

Mrs. Cloutier: About five times.

Jim Colley: What did you do?

Mrs. Cloutier: Well, the first time two other girls and I were talking on the wrong side. The boys were supposed to be on one side and the girls on the other side. The second time I was walking in front of Caldwell Hall, and she'd always liked the boys. And I had my arm hanging around two boys, our arms were clasped. These two boys were cute too and real lifelong friends, Jack Ducadeaux and Raymond Whitehead. Well, my underskirt happened to be passing. We wore underskirts in those days and my underskirt happened to be passing, so I was caught on two offenses. My underskirt passed and walking, talking with two boys.

Jim Colley: Now that means your underskirt was just showing out?

Mrs. Cloutier: Yeah, just a little bit. Then the third offense, in my junior year, I got shipped because I didn't wear a hairnet and my practice teacher knew. Then the fourth offense, I was also in my junior year or senior year. My senior year I was staying at the practice college on the campus. I had made a fruit cake for Christmas. Well, I come in with my bloomers on which were very wide-legged bloomers, hanging from my knee to my ankle halfway. And of course, we had not only deans but spies, they called them, that always were out to catch the other fellow doing something wrong, and I was caught going across the campus. I had gone to get a little cup of whiskey to put on my fruit cake, so I was called for two offenses there.

Then my last offense, I was a senior. I was dancing at noon in the main room as you entered Caldwell Hall with a very nice boy, Tommy Pearson. And the two people who were playing the jazz it up piano were Mr. Kenny Keegan, who was the Baptist minister later on, and our dear friend, Mimi Judd, they'd take turns. Well, one of the spies passed by and I was the only one seen, so I was the only one that shipped.

So I went home and my father didn't know what to expect and my mother went, "Now he says, well, we'll just go back and see, what is the trouble? What has happened to Roy again?" Well, my father and Mr. Roy happened to be at the same church and at that time they were having a terrific drive for the church. We walked in the office, he says, "Well, come in Mr. Henry, we going talk about the drive, best you go on back to school," and that was the end of my fifth shipping.

Jim Colley: It's a wonder to me that you ever got through school at all with being shipped that often?

Mrs. Cloutier: Well, I was by far from being an honor student.

Jim Colley: Ms. Cloutier, have so much enjoyed visiting with you this morning. We appreciate you sharing some of your memories with us about Natchitoches and what it was like growing up around here.

Mrs. Cloutier: Thank you. I think Natchitoches is a wonderful town and I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Jim Colley: Thank you, ma'am. On behalf of myself and Peoples Bank and Trust, we thank you for being with us.

Mrs. Cloutier: Oh.

Jim Colley interviews Mrs. Vernon Cloutier about growing up as the 8th generation of her family in Natchitoches, early school and tutoring, dating, fairs and shows, watching circus animals come in by train, and her university infractions.

Episode Tags: podcast, memories, oral history interview, natchitoches, louisiana normal school, state fair

July 16, 2026

77. Reba Wheat

Transcript

Jim Colley: This is Jim Colley and this is The Memory Show. This morning, we're visiting with Mrs. Reba Wheat. Welcome to the Memories Program.

Reba Wheat: Thank you.

Jim Colley: We're glad you're here. We were talking about where you grew up. You're an old kind of Natchitoches Parish person, aren't you?

Reba Wheat: Yes. I grew up out at Clarence. I was born there and spent most of my life until I married at Clarence.

Jim Colley: Is it fair to ask you when you were born?

Reba Wheat: Now that's personal.

Jim Colley: But over 50 years ago?

Reba Wheat: Over 50.

Jim Colley: All right. We'll leave-

Reba Wheat: ... Over 60, I'll leave it like that.

Jim Colley: That's fair game. What was it like growing up at Clarence over 60 years ago?

Reba Wheat: Well, as I remember it, it was a very good experience. We were happy. We were not rich, or in fact, we were among the poor people. Everybody was. Everybody took it for granted you were going to be. We were not property owners. My dad was a machinist, a blacksmith, worked whatever, well, any kind of machinery. He eventually ran the gin. He built the gin, he ran the gin. And so we lived in the country. We had all the advantages of country life and few of the disadvantages.

Jim Colley: What were some of those advantages to country life?

Reba Wheat: Plenty of room to run around, plenty of room to wander and to walk. A friendly, friendly people, just a happy experience. That's all I can say about it.

Jim Colley: Good for a kid to grow up in.

Reba Wheat: Ideal for a kid to grow up in.

Jim Colley: What were some of the disadvantages to country life?

Reba Wheat: One was school. We at times had a bit of a problem of keeping teachers. At that time, the parish organization was not what it is today, and school was apt to be cut short. That was one of the worst things that I can realize.

Jim Colley: The teacher would leave and that was that?

Reba Wheat: That was that. So actually, that's the only disadvantage I can think of because we had a doctor living in the community. We had our churches, we had two churches in that community when I was growing up, and I don't know what else we would've needed.

Jim Colley: So you had just about all there was to have a good community life and a good family life.

Reba Wheat: That's right, that's right.

Jim Colley: You said your dad was a blacksmith,

Reba Wheat: Right.

Jim Colley: Do you remember much about his old blacksmith shop?

Reba Wheat: I remember playing around in that shop the biggest portion of my growing up years. It was fun, it was dangerous, but he watched over us very carefully and taught us how to manage anything we were big enough to manage and of course it was a gathering place in the community. Everybody loved him, and he liked people very much. So it was just a good experience all around.

Jim Colley: What was his name, Mrs. Wheat?

Reba Wheat: Petey Span.

Jim Colley: I bet you some people will remember that name.

Reba Wheat: I know people will remember him. He died a couple of years ago at the age of 93.

Jim Colley: So he had a good long life?

Reba Wheat: A good long, full life.

Jim Colley: That's great.

Reba Wheat: Now there are a few things about my family of which I've been particularly proud. We always had reading material at home. We always had music of some kind. The good things, we had. Now, there were times when we had to do some scrapping to get the proper amount of food. There was never any money to throw away, but the good things we had.

Jim Colley: So you really feel good about growing up?

Reba Wheat: I really feel good about it.

Jim Colley: What was school like for a little girl?

Reba Wheat: Well, school was fun. You met your friends, you studied because you were interested. You were expected to study, that's the purpose in going. There was no such thing as somebody giving a grade, you learned because you wanted to know. In this little school, I have realized since that we were fortunate. We had, it was a very small library, but a very rich library, and we had some teachers who had sense enough to say, read if you want to. So I grew up reading.

Jim Colley: And they gave you the time to read?

Reba Wheat: And they gave us the time to read.

Jim Colley: Time and encouragement really helps.

Reba Wheat: That's right.

Jim Colley: How large was that school?

Reba Wheat: Well, couldn't have had more than 30 students in it.

Jim Colley: Two rooms.

Reba Wheat: Two rooms. Seven, and sometimes eight grades, but mostly seven. It was a school to which my mother had gone when she was about that age. I mean at the finishing age, seventh grade. Of course, to her, they had taught up the McGuffey readers, which gave you a liberal education. We didn't have the advantage of those readers, but we had the advantage of knowing the people who knew those readers.

Jim Colley: Now you're going to have to tell me about a McGuffey reader. Why do you call a McGuffey reader a liberal education?

Reba Wheat: Because McGuffey wrote them. Because they wrote them, they included all kinds of literature, good literature. They were moral teachings for kids. They had the fables in them in which a story or a moral was taught. But all the literature was what we really termed good literature. A basic moral foundation, a knowledge of words, a knowledge of meanings. They included writers from all sections back.

Jim Colley: So you said you didn't have the McGuffey reader.

Reba Wheat: No.

Jim Colley: But that you knew the people who did.

Reba Wheat: That's right.

Jim Colley: Now, how did they pass that along to you?

Reba Wheat: Because they expected something good out of us. We can't give you an education, but we can give you the opportunity to earn an education. I grew up knowing that nobody can be given anything like that, you have to work for it. Which so many of our kids today don't realize that we cannot give it to them.

Jim Colley: Have to work at it?

Reba Wheat: You have to work at it. Well, I grew up knowing that.

Jim Colley: The McGuffey Reader, it seems to me, if I remember what other people have told me, had a lot of poems in it.

Reba Wheat: Oh yes. And you memorized them. And I grew up memorizing poetry.

Jim Colley: What's your favorite poem that you memorized out of it?

Reba Wheat: The Time Solance Law.

Jim Colley: How does that begin?

Reba Wheat: I haven't [inaudible 00:07:06].

Jim Colley: Couldn't remember it now?

Reba Wheat: No. I could remember lines, but I couldn't remember.

Jim Colley: I had to remember Evangeline, to memorize Evangeline.

Reba Wheat: Oh, well, we did parts of it.

Jim Colley: And I could always do the first two lines and then I quit.

Reba Wheat: Oh, I could probably do that.

Jim Colley: This is the forest-

Reba Wheat: Primeval.

Jim Colley: The Murmuring Pines, and the hemlocks stand like druids of eld, whatever. I wish I could remember that.

We'll be back in just a moment to visit with you, Mrs. Wheat, after this word from People's Bank and Trust our sponsors.

This is Jim Colley and this morning on the Memory Show, we're visiting with Mrs. Reba Wheat in her home here in Natchitoches. Ms. Wheat, we were talking about the McGuffey Reader just a few minutes ago. You said that the school you went to in Clarence finished with you about the eighth grade.

Reba Wheat: That's right.

Jim Colley: What happened then?

Reba Wheat: We moved over here to town. I went into Natchitoches High School, finished there, went on into the college.

Jim Colley: Did you go straight into college after high school?

Reba Wheat: Yes. I went in the summer after we had finished in May and went straight on through.

Jim Colley: That just amazes me.

Reba Wheat: Not anybody who loved to study like I did.

Jim Colley: Okay. What was the normal school at that time?

Reba Wheat: Well, as I realize now, it wasn't very large. I don't know, the population must've been around a thousand, more or less.

Jim Colley: Which was a big school for you then.

Reba Wheat: Which was a pretty good-sized school, but it was not so large, but that there was a friendly communication between faculty and students. Now, of course, there were students at that time who rebelled just as there are students today.

Jim Colley: How did they rebel?

Reba Wheat: Slipping out of the dormitory, getting into trouble, cutting classes, all that kind of thing.

Jim Colley: Just like what goes on now.

Reba Wheat: Just like what goes on now, same type thing. Refusing to study because they didn't like such and such thing. It's hard to say.

Jim Colley: Who was the president when you were there?

Reba Wheat: V.L Roy.

Jim Colley: Did you ever have any contact with Dr. Roy?

Reba Wheat: Twice.

Jim Colley: Twice.

Reba Wheat: Twice.

Jim Colley: You remember those vividly, I take it?

Reba Wheat: First time I was late to class on January 1. Now we were actually in classes and I had been out the night before to watch a night service, and I was 10 minutes late. Well, he kind of got a little bit irate about it and wanted to know where I'd been out dancing, and I told him I hadn't and told him where I had been. He said, well go on to class, then. Gave me a note.

Jim Colley: Okay. That was the first one.

Reba Wheat: The next time I'm standing up in the hall talking to a friend of mine, a boy, a student, and Mr. Roy sent us in separate directions. He didn't like that one bit.

Jim Colley: Didn't like those boys talking with the girls?

Reba Wheat: No siree, at that time you didn't. And if you dared walk down the hall with one and Mr. Roy or one or two of the other teachers saw, you got called in about it and talked to pretty firmly.

Jim Colley: You saw quite a few of the teachers while you were there.

Reba Wheat: Right.

Jim Colley: Do you have any favorites who were professors?

Reba Wheat: Mr. Forinay, first.

Jim Colley: What did he teach?

Reba Wheat: Physics.

Jim Colley: Oh, my. How could anybody have a favorite physics teacher?

Reba Wheat: Oh, that man. He really knew what he was doing. He knew how to put it across and we had fun in his classes. So long as you did your work, he was not rigid. He was not unreasonable. Now, if you didn't make any effort, he could really ring you out about it. But if you were trying and were interested, he would go to any length whatever to help.

Jim Colley: Well, that sounds like a good teacher.

Reba Wheat: Well, he was a very good teacher.

Jim Colley: Did you have other favorites?

Reba Wheat: Well, Ms. Winters, Katherine Winters, was one of the best history teachers I ever ran into. Mr. Killen, Mr. Sparks and Mr. Maddox and my math classes. I was very fond of all of them. Some of the names of some of the others, I don't remember.

Jim Colley: Did all the faculty kind of live in one part of town?

Reba Wheat: Well, I don't know about that, but I do know that on our street, which is Cypress Lane, there were more faculty there. We called it Faculty Row because almost every other house, at least. Now, I can-

Jim Colley: So that's right over here on Cypress next-

Reba Wheat: Cypress Lane, that's right. Would you like for me to give you some of the names?

Jim Colley: I'd like to.

Reba Wheat: All right. Beginning at the end of the street, away from the college was Mr. Good, who taught sociology and who wrote the textbook that they used for a long time. Mr. Alama, who taught education, I believe. I'm not sure, but I think so. Then our house was next. Now there was two or three other houses, two other houses. I don't remember who lived in them, they were not faculty. Then a Mr. McAfee who taught education, and another one I don't remember. Then, by the way, was Mr. Limley, who was the Presbyterian minister, and Dr. Reed next to him. Now, I don't remember about the next house, whether that was Mr. Wagner or whether Mr. Wagner lived in the next one. There was a vacant lot of two on there. Now I'm going down just one side of the street. And then Mr. Asselt's home. Now going back up the other end again, there was a Mr. Prudem or maybe two houses with people named Prudem. I'm not sure about that. Then Mr. Prather, then a vacant lot, then a Ms. Taylor, I believe, and a Mr. Smith. Then a Ms. Prudem. Now in there is where they built, I don't remember who lives there now. Then Mr. Williamson, Mr. Guardia. Mr. Guardia taught geography. Mr. Williamson was, well, the museum's named after him, I don't know what he taught. And someone else on the corner, I don't remember who. Not too many houses in there, but a good representation.

Jim Colley: And you lived in the midst of Faculty Row and all those people around you. And you didn't have any choice but to be a good student, I think.

Reba Wheat: Well, I loved to study. That's was the, that’s the advantage that I had over so many others. It appealed to me. And these people were friendly. Oh, they are lovely people. I just enjoyed living with them very much. Now, Ms. Prather and Ms. Alama, and I believe Ms. Good had decided when I finished high school that I did too much studying and I was going to miss something out of college if I didn't.

Jim Colley: So did they see after your social life?

Reba Wheat: Well, they advised me, not to spend all my time studying.

Jim Colley: Mrs. Wheat, I've enjoyed visiting with you. I'm sorry our time is up.

Reba Wheat: Well...

Jim Colley: But it's been good for us and I've enjoyed sharing your memories.

Reba Wheat: Well, thank you. It's been nice.

Jim Colley: We hope that if you know someone who ought to be sharing their memories with us, you'll call either Roger Williams at People's Bank and Trust or Catherine Dollar with a retired senior volunteer program, and we'll get that word and go and have a good talk with them. Thank you again.

Reba Wheat: Thank you.

Jim Colley interviews Reba Wheat about growing up in Natchitoches Parish, and her experiences at school in Clarence and at the Normal School in Natchitoches.

Episode Tags: podcast, memories, oral history interview, natchitoches parish, clarence, school, blacksmith shop, mcguffey reader

July 9, 2026

76. Marie Dupre

Transcript

Jim Colley (00:04): Hello again. This is Jim Colley and we're visiting On Memories with Mrs. Marie Dupre. Ms. Dupre, welcome to the show. We're awful glad you're here. I understand you've been in teaching and working in education around here most of your life.

Marie Dupre (00:19): Yes, I have.

Jim Colley (00:21): How long did you teach in Natchitoches Parish?

Marie Dupre (00:24): I taught 47 years in Natchitoches Parish.

Jim Colley (00:26): Gosh, when did you begin?

Marie Dupre (00:27): I started teaching in 1927 and retired in 1952.

Jim Colley (00:34): Well you're still a spring chicken then, aren't you?

Marie Dupre (00:36): I certainly am.

Jim Colley (00:38): I'll bet you are. Did you go to school here yourself?

Marie Dupre (00:41): I went to school at... it was called St. Joseph Elementary School at the time. Then I went to a public school in Montrose, Louisiana. Professor Thomas was the principal. The dear Professor Thomas that stayed at Natchitoches Central so long.

Jim Colley (00:59): He came up to Natchitoches Central after teaching in Montrose?

Marie Dupre (01:02): After teaching in Montrose.

Jim Colley (01:05): He was the principal at that school then?

Marie Dupre (01:05): Yes, he was.

Jim Colley (01:06): Well, did you live real close to the school?

Marie Dupre (01:07): No, I didn't. I had to walk sometimes. Sometime I had to ride. I had a little horse was named Nell, and I rode the horse to school. And some days I walked to school.

Jim Colley (01:18): How long a walk was that?

Marie Dupre (01:20): Oh that must've been six miles or longer.

Jim Colley (01:23): You know now, I always hear folks saying, "Back when I was young, I had to walk six miles to go to school," but that's true, huh?

Marie Dupre (01:31): That's really true. Then when I was teaching in Chopin, I taught at Springhill School in Chopin, I had to walk there. I walked many a Sundays from Chopin to Cloutierville to the St. John's Catholic Church to mass and back.

Jim Colley (01:48): Hmm. People traveled on their feet most of the time back then, didn't they?

Marie Dupre (01:52): They certainly did.

Jim Colley (01:53): I don't guess many people had ponies they could use.

Marie Dupre (01:56): Well, quite a number of people had ponies, but of course, children went to school walking. Maybe some of the boys sometime rode the ponies.

Jim Colley (02:04): But you were lucky, you had a horse named Nell?

Marie Dupre (02:07): Yes, I was.

Jim Colley (02:09): After you got through at the St Joseph's School, where did you go?

Marie Dupre (02:12): After I finished from St. Joseph's School, in the elementary school, for eighth grade, I went to New Orleans in the public school one year. Then I went to Xavier Prep Catholic School. Then from Xavier Prep to Xavier College, the university now. I also went to Wiley College and took extension [inaudible 00:02:33]... from Southern University.

Jim Colley (02:34): Boy, you've had a lot of educational experiences. Saint Xavier was... where was that?

Marie Dupre (02:39): Xavier is in New Orleans, Louisiana. I caught a many foals trying to learn to skate since skating was the fad then. Roller skates.

Jim Colley (02:49): Oh, is that what you did for recreation?

Marie Dupre (02:50): Yes, I did quite a bit of that for recreation.

Jim Colley (02:53): And if you didn't know how to skate?

Marie Dupre (02:55): You just fell.

Jim Colley (02:55): That's right. What was dating like when you were in New Orleans? Could you go out with a boy?

Marie Dupre (03:04): Well, I went out once or twice. Of course, I had an old aunt that didn't like... Quite like old people do, when you were dating, they want to know who it was, where were you going, here, there and the other. It wasn't like the students of today, walk out the door and say I'm gone. Or maybe don't say that and go ahead anyway. But, I enjoyed it. I had quite a number of friends. Of course, I went to a number of football and basketball games, because I had one little friend that was all tied up in basketball and football, and he got all the tickets for me, so I went to the games.

Jim Colley (03:40): That was pretty handy. You were talking before we began taping about going to school in the Isle, now what was the Isle?

Marie Dupre (03:51): The Isle is this little settlement in Melrose just on this side of the river from the Melrose Plantation. It was called the Isle. And this is where St. Augustine's Catholic Church is located. This St. Augustine Catholic Church, this land was donated... the church was donated by Saint Augustus, Saint Augustine. It was known as Grand-pere Augustine.

Jim Colley (04:16): Grand-pere Augustine. When was that?

Marie Dupre (04:19): [foreign language 00:04:19]. Oh, that was way back centuries ago I'd say. I don't remember the exact date, so I won't try to.

Jim Colley (04:28): I bet there was a lot of stories about him.

Marie Dupre (04:30): There was a lot of stories about him. He's buried in this cemetery. So is his wife.

Jim Colley (04:36): What kind of man was grand-pere?

Marie Dupre (04:39): Well, grand-pere was, I think from what I read about him, he came from a... He's Spanish descent, Spanish and American descent. He came from Santo Domingo, from the islands.

Jim Colley (04:58): So that whole part of Melrose and the Cane River country is interesting to me. You were talking about the Isle and the Isle got its name from a little piece of land that looked like an island down there. And now that's called the Iberville. How did that get its name?

Marie Dupre (05:19): More or less, much as I know about it, I think this portion of this cemetery and this land in there is between a bayou. There was a Bayou Brevelle. So it gets this Isle Brevelle from this bayou, from this Brevelle between Cain River, which is where the church is located on Cane River, between this and Highway 1 out at Montrose, there's a bayou. This bayou goes all the way down and falls into Cane River, down below the Isle. And then it comes all the way up and somewhere around Cypress or further than that, this bayou.

Jim Colley (06:01): So what we know is Isle Brevelle is actually the combination of two names, the name for the Isle and the name for Bayou Brevelle. That's real interesting. Ms. Dupre, we're going to take a minute for People's Bank and Trust to give us a good word. We're grateful to them for sponsoring this. We hope you'll stay listening and come back to us after this word from our sponsor.

(06:26): This is Jim Colley, and we're back visiting On Memories with Mrs. Marie Dupre. Ms. Dupre, when you grow up in families and you have parents. They always give you a lot of advice. What kind of advice do you remember getting?

Marie Dupre (06:42): Well, I remember getting advice from my father. He always said to us, "I'll send you to school, for you to be independent, for you to help yourself. And of course, I don't want you to let this land get away from you. That's yours, keep it until you die." And that we have tried to do. We still have our home place.

Jim Colley (07:06): That's quite a thing. I guess I remember my parents by the kind of advice they give, and your dad said, get that education and hold onto the land. And you did both. That's quite a thing. Education was pretty important for folks growing up then. You've been around and in education in Natchitoches Parish for a long time. And you've seen a lot of changes, I'm sure. What kind of changes have you seen that strike you as is most important?

Marie Dupre (07:38): Well, I would say that the youth of today seem to not realize that an education that will help you more than just going along without one. Course they usually say, "Oh, this person didn't have an education. He has a better job than I have." But that doesn't always hold water. I think the youth of today should try to elevate himself as high as he can and continue to do a better job after he gets an education.

Jim Colley (08:21): What do you think of all these Women's Lib movements? Describing when you went off to college and came back and started teaching you were involved in some liberated women's activities way back then.

Marie Dupre (08:35): Well, I think to a certain extent Women Lib is in its place. But I wouldn't say that in every phase of life that a woman should be taking the lead.

Jim Colley (08:54): A lot of women have kind of held the South together. When people rewrite Southern history, they talk about the women who got out, and plowed the fields, and taught the children, and cooked the meals. That was pretty much a part of life, wasn't it?

Marie Dupre (09:09): Yes.

Jim Colley (09:10): Mr. Dupre, do you ever remember seeing a car for the first time or getting to own a car? What was your earliest memory about cars?

Marie Dupre (09:20): My earliest memory about cars might've been before the 30s. I think I had a car of my own, which was a Ford. And of course, they were a lot different from the cars of today. They moved much slower. They weren't such beautiful...

Jim Colley (09:50): Didn't have all those-

Marie Dupre (09:50): Didn't have all those gadgets on them as the cars of today.

Jim Colley (09:54): Not quite as comfortable I'd guess.

Marie Dupre (09:56): No, not quite as comfortable because I'm sure they didn't have any air conditioning in it. Didn't have any heat.

Jim Colley (10:03): The air conditioning wasn't... didn't have any windows.

Marie Dupre (10:06): Didn't have any windows in [inaudible 00:10:08]...

Jim Colley (10:09): But that was quite an improvement, wasn't it?

Marie Dupre (10:11): It certainly was.

Jim Colley (10:11): Everybody needed cars if they could get them. Ms. Dupre as we finish up this time, let me ask you about the church you're a member of. Which church is that?

Marie Dupre (10:21): I said it was then called St. Joseph's Catholic Church, but the name changed after all of this transposing of the picture and all of that. Well, this changed the St. Augustine Catholic Church. And this Saint Augustine Catholic Church, I was christened there or baptized if you want to say. I made my first communion there. I was confirmed there. I was married there and on August the 16, I celebrated my 25th anniversary there.

Jim Colley (10:56): My goodness. Little parish churches like that are just kind of at the heart of everybody's life that lives around them.

Marie Dupre (11:03): And you ask about remembering how we went about funerals. In those days, the bodies were carried to the church, and they will wait at the home. Then they were carried to the church in a wagon probably drawn by mules or horses or what have you.

Jim Colley (11:23): And then the funeral service was held there in the church.

Marie Dupre (11:27): The funeral services were held in the church.

Jim Colley (11:29): And then you just walked out the door and you're right in the cemetery.

Marie Dupre (11:30): You walked out the door and you walked in a cemetery. Then probably after, after the funeral, the family went to the home and had dinner or whatever it was.

Jim Colley (11:44): But little old parish churches were real important to folks. And a lot of life got lived there.

Marie Dupre (11:50): Yes.

Jim Colley (11:50): Ms. Dupre, we're so glad we visited with you today.

Marie Dupre (11:54): Maybe I told some tales. Some of those people be calling me.

Jim Colley (11:58): Oh, they won't mind hearing those tales.

Jim Colley interviews Mrs. Marie Dupre about growing up in Natchitoches Parish, getting an education, and becoming a teacher.

Episode Tags: podcast, memories, oral history interview, natchitoches parish, teaching, school, church, iberville, the isle, st. augustine catholic church

July 2, 2026

75. Monroe Roberts

Transcript

Hubert Laster (00:01): This is Hubert Laster. And this morning we're visiting with Mr. Monroe Roberts. We're pleased to welcome you to the show, sir.

(00:10): Good morning.

Monroe Roberts (00:11): Oh.

Hubert Laster (00:12): You're supposed to talk.

Monroe Roberts (00:13): Yeah. Hello.

Hubert Laster (00:17): Mr. Roberts has been a minister for 55 years.

Monroe Roberts (00:23): That's right.

Hubert Laster (00:23): He's 92 years old now.

Monroe Roberts (00:25): That's right, next Saturday.

Hubert Laster (00:28): Fixing to have a birthday.

Monroe Roberts (00:29): Yeah.

Hubert Laster (00:30): We were talking earlier about your boyhood and you were going to talk to us about the way it was on the farm.

Monroe Roberts (00:40): Yeah. Well, I grew up on a farm. My father was a farmer and we thought we had a good time, but I suppose as the generation now look upon it as a hard time.

Hubert Laster (00:55): How's that?

Monroe Roberts (00:56): We knew no better. We made our own bread, syrup, produced our own milk and butter, and most everything had to come from the ground, farming. There were no money in circulation much, very little money when I grew up. We just had to make it for our own selves.

Hubert Laster (01:19): What kind of good times did you make?

Monroe Roberts (01:21): Well, the good times when we were all well, and that isn't most of the time. We didn't hardly know what a doctor was in our home. We grew up, 11 children, father and mother were pretty good doctors themselves. [inaudible 00:01:40] medicines [crosstalk 00:01:41].

Hubert Laster (01:40): Did they make their own medicines?

Monroe Roberts (01:42): No, they'd buy it in the store. Sometimes they'd make a remedy for malaria, something.

Hubert Laster (01:49): Do you remember what they made?

Monroe Roberts (01:51): Kind of a tonic, they called it. Made of a bark. Bitter bark with a little, what we call liver regulator. Or black draw.

Hubert Laster (02:00): Black draw, okay.

Monroe Roberts (02:04): Yeah.

Hubert Laster (02:04): What about school?

Monroe Roberts (02:06): Well, I remember the first day I entered school. I was five years old. That morning, that Monday morning, there's a hundred pupils there. They ran from 25 age down to five. One teacher, one auditorium. They were building near homemade, except the flooring was lumber.

Hubert Laster (02:29): Now, where was this near?

Monroe Roberts (02:31): That was Harmony community below [Provencal 00:02:33], three miles. In Ward Seven, [Natolish 00:02:37] Parish.

Hubert Laster (02:38): And what did they teach you, just the three R's?

Monroe Roberts (02:40): Well, I had different, we called it classes. They call it grades now, of course. Wanted to ask me what grade I was in, I wouldn't know what they're talking about. We called it classes. Different classes.

Hubert Laster (02:55): How far did you go? In education?

Monroe Roberts (02:58): Three months of the year is all we ever.

Hubert Laster (03:00): Three months out of the year?

Monroe Roberts (03:01): Three month of out the year. And some years, no funds, there was no school. Went sometimes two year without any school.

Hubert Laster (03:01): My goodness.

Monroe Roberts (03:10): But when we did, we got three months. And we'd get over so far in the books we had the speller, the reader, the geography, and the history. And other books and writing, and we'd get so far in the book about half, maybe the three months. They'd shove us along pretty fast and make us study them days and measure off the ball game and played at home and then home ground, but couldn't leave home for a game, but we studied and hard lessons. We took our books home with us, teacher made us take our books home, learn a lesson at home, and then the school would be out. And of course, we'd forget a lot and we'd have to come way back here. But the next three months we'd go a little further. And the next three months, the next year we could go a little further. We finally got through what we call the first history and geography and speller. And then we'd get a higher one.

Hubert Laster (04:12): Yes, sir. Well, the other nine months out of the year, you just farmed or what?

Monroe Roberts (04:16): Yes. We farmed for a living, that's right. And me and my brother walked six miles to a school the year we didn't have any. Our father, quick as we got through with our crop, we had to walk until led by the crop, we had a little gentle horse. We both rode that horse six miles when we didn't walk to school in the other community that had a school and we didn't. Yeah.

Hubert Laster (04:44): Now where was the big town then that you went to for supplies?

Monroe Roberts (04:48): Provencal.

Hubert Laster (04:48): Provencal.

Monroe Roberts (04:51): Four miles.

Hubert Laster (04:52): You went by horse and wagon?

Monroe Roberts (04:55): No. You couldn't buy a wagon there. They didn't sell wagons. We had a little nack to get our wagons, [Capon 00:05:00] Brothers wagons.

Hubert Laster (05:01): Capon Brothers?

Monroe Roberts (05:02): Yeah, my father both bought a few brand new wagons and my first recollection as long as he was able to work, drive a team of wagons.

Hubert Laster (05:14): You come from rather large family.

Monroe Roberts (05:16): Yes. 11 children of us.

Hubert Laster (05:19): But you had a bigger one, right?

Monroe Roberts (05:24): Yeah.

Hubert Laster (05:25): How many do you have?

Monroe Roberts (05:25): 12 in all.

Hubert Laster (05:28): 12 children. How'd you support them all?

Monroe Roberts (05:32): I don't know. The Lord just helped me some way, I guess. I guess something provided. Sometimes I didn't see where was the next ration was coming from, but it would be there. We wouldn't starve. We might near lived on bread and syrup or getting out of debt, getting my mortgage paid off on my place. I bought land, put it under a mortgage, till I paid for it at 10 percent interest and I had a pretty hard time getting through it. But I got us all through and we didn't starve, we done pretty good.

Hubert Laster (06:09): How much did you pay an acre for it then?

Monroe Roberts (06:11): I paid a dollar and a quarter.

Hubert Laster (06:14): Dollar and a quarter.

Monroe Roberts (06:15): For 160 acres. And I paid $500 for an improved 40 acres with virgin timber on it and a little house, a little homestead house, which is here.

Hubert Laster (06:28): Yes, sir. You were talking about in the wintertime and you had all your children around you and how y'all kept warm at night.

Monroe Roberts (06:37): Well, we kept, we had Chamblin fireplace in both ends of the house and tell you the truth, we worked most of the time to keep warm. But when we didn't and it rained and we couldn't get out at work, we'd just keep them old fires going.

Hubert Laster (06:53): Just keep those old fires going.

Monroe Roberts (06:54): Find pine knots all over the woods here and we'd cut our hardwood, billets of wood, help keep the house warm. Keep the doors closed, you keep a warm house. We didn't freeze.

Hubert Laster (07:04): I don't guess so. A lot of love, [crosstalk 00:07:06] lots of love. We need to take a break right now for a word from our sponsors. We'll be right back in just a moment. In case you've just joined us, this is Hubert Laster visiting with Mr. Monroe Roberts on the Memories program. And we were just talking about your smokehouse out in the back that you don't use anymore, but how it used to be.

Monroe Roberts (07:31): Yeah, used smoke my meat in it. Kill my hogs, salt it down, hang it up back there and smoke it. Green Hickory. Give it a good flavor. Usually putting now just boxes and barrels and things in, about all I use it for now. The old smokehouse, still have it though. Wouldn't tear it down for nothing.

Hubert Laster (07:55): You talking about those old wooden barrels?

Monroe Roberts (07:57): Yeah.

Hubert Laster (07:57): They got flour in them?

Monroe Roberts (07:59): Yeah. Flour come in them. Yeah. I have one yet.

Hubert Laster (08:04): How much flour?

Monroe Roberts (08:05): Well, there's 196 pound in a barrel.

Hubert Laster (08:08): And how much did you pay for it?

Monroe Roberts (08:12): I bought two barrels once for $3 and 75 cents a barrel, 196 to the barrel. Pound.

Hubert Laster (08:21): Prices have changed, I think.

Monroe Roberts (08:22): Yeah. So.

Hubert Laster (08:24): You saw the first roads in this parish, didn't you?

Monroe Roberts (08:28): Saw what?

Hubert Laster (08:28): The first black top roads?

Monroe Roberts (08:30): Oh yeah, yes. Not too long ago in this community.

Hubert Laster (08:34): How was it before then?

Monroe Roberts (08:35): Well, it was a gravel road before that, then before that a graded road. And then first of all, my first recollection, just an old road without a grader on it or anything else.

Hubert Laster (08:46): Who did the repairs on it?

Monroe Roberts (08:48): The citizens, community worked their own road. The old system with no pay. Had an oversharer party, some of his hands, you got them out there, spade and access to other things, cross cut saws, and we worked the roads so wagons could get over.

Hubert Laster (09:08): What about when you hit a bayou or something like that?

Monroe Roberts (09:11): Well, if there was no bridge at all, we tried to make the ford as good as we could on both sides so that sometimes they had to swim in, if they had a horseback, even with a wagon [crosstalk 00:09:26] swimming across it before there was no bridge.

Hubert Laster (09:30): Did you cut the wood and make a bridge if possible?

Monroe Roberts (09:34): The parish would build a bridge. Even my first recollection, if it was extreme in its size, contract it out to somebody that knew how to make a bridge across the streams and the parish would pay for that.

Hubert Laster (09:50): What about holes in the road? How'd you repair them?

Monroe Roberts (09:52): [crosstalk 00:09:52] fill them up with spades, pine tops, and dirt on them with spades. Build them up so the wagons could get over. And there's plenty of them too, I want to tell you.

Hubert Laster (09:52): Lots of them.

Monroe Roberts (10:03): Lots of them.

Hubert Laster (10:05): I guess those little wagons just made holes, huh?

Monroe Roberts (10:07): Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It cut down. It was narrow, it was narrow you know.

Hubert Laster (10:07): Uh-huh (affirmative).

Monroe Roberts (10:12): It's called a butcher knife wagon just because they're narrow tire. See, that's where they're making them wider later on, but my first recollection is narrower and narrower and they'd cut down, go hub deep-

Hubert Laster (10:28): Yes, sir.

Monroe Roberts (10:29): [crosstalk 00:10:29] right in the center of the wheel. And you're almost hub deep. Mule and oxen. My first riding in wagon, an ox wagon, I went to church in an ox wagon.

Hubert Laster (10:43): Tell me something. Were those old springboard seats, were they comfortable or was it more comfortable to ride in the back?

Monroe Roberts (10:48): In where? In the school house you mean?

Hubert Laster (10:50): No, on the butt boards. Wagons.

Monroe Roberts (10:54): Oh, well my father and mother would always have a spring seat front. We'd sit down in the wagon and about three hours, take the end gate out. We was going to church or anywhere else, hang our feet out. We can jump out if we wanted to, play around and gather flower, and come jump back in, that ox was going, tugging along.

Hubert Laster (11:14): Pretty slow.

Monroe Roberts (11:15): Oh, we had a lot of fun.

Hubert Laster (11:17): Were the oxen a little slow?

Monroe Roberts (11:19): No, they'd walk on along. You could hurry them or you could slow them up either one. Well, I had a yokel option train and you'd have a little rope on them. Speak to them like one of us, and they'd mind it. Yes sir.

Hubert Laster (11:31): Well, besides church, what were big occasions back in those days?

Monroe Roberts (11:37): Well, the school and the church was the main things with us.

Hubert Laster (11:43): What about holidays?

Monroe Roberts (11:45): Well, we'd always take off holidays unless it was Thanksgiving sometime we would Thanksgiving, but my father wouldn't make us work on Fourth of July unless we wanted to. Ever so far behind at our work, he let us off the Fourth of July if we wanted to get off. That was the main day with us.

Hubert Laster (11:45): And Christmas?

Monroe Roberts (12:03): Christmas is the biggest day of all, greatest day of all, Christmas Day. And we looked forward to that from one year to the next. Felt it would never come when we were growing up because we looked forward to hanging up our sock and Santa Claus coming down the chimney and filling it up for us.

Hubert Laster (12:24): And he always did.

Monroe Roberts (12:25): Always did. Well, we thought it was Santa Claus. We didn't know any better and we would have surely been hurt if somebody that said there wasn't no Santa Claus.

Hubert Laster (12:35): I guess so. Did you celebrate Thanksgiving then?

Monroe Roberts (12:39): Well, not particularly as I spoke a while ago, like we did Christmas and Fourth of July. I don't know why. Everybody doesn't, seeing it's a great beginning and a great holiday for America if we just come to know it and appreciate it, like we ought to Thanksgiving Day. The last Thursday in November is the day that in 1620 our Pilgrim fathers landed, I believe and began settlement of America.

Hubert Laster (13:14): How many were there?

Monroe Roberts (13:16): 101, they left on the Mayflower from England. Of the 101, one man died on board and one was born. So it threw over the same amount as they landed as they left with.

Hubert Laster (13:34): And from that time until now it's still growing.

Monroe Roberts (13:41): Oh yeah, yeah. I guess it is. I guess it is. I guess it is. I think our country leads the world in most everything, America. We certainly have been blessed, doubly blessed because it was a good start. Our Pilgrim fathers come seeking, not wealth, but they were seeking God.

Hubert Laster (14:11): And they found him.

Monroe Roberts (14:11): They found him. And we've been here ever since and this country has moved along faster in progress than any nation under the shining sun because of that.

Hubert Laster (14:23): Didn't you tell me that you received a special award for preaching?

Monroe Roberts (14:29): Yeah. I'll show you that in a few minutes, I have it up there on a wall.

Hubert Laster (14:31): What was it for now?

Monroe Roberts (14:33): Well, they gave me one, the first one was a honor day, where they gave me $700 in cash besides other things. And all of them gathered in the little church I serve here in the community. Then my birthday just followed that and the state, from even headquarters, [Alexandra 00:14:53], were some state men here with five churches and their pastors here, gave me a celebration day for my birthday. Two in too much time.

Hubert Laster (15:03): And that's for being a minister of the gospel for 55 years.

Monroe Roberts (15:08): Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

Hubert Laster (15:09): And you're 92 now.

Monroe Roberts (15:10): That's right, that's right.

Hubert Laster (15:12): So quick arithmetic, that's, you've been doing it since you were 33.

Monroe Roberts (15:15): Yeah, that's right. I believe it's 33.

Hubert Laster (15:19): Mr. Roberts, we've enjoyed visiting with you.

Hubert Laster interviews Monroe Roberts about growing up in Natchitoches Parish in a farming family, attending school, and preaching.

Episode Tags: podcast, memories, oral history interview, natchitoches parish, farming, school, preaching

June 25, 2026

74. Minnie Lee Odum

Transcript

Dan Banuska: Today we travel back in time with Ms. Minnie Lee Odom after this message from Peoples Bank, our sponsor. Ms. Odom, we are very happy to have you with us on Memories this morning. Could you tell us a little bit about your own personal history, where you grew up and about your family?

Minnie Lee Odum: Well, I grew up partially in Catahoula Parish, it was then, it's now LaSalle Parish between Tullos and Urania is where I was born. But we were very unfortunate there in losing my... typhoid fever that so many people did have in those days, we lost my oldest sister on the second day of August, and then following on the 24th day of September, the next month we lost my mother. And so at the time of that, that I had already taken down with the fever myself, but we had the doctor that rode by the house and he'd come in and I had gotten to where I could walk, but by being almost propped, because it takes all the strength out of your limbs, you just don't have any strength left hardly. And so then that was why that first spell I had was just after my sister had passed away and then my mother was living, but then my mother had it also and I was up so I could just walk around.

Dan Banuska: So you were the nurse really in the family.

Minnie Lee Odum: Yes, and my father and one older brother and one younger brother.

Dan Banuska: What time in history are we talking about?

Minnie Lee Odum: Well, that would've been almost 1905. It was around in 1905 that we lost my mother and my sister.

Dan Banuska: That was quite common then, too.

Minnie Lee Odum: Yes. Oh, yes. So many people and so many of our young people passed away that we knew so well and that were friends of my older sister, especially. She was six years older than I was and I had a brother and then I had lost a little brother just with the childhood. So people not understanding conditions, some troubles and all the children had, my mother used to say, if we'd known then as we knew even when I was a child, we could have saved my little brother, but had the doctor, and didn't know how to treat him.

Dan Banuska: What was the treatment that they gave at that time?

Minnie Lee Odum: Well, for the malaria it was calomel and quinine. And I learned to do that about as good as any of them did because my father did it. And if he had to be gone, because he was a very busy man there being... we were 10 children, we were not quite all living at the same time because we'd lost my little brother before I was born. He was just older than I was.

And by this time, the 10 had been born, the time had come on and my youngest sister now was not a year old when my mother and sister passed away. And so it meant that my father had many responsibilities. He had the farm and we never did have... well, we never did have colored people on our farm at all. It was done by white people, but you couldn't get real reliable white people. When I say they didn't always live up to their word, you'd have just verbal understandings.

And we always had the family store next to us and did the furnishing there and for the people in the surrounding area. So they would get on time, they'd call it on time, put it on the book. And I could, and it doesn't sound like much now, but I have a book where it's over $6,000 that was put on the book that never was paid. Not 1 cent of it at all.

Dan Banuska: What kind of wages were people making at that time?

Minnie Lee Odum: Oh, that was 50 cents a day and money was a real good rate.

Dan Banuska: What could you buy in 50 cents at that time?

Minnie Lee Odum: Oh, of course, the truth about it is if you took care of things, you didn't buy very much. We didn't buy anything except coffee and flour and sugar. We raised everything else that we ate, all the potatoes and all the vegetables and we canned. I remember when we had the first canning machine, we used to put in jars, but we had a canner that we did it at home. And then we could have anything, you see. But you can't can everything by jars. I learned a great deal then that there's botulism that comes in and you can't get the germs that would grow in certain foods by just cooking it in open flame. You had to have pressure.

And it was only when we had pressure that we could save, for instance, butter beans. They just couldn't be kept. My own eating, it wouldn't have mind, it wouldn't have been bad. But some people just think if they don't have butter beans, they're missed a great deal. Well, my father did that. He got the families working on the place and we had about usually four or five families. And that meant that they used our stock. We had the stock and fed them and took care of them because everything was the one horse plow. It was all done in that way. And then with the hole that you hold, there were no cultivators.

In fact, Papa put in the little cultivators that we had that had to be mule-drawn. We had mules and we'd a pair of them to draw to do this. Cultivating have all the little plows that went along and not only in the hills, in the upright parts, right where the seed was planted, but in the middles too, cultivate that, and keep the grass down. And then my father was an estimate of timber. He could go ride through the woods and see some timber. I can see him now and I've ridden with him a lot of times. I liked it. And I have some land now in Winn Parish that we used to go over to see about it. And he had looked at that tree and he'd said, there's so many board feet in that tree.

Dan Banuska: That's a real art, isn't it?

Minnie Lee Odum: Uh-huh. Yes. And he knew that. So he estimated timber for the Urania lumber company at that time. That was something. And everybody in that section knows that certain people that I could name their names this morning. I had the experience not very many years ago, and my second brother who was living where he is now, that we went over and one of the Harteners was there. And while you just thought we had been childhood playmates all the time, he says, oh, we're so glad to have you all come in. Let me get these old pictures down here that used to be made when you all walked from that place up to Urania to where we went to school about three months in the summertime.

Dan Banuska: Let me interrupt you at this moment for a message from our sponsor, Peoples Bank. Once again, this is Dan Banuska and we are talking with Ms. Minnie Lee Odum on Memories.

Minnie Lee Odum: Well, of course, in taking care of everything, everything that you ate, all the vegetables, and we had vegetables the year round. We didn't just have vegetables in the spring and let it go down, but there had to be your collards or your winter cabbage and there had to be onions. And then your fall potatoes and the sweet potatoes of course had to be dug before the frost fell too much. They couldn't get bitten by the frost and we'd bank them so we'd have potatoes until all through the whole winter. And then-

Dan Banuska: What does banking potatoes mean?

Minnie Lee Odum: Banking, well, you fix a good a spot and have dirt in there and then put a lot of hay down and then start putting the potatoes in and getting it filled up. It was in like a wigwam in that shape. And just wigwams aren't there to fill them up to a point. And then they'd put more hay and then have boards that you'd lay against that and get them all covered up well, and then dirt would be shoveled and put over that and leave one place right in the front where you could always get in and get out your potatoes.

Dan Banuska: So farming and living then was a real art. You had to make sure that you had vegetables and fruit for the whole year.

Minnie Lee Odum: Yes, because it wouldn't do, we all knew that you couldn't live without vegetables. That's the most we knew about it, didn't know much of the composition. It was after then that I studied foods and learned of proteins and carbohydrates and fats and the minerals and the vitamins and all that came later. But there was something built up in my father and mother that just knew that had that through their lives, that they had to have fresh vegetables and they had to have meat. But instead of having a market that you went to, there were no markets. I know at that time, if there were any in Alexandria and Monroe, they were the closest ones. I'm not quite certain if there'd be any there because when we got beef, we only got beef two or three times a year. And then my father was always fattening a yearling, getting it, put it up and feed plenty of corn and the hay and all that it needed, and then killed that and divided it out among the people in the community because-

Dan Banuska: So the beef then had to be-

Minnie Lee Odum: Killed at home.

Dan Banuska: Killed and distributed and eaten immediately.

Minnie Lee Odum: Yes, it did, because there was no way of keeping it. But then the pork was different because it could be-

Dan Banuska: I'm going to interrupt you at that time because I want you to tell the story of pork on the next Memories. But before we conclude this Memories, I want you to tell briefly the first time that you tasted iced tea.

Minnie Lee Odum: Yes.

Dan Banuska: You tell me that story.

Minnie Lee Odum: Well, we had some friends who we hadn't known them so very long, but we were invited there, my older sister to have dinner with them one evening and with Mary and Ida. Name's gone from me. But anyway, it was something. Of course, I was all eyes, I always was, if anything food was about. And so when they had put this ice in their glasses, and of course, we had plenty of water from cisterns that had been made perfectly clean by somebody going on a rope down and washing them out and catching the cold water and it was snowing at the time, and we kept our cold water that way, but there was no ice. And anytime we had ice, it would be when people were very sick and maybe we could get the train to stop and let you have a piece of ice off of the train. But I tell you, their father was a Section Foreman and they could get ice. And so when they served us tea and we drank it, but I couldn't say that we were so very fond of it.

Dan Banuska: That was something that we, I guess, take for granted today having ice. Ms. Odum, it's been my pleasure having you on Memories today. And like I said, I plan to have you back again and we're going to talk about a story that you told about pork. We would like to close each Memories program with information that might be of particular value to the senior citizens.

If a taxpayer was blind at the end of a tax year, he is entitled to an additional exemption of $750. Let me repeat that. If a taxpayer was blind at the end of a tax year, he's entitled to an additional exemption of $750. If you have any further questions about this matter, please stop by and talk to the folks at Peoples Bank. They'll be glad to have you out.

I have a personal favor to ask of you. If you like Memories, call the people of Peoples Bank, or better yet, stop by and tell them personally. If you are over 60 and you have some memories you'd like to share with your friends in Natchitoches, call Peoples Bank 352-6404 or 352-8343. Or call KNOC, 352-9596. Or you can also call the Retired Senior Volunteer Office, 352-8647.

Dan Benuska interviews Minnie Lee Odum about growing up in Catahoula Parish, typhoid fever, managing a farm, canning, collecting timber, banking potatoes, and the first time she tasted iced tea.

Episode Tags: podcast, memories, oral history interview, catahoula parish, typhoid fever, farming

June 18, 2026

73. Melvina Washington

Transcript

Hubert Laster: Good morning. I'm Hubert Laster, and this morning on the Memories program, we're going to be visiting with Mrs. Melvina Washington. We'll be back in just a moment after a word from our sponsor.

We're back again. Mrs. Washington, a lovely lady. She has been in Natchitoches Parish all of her life and she's 72. And you're not going to believe this, folks, but this woman does not look 72, she looks about 50 maybe. But anyway, this is Mrs. Washington.

Melvina Washington: How are you?

Hubert Laster: How are you?

Melvina Washington: Fine. How you doing?

Hubert Laster: Doing good.

Melvina Washington: Well, that's good.

Hubert Laster: You were talking about, you were born on the Bermuda?

Melvina Washington: On the Bermuda.

Hubert Laster: Uh-huh.

Melvina Washington: That's where I was born until I was 11 years old.

Hubert Laster: That's down on Cane River.

Melvina Washington: Down on Cane River, right. And when I was 11 years old, they gave me to my grandmother. Before she gave me to my grandmother, I was going to school. We had to go to school. We didn't have but three months' school, and in the three months maybe I'd put in a month. And we had to cross Cane River on a raft. You don't know what a raft is, do you? It was two logs with a board across it. And we had-

Hubert Laster: A boat?

Melvina Washington: Boards, you know.

Hubert Laster: Oh, boards, okay.

Melvina Washington: Boards across it. And we had to go get on that raft to cross the river in front our house to go to school. Now, I was going to school at St. Paul, it was at the church. It wasn't no schoolhouse then, it was at the church house. And that's where I was going to school. Well, I went to school there a couple of months until time to work. And when it was time to work, I had to stop and help pick cotton or either stop to help hoe. But I was real young, but I've been working all of my life. And when I was 11 years old, my mother had married. She gave me to my grandmother, and my grandmother and them all took down with the flu. And I was the only one didn't have the flu. All the people around in the neighborhood was down with the flu. And I would go around from one to another and fix soup for them and make tea. The kind of tea, in them times old people would have mint tea and they'd have another kind of tea, what they call horse mint tea. They would go out and gather these weeds and dry them and then make tea when you'd be sick with a cold or the flu. And that's what I had to do.

Hubert Laster: What kind of weeds are these?

Melvina Washington: Well, it's a kind of tall weed, it's kind of light, you know. Really, I almost forgot, really, how it grow, but anyhow, it had a lot of leaves on it. It was horse mint. And I would take that and boil it and make tea and give. When they'd give out a thing, they would give me a little money to go to the store and get things: a little lard, sugar, and coffee, and rice to have to fix lunch for them. And I would go, but they wouldn't let me in the store.

Hubert Laster: Why not?

Melvina Washington: Because the flu was quarantined, the place was quarantined, and they wouldn't let nobody in the store. You would go and stand on the outside and then you'd tell them what you want, and they would fix it and bring it and sit it out on the porch, and you'd put the money down and they would set the stuff and you'd pay for what you went after. And I would get on the horse and take it back to the house. You could get five cents' worth of lard, five cents' worth of sugar, five cents' worth of coffee, and five cents' worth of rice, which was 25 cents. And that's what I would take and have to cook food for them and go around. And I never did take the flu. And my uncle, I would help him work. I'd get out in the woods, we'd saw down trees, cut up wood, and tow it to the house. And when time to break up land, I would go and help him. We would take sticks and beat cotton stalks, you know the cotton stalks now what they plows them?

Hubert Laster: Yes, ma'am.

Melvina Washington: But them time we would have to take a stick and beat them down. And I would help him beat that. Well, when he would get ready to plow, I would run a turning plow with a turn of two foot in the middle, and he would come behind with a middle buster and bust it open and build up the row. And after we would get the land broke up and it'd be time to plant, well, he would go down in the middle, go down the row, and bust it open. And I'd go behind him and drop the seed. I'd drop corn and cotton, you know. When it was time to plant his corn, I would step, drop the corn all the way down. And he would come behind when I'd stepped, dropped, and cover it up.

And I would do that, and when 12:00 come, I would go home and I would help fix dinner, help fix lunch. And if they didn't have nothing for lunch, they would put me on a horse again to go to the store and get something. And in five minutes' time, you would imagine where I was living, where I had to go. And I didn't use no saddle. I'd just throw a pad on the horse and I was gone. The horse was named Nellie, and me and Nellie would go to the store, and I would be back time enough to get lunch ready.

Hubert Laster: Sounds like you wore old Nellie out.

Melvina Washington: Well, I tell you, me, Nellie really went. And I would help him haul wood. I would help him pick all the cotton, I'd help him load up the wagon and take it to the town up until I got old enough to marry. And I worked for myself from 11 years old. I've been going for myself since I was 11 years old.

Hubert Laster: We need to take a break right now. We'll be back in just a moment. If you've just joined us, we're visiting with Mrs. Washington this morning, and she's going to tell me something about what she was referring to earlier, about middle busters and turning plows and juniors. What is this all about? Tell me about it.

Melvina Washington: Well, a turning plow, that's a plow with just one blade on the side. And you turn, go down on one side of the row, and throw that foot to the middle, and you come back on that other side and throw that foot, another foot right where you threw the first one, and you come back with the second one. And it'd leave a ridge right in the center, and you'd come back with the middle buster. And when that middle buster come down-

Hubert Laster: Did it have two blades on it?

Melvina Washington: It had two blades, two like wings. You know?

Hubert Laster: Uh-huh.

Melvina Washington: And that foot would bust that center out and would throw that foot on each side, and that'd build up the row. That's what the way you had to get to plant your cotton.

Hubert Laster: Now, which one of these plows dug deep?

Melvina Washington: A middle buster.

Hubert Laster: Okay.

Melvina Washington: The middle buster was the one dug deep. And when the stuff grow, come up, we would take a junior and a little, it had about six little teeth, little small teeth on it. And you would go beside the row and your junior would break that crust loose before you'd get ready to hoe the cotton or the corn. And that's the way I had to do all of my days. I've been doing it all of my life. I never had found nothing too hard that I can do. Up until now, I'll try. At my age, I'll try to do some of it now. And we would pick our cotton. I'd help load the cotton, take it to the gin when cotton time, and when time to pull the corn, well, I would go with my uncle with the wagon, and he was on one side and I was on the other pulling corn and throwing it in the wagon and bringing it to the barn.

And I would help him unload the corn, and I would help him, sometimes it'd be night when we'd get ready to load our cotton. I'd get out there at night and I'd help him load cotton until 10:00, 11:00, 12:00 to get the cotton ready to haul it to the gin. And I was working for one bale of cotton and 12 bales of corn.

Hubert Laster: Now, how much was one bale of cotton worth?

Melvina Washington: $12. That's what I got out of a bale of cotton. And corn was 25 cents a bale. And you know how much that was, 12 times 25. That's what I got out of it, and I was living with them. But they was taking care of me, and that was for me to support myself with my clothes and my little school, and they would feed me. I didn't have to worry about food. They would give me all the food I need and take me. And I was raised in church. And that's where I was raised, I'd go to Sunday school every Sunday morning and come back home and eat dinner and go back for church for service that day.

And I never was a person to get out and go this place and that place, another place. When I'd go to church and Sunday school, I would come back home and I'd be happy. We'd get out in the yard and play. Run and play, and I'd have friends who'd come and visit me and we would have a good time, and I enjoyed it. And I worked with them up until I married in 1924.

Hubert Laster: So how old were you then?

Melvina Washington: I was 18 years old.

Hubert Laster: Okay.

Melvina Washington: When I married.

Hubert Laster: So a good age getting married?

Melvina Washington: Yeah. I married at 18, and me and my husband been together ever since. I have never left out of his house one day of my life. I've been right there with him. Raised my children, I raised four, I had four, two boys and two girls, and I raised five grandchildren.

Hubert Laster: How many years have you been married now?

Melvina Washington: 52 years, from 1924.

Hubert Laster: Oh, my, my.

Melvina Washington: And I have been right there with him ever since.

Hubert Laster: That's past what is the golden wedding anni-

Melvina Washington: Golden wedding anniversary.

Hubert Laster: My goodness.

Melvina Washington: That's what I have.

Hubert Laster: Paul Harvey ought to know about you.

Melvina Washington: Well, that's what it was. And I have never been no disagreeable, no, with nobody. I have got along with everybody I met, white and colored. I have friends know me sometimes and I don't even know them, because I love people and I love to be friendly with people everywhere I go. I'm not a stranger.

Hubert Laster: Well, you're not to me any more.

Melvina Washington: Not anywhere I went, I wasn't a stranger. That's my life. My children all grown and gone, and I've got one little granddaughter with me. She's 10 years old. I raised four and they done all got married and gone. I got 19 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Hubert Laster: My goodness. Sounds like a good time when you have a family reunion.

Melvina Washington: Yeah. Well, I've been wanting to have one. We have to have time. When they come home in the summer visit, I enjoy them.

Hubert Laster: Well, it's been an enjoyable morning visiting with you.

Melvina Washington: Yeah.

Hubert Laster: We have to go now.

Melvina Washington: Okay. I enjoyed being with you, and I hope that I'll be able to come back again. Thank you ever so much.

Hubert Laster: Thank you. If you would like to share your memories with us, would you please call the Retired Senior Volunteer Program? That number is 352-8647. This is Hubert Laster, wishing all of you a very pleasant, good day.

Hubert Laster interviews Melvina Washington about growing up in Natchitoches; crossing Cane River on a raft; stopping school to help pick cotton; tending to flu victims; turning plows, middle busters, and juniors; going to church; and on being married for 52 years.

Episode Tags: podcast, memories, oral history interview, natchitoches, cane river, flu, church, marriage

June 11, 2026

72. Louis Nardini

Transcript

Dan Benuska: Today we travel back in time with Mr. Louis Nardini, or BB Nardini as he is more commonly known to his friends in Natchitoches. Mr. Nardini is the author of two books, My Historic Natchitoches, and No Man's Land, The Story of El Camino Real from Natchitoches to San Antonio. We'll be right back with Mr. Nardini after this message from Peoples Bank, our sponsor.

Mr. Nardini, welcome to Memories. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself, when you were born?

Louis Nardini: Well, now I was born February 10, 1914, and I've spent all my life here in Natchitoches.

Dan Benuska: Where were you born in Natchitoches?

Louis Nardini: Well, I was born on Sibley Street, at least that's where my house was then.

Dan Benuska: Can you tell me when did the Nardinis come to Natchitoches?

Louis Nardini: They came to Natchitoches... The first Nardini Rayfield Nardini, Sr. Came to Natchitoches about 1846. Now he and his marriage... it gives... his parents came, well, in island of Catania, Italy.

Dan Benuska: Why did he come over here?

Louis Nardini: Well, he came over here. He was engaged to Soldini. He had to work for him four years to pay for his passage over here, and after four years he was clear.

Dan Benuska: What kind of work did he do for Soldini?

Louis Nardini: He was a cabinet maker and a furniture maker, and also a bricklayer. Dan Benuska: For those people that don't know who Soldini is, could you perhaps just say a word?

Louis Nardini: Yeah. Soldini was a man, the contractor that come in that it was backed by Trezzini to a certain extent, and he built some of the houses like the Dunkelman house and the LeMay house, and I believe the home that Sadie Taylor lives in. I'm not sure about that one.

Dan Benuska: What did your, I guess, great-grandfather or grandfather-

Louis Nardini: Grandfather. He was my grandfather.

Dan Benuska: What did he do after he worked as a cabinet maker for Soldini?

Louis Nardini: Well, he went in the business for himself, then. And, of course, all he got from all his labor. He also was able to swing with the times in Natchitoches. It established a grist mill. He actually bought a steamboat. It was sunk, and he got that boiler out of it and the machinery out of it, and he had a grist mill here in Natchitoches.

Dan Benuska: What time in history are we talking about?

Louis Nardini: We are talking about now about the 1870s. And then, well, he did gin stay work, certain amount of blacksmith work, and then mostly his business was in bricklaying. That was about the time a lot of brick work was done around Natchitoches, and I have one brick that came off of the Vienna plantation where they built houses for what was slaves at first and then later on is sharecroppers.

Dan Benuska: That's a memory for you then?

Louis Nardini: Yeah, it's a memory for me because one brick after he lay all the bricks, the last brick that he put out on the top of the chimney, he wrote Nardini on it.

Dan Benuska: That's quite a souvenir.

Louis Nardini: And I have one of those bricks.

Dan Benuska: Now, you told me also that you were related to the Bloodworths.

Louis Nardini: The Bloodworths-

Dan Benuska: And a story about a levy. Can you tell me about the Bloodworth Levy?

Louis Nardini: The Bloodworth Levy was Alfred Bloodworth. Now his mama was Ann Bloodworth. They own that property now, which is known as Northwestern State College campus. And the old lady, Ann, the original, the widow of James Bloodworth, Sr., came here to Natchitoches in 1820, and in 1830, her son... She was living up there what we known as the Bullard house. It's really the old Ann Bloodworth house. Bullard, all he did after he got into it— I'll get into that later— was build some rooms on the side of it, but that is an old Ann Bloodworth home.

Dan Benuska: Where was the levy?

Louis Nardini: The levy was right down on Mill Street. Now every time someone crosses that levy, they owe somebody something.

Dan Benuska: When was the levy completed?

Louis Nardini: It was completed in 1830

Dan Benuska: And there was, you said a toll levy?

Louis Nardini: It was a toll levy. Instead of having a bridge there, this was a toll levy. Everyone going across that, the people who walked across had to pay a penny and then it graduated up. I think you could cross anything for 15 cents, but all that is on records at the courthouse of how he got permission to build a levy. The size of the levy at water level was 40 feet, and at the top of it was 20 feet across.

Dan Benuska: What can you see of the levy there now?

Louis Nardini: The levy is Mill Street, that part of Mill Street where College Avenue ends and you go around.

Dan Benuska: Okay.

Louis Nardini: That is the levy today. There should be a marker there because it's a hundred and something years old now. Now, for example, Alfred Bloodworth had a son, Mack Bloodworth, who lived at Grand Ecore... who later he lived at Grand Ecore. Now everybody crossing that, the city didn't buy that road from him, and they started the procedure of buying it, but they only paid down so much and they never completed the sale. So everyone crosses that levy owes [unintelligible 00:06:11] in Campti. [unintelligible 00:06:13] she's the son of Moses Alfred Bloodworth... daughter of Moses Alfred Bloodworth. They owe her money for crossing that street now.

Dan Benuska: That's something that no one knows about. Let me interrupt you at this time, and we'll have a word from Peoples Bank, our sponsor. Again, this is Dan Benuska and we are talking with Mr. Louis or BB Nardini as he is known, on Memories. Mr. Nardini, one of the things that you told me, some very interesting information about some of the early laws in Natchitoches. Some of those laws were the early pollutants laws. Could we talk about those for a bit?

Louis Nardini: Well, that's a point there. That early pollutants law is this. We didn't even know we had a word such as pollutants back there then.

Dan Benuska: When was this?

Louis Nardini: But it is a pollutants law, and it's written pollutant, and that was in 1816, and it concerned the privies in Natchitoches. All those people would build their privies over ditches, and then when the rain came, it would flush it all down to the lower end of the ditch. Now, one in particular was this ditch that was formed between Second and Third Street. The ditch is still there, but all people up above, living up above built their homes over the privy. Now it all went down Horn Street during the rain.

Dan Benuska: So that Horn Street wasn't a good place to live?

Louis Nardini: Horn Street was a drainage ditch.

Dan Benuska: Right.

Louis Nardini: And of course that was right in the business section of town then, what was business section. Horn Street was bridged in several places and then it had an odor about it, naturally.

Dan Benuska: Right. You mentioned that the privies were sometimes called Louis the 14th.

Louis Nardini: Louis the 14th, the house of Louis the 14th.

Dan Benuska: Can you say why? Tell us why?

Louis Nardini: That goes back earlier. When the people first came into the area in 1700, and a little bit earlier and so on up while they were stuck here, boats gone. They had to root hog or die then, and the only way they could get back at the king was called it the little outhouse, the house of Louis the 14th.

Dan Benuska: Right. One of the things that you told me was about a soldier that had come to town with some money and really-

Louis Nardini: That's another pollutants law [unintelligible 00:08:52]. Now he had $85 on him.

Dan Benuska: What year was this?

Louis Nardini: That was a little bit later on. That was about in the 1830s.

Dan Benuska: Okay.

Louis Nardini: Now he came to Natchitoches, got drunk, I guess. Anyway, he was drowned in [inaudible 00:09:14]. Well, the judge then decided they had to bury this man, and so anyway, his bill come to the actual cash he had $85. To get him out, and they fined him for polluting the stream.

Dan Benuska: For dying in the stream-

Louis Nardini: Dying in the stream, polluting it, and they fined him for it, and that's what the charges were against, and naturally he was guilty of it. He didn't know it, but he was guilty of it. Then there were several about the area that died in this area, not knowing where the people come from or what they had on them. You could get a $14 lawsuit or a $60 lawsuit or a $2 lawsuit, whatever cash you had, that's what they took, and then it was brought in the court, then they buried you.

Dan Benuska: Could you tell me... You mentioned an interesting story about a man who was fined $25.

Louis Nardini: That was one of the Prudhommes down Cane River was racing his horse up what is now Jefferson Street coming into Front Street because Natchitoches always had a front street, see, and he was fined $25 because his traffic could hurt someone. He could run over a dog or something like that. On the same bill, on the same page in that book at the courthouse in the sheriff's business, as a fellow killed another, he was fined two and a half.

Dan Benuska: So if a man killed somebody-

Louis Nardini: So if a man had run across someone and killed him, his fine would've been less than it would've been if he had just been caught for speeding.

Dan Benuska: Mr. Nardini. I see we're running quickly out of time. We have about one minute, and you mentioned something to me about a famous tree in Natchitoches. Could you tell briefly about that?

Louis Nardini: The old live oak tree there in Natchitoches, it's at the corner of Second and St. Denise Street. Now that tree there used to be back there when I was a kid, and maybe before that, was just a meeting place for people and someone come into town or something while they could just stand around by that old oak tree and sooner or later who they were looking for would pass that. It was kind of a rendezvous oak.

Dan Benuska: So that old oak tree is the oldest thing in Natchitoches.

Louis Nardini: The oldest thing in Natchitoches, I believe.

Dan Benuska: Well, let's end at that point. If you're looking for something that reaches far back in history, go stand under the old oak tree. Mr. Nardini, thank you for being on Memories, and I look forward to having you back again. We would like to close each Memories program with information that might be of particular value to the senior citizens. This information is in terms of making a will. A will aids in estate planning, so as to help you escape excessive estate taxes. Plan on making your own will. If you have any further questions about this matter, talk to the folks at Peoples Bank. They'll be glad to help you out. I have a personal favor to ask of you. If you like Memories, call the people at Peoples Bank, or better yet, stop by and talk to them personally.

If you're over 60 and you have some memories you'd like to share with your friends in Natchitoches, call Peoples Bank 352-6404 or 352-8343. You can also call direct to KNOC 352-9596 or the retired senior volunteer office at 352-8647.

Dan Benuska interviews Louis Nardini about growing up in Natchitoches, his family, the Bloodworth Levy, early laws in the area, fining a dead man for pollution, and the oldest tree in Natchitoches.

Episode Tags: podcast, memories, oral history interview, natchitoches, law, pollution, oldest tree

June 4, 2026

71. Lou Robertson

Transcript

Hubert Laster: Good morning. This morning on the Memories Program, we're going to be visiting with one of our most senior, senior citizens, Lou Robertson. We'll be back in just a moment after a word from our sponsor. Good morning. You've just joined us. We're about to visit with Mama Lou Robertson. She is a wonderful lady. How old are you?

Mama Lou Robertson: I was born 18 and 73, January the first.

Hubert Laster: That makes you how old now?

Mama Lou Robertson: I'll be four years old at this coming new year.

Hubert Laster: Four years old, like a car you're going to start over at over a 100000 miles. 104 years old. And, you're a good woman.

Mama Lou Robertson: Good [inaudible 00:00:46]. Ask all these nurses what I is, they'll tell you.

Hubert Laster: Where were you born?

Mama Lou Robertson: I was born in Montgomery, Louisiana. That's my native home.

Hubert Laster: I see. And, who was the family that you lived on their property?

Mama Lou Robertson: Hat Gray and Martin Gray. But my daddy wasn't Martin Gray. My daddy was a Collier. He was a white man.

Hubert Laster: I see.

Mama Lou Robertson: I never did see him, but I knowed his sister and his brother, but I never did see him. He got killed at a coffee house in New Orleans.

Hubert Laster: In a coffee house in New Orleans?

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes, sir.

Hubert Laster: Is that a bad place?

Mama Lou Robertson: I don't know, sir.

Hubert Laster: Okay.

Mama Lou Robertson: I don't know what he'd done, but they upped and killed him.

Hubert Laster: Tell me about growing up, what you remember about when you were a child. What did y'all do?

Mama Lou Robertson: What job was...

Hubert Laster: What did you do when you... You grew up on a plantation-

Mama Lou Robertson: Well, when I was 10 years old, mama started me to cooking. My mama started me to cooking and I'd cook. I can cook. I'm a good cook, but I can't read and I can't write. But, I'm naturally a good cook.

Hubert Laster: Naturally?

Mama Lou Robertson: Naturally a good cook.

Hubert Laster: You were talking about buying your own land?

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes, sir.

Hubert Laster: How did you do that?

Mama Lou Robertson: I took the money out of my pocket.

Hubert Laster: How did you earn the money?

Mama Lou Robertson: The governor was paying me.

Hubert Laster: The governor?

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes, sir.

Hubert Laster: Paying you money for what?

Mama Lou Robertson: Well, I was living, live on. And my washing and ironing bought the lumber and stuff and paid for my house. I didn't take the government money to pay for my home. I took it out of mine. I was washing and ironing.

Hubert Laster: What did you do with the government money?

Mama Lou Robertson: I live on it, eat on it.

Hubert Laster: Oh, I see.

Mama Lou Robertson: That's what they give it to me for.

Hubert Laster: Oh, I see.

Mama Lou Robertson: Well, I got governor money here. There's two checks at this office up here, and I don't get nothing but just... Now, I have to sign to get four bits. I sign to get four bits and I got two checks. Well, my old folks pension check before I left home was $100, and they done raised my social security and raised my old folks pension checks since I've been up here.

Hubert Laster: When you bought your land in Montgomery, how much did it cost you an acre?

Mama Lou Robertson: $10, one acre, one acre.

Hubert Laster: $10? And, how much did your house cost you?

Mama Lou Robertson: $500.

Hubert Laster: Didn't you tell me about the man that built the house, what he said about you?

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes, sir.

Hubert Laster: Would you repeat that please?

Mama Lou Robertson: Well, I'll tell you, I bought the lumber and I bought the land, and I paid for my house with washing and ironing. I washed for a heap of people, and I could do some nice washing and ironing.

Hubert Laster: Is that right?

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes, sir.

Hubert Laster: What did you use for starch?

Mama Lou Robertson: Starch?

Hubert Laster: Starch. How did you starch the clothes?

Mama Lou Robertson: I made starch and starched them, and let them dry and ironed them.

Hubert Laster: How did you make the starch?

Mama Lou Robertson: Put on a pot and let the water boil, and pour the starch in that and stirred it up.

Hubert Laster: Have you ever heard of using flour for starch?

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes, sir.

Hubert Laster: How do you do that?

Mama Lou Robertson: You take that flour and you mix it up good, and let that water boil and pour it. Pour it in there and just stir it until it gets thick as you want it, and then you quit.

Hubert Laster: Do you put grease in it or anything?

Mama Lou Robertson: No sir, I don't put grease in it.

Hubert Laster: The one lady was telling me you put grease in it.

Mama Lou Robertson: I didn't never put no grease.

Hubert Laster: Well, I believe you.

Mama Lou Robertson: I never did put no grease.

Hubert Laster: You said that you cooked.

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes sir, I'm a good cook.

Hubert Laster: Did you ever work for anybody as a cook?

Mama Lou Robertson: I cook for ladies. I just worked, you know, when they'd call me. The old lady would be sick and her daughter would call me to cook for them, and the daughter say, ain't that nice.

Cooked greens, I can cook greens, and make anybody eat them. Snap beans, I can make anybody eat them. But, these snap beans and greens here, you can't eat them.

Hubert Laster: Is that right? Is it bad food?

Mama Lou Robertson: We never got no meat for dinner.

Hubert Laster: You'd eat a lot of greens? Do you eat collard greens?

Mama Lou Robertson: I eat all kinds of greens, but they got to be cooked right. There ain't no grease cooked in them greens. There ain't no grease cooked in them butter beans. There ain't no grease put in them peas.

Hubert Laster: You're talking about bacon grease?

Mama Lou Robertson: No kind of grease.

Hubert Laster: Yeah, but to make them good, you put bacon grease in them.

Mama Lou Robertson: They don't put no kind of grease in them. The water, just as clear. It's just that greens what makes that water green, and that, potatoes, I add grease and all that liquor.

Hubert Laster: Could you give me your recipe for greens? How do you make greens if you were going to make them?

Mama Lou Robertson: I take some meat, and let that meat boil.

Hubert Laster: Salt and meat?

Mama Lou Robertson: Let it boil good, half fat and half lean. Put that in, and let it boil good. And, I put some moisture in my greens, nice and clean. I put them in there and let them cook, and I don't cook no water in them. I cook them dry.

Hubert Laster: And, how much grease?

Mama Lou Robertson: I put a piece of meat in there.

Hubert Laster: Oh, and that gives the grease off?

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes, sir. I don't put the grease. I put some meat in them.

Hubert Laster: It takes a long time to cook, doesn't it?

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes, sir.

Hubert Laster: But, it's worth it?

Mama Lou Robertson: That's what I'm talking about. That stuff, I'm telling you.

Hubert Laster: I believe you.

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes.

Hubert Laster: We need to take a break right now, and we'll be back in just a moment.

If you've just joined us, we're visiting with Mama Lou Robertson. Tell me about your mother. You said she was a doctor.

Mama Lou Robertson: She sure was a doctor. There's one man that called her, him and his wife called my mother, and told her to come, that the baby was sick and it wouldn't nurse the breast, and come and see what she could do for it. Mama said, well, if you let me do, give it what I want to give it, I'd had her suck before I get the oil in it. Mama give it to Calma, and she went to work. She said, I'll give it oil when I come back. And the baby was nursing when mama come back to get the baby, it's oil, help her sleep. He said, but look here. Same [inaudible 00:08:17], and that's a good doctor.

Hubert Laster: And what did she give the baby now?

Mama Lou Robertson: Calma.

Hubert Laster: What were some of her other medicines that she gave people?

Mama Lou Robertson: Well, for your back and your head, she would take, tell the truth. She'd take camphor and turpentine, and put those brown peas to reach back here, slam down to the end of your back.

Hubert Laster: From your neck all the way to the end of your back.

Mama Lou Robertson: And when you'd be there a minute or two, your backache would be gone. Your head, she'd take brown paper, put the pepper on it and black pepper and put it back in your neck and it'll gone.

Hubert Laster: Just go away. Just like that.

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes sir. And my son, I don't care how bad you had a hiccup. My oldest son, Tory Johnson, he was in a band. A preacher had a hiccup three weeks, night and day. He couldn't sleep with hiccup. I said, Reverend, I said, what's the matter with you? I've been had this hiccup for three weeks, night and day I can't sleep. I said, well, my son can kill that little known thing.

He said, well, I wish you'd tell him. But I called him. He come, come to the bed. He says, Reverend, what's the matter? Says, I've got the hiccup so bad. He just hiccup-in. He said, hand me your hand. He handed him his hand. He stood up there. He got his hand, said “where are the hiccups?” Said, “I ain't got none.” See, and they will have no more.

Hubert Laster: Did your mother teach your son to do this?

Mama Lou Robertson: Huh?

Hubert Laster: Did your mother teach the son to do this? Yeah.

Mama Lou Robertson: Don must have taught him. My children was Christians, but they died.

Hubert Laster: Was your mother a Christian?

Mama Lou Robertson: All of them. My stepfather and all.

Hubert Laster: How did she acquire this knowledge of medicine?

Mama Lou Robertson: I reckon the Lord showed it to her. Well, they had me in the hospital. In Natchitoches, for the arthritis. I couldn’t use this hand and I couldn't walk. And they kept me in there six weeks, and they discharged me. I couldn't walk or use this hand, but I went home. I had a dream, said, get you some doctor's tissues, antiseptic, and pat it, wet your hand, pat it on them joints and said, you'll get all right. I'm done sure. So I didn't know to go back to the doctor no more. I cured myself. Well, that and the Lord showed me what to get.

Hubert Laster: Is everyone in your family like this?

Mama Lou Robertson: Yes, sir. I converted my daughter next to my oldest daughter on her sick bed. Her husband, she was with a baby. The husband kicked her in the side and the doctor had to take it and he brought it to my house, brought her to my house, and the doctor told him to tell me to put her feet and leg in some hot water, hot as she could bear, and bathe and put her to bed.

And he said, "No, you ain't going to put her to bed." I said, "Who?" I said, "This is my child." I said, "Ain't no care in the unit. That's your wife. I think she'll never get out of here until the Lord take her." And so after he left, he said, she said, "Mama." I said, "what is it baby?" She said, "I don't want to go to hell when I die." I said, "Well, if you repeat the words that I pray for you, you'll get religious this evening." But I went to praying for her. She must have had a bond right on the Lord. I prayed and I prayed. I got my prayer and I was walking out the door praying.

She said, "Oh mama.” I said, “what is it, baby?” She said, “come here. I got something to tell you." She said, "Look at my hands. My hands don't look like they used to look. Said when my eyes is close to death, I'm going home to rest." I says, "Thank God."

Hubert Laster: Ms. Robertson, we've enjoyed visiting with you and if there's any way possible, I'll be back again to visit with you again.

If you would like to make a tape recall, please, the Retired Citizens Volunteer Program at 352-8647. This is Hubert Laster, wishing you all a very pleasant day.

Hubert Laster interviews Lou Robertson about growing up in Montgomery, her father’s death in New Orleans, buying land at $10 an acre, cleaning laundry and cooking for a living, her recipe for greens, and her mother’s work as a doctor.

Episode Tags: podcast, memories, oral history interview, natchitoches parish, buying land, laundry, cooking greens, montgomery

May 28, 2026

70. Lou Ivy pt. 2

Transcript

Hubert Laster: Good morning. This morning on the Memories Program, we're going to have a return visit from Mrs. Lou Ivy. We'll be back in just a moment after a word from our sponsor.

Good morning to you. This morning, Mrs. Lou Ivy from Coldwater has graciously consented to tell us a little bit more about her life. Because her last tape was so excellent, we've come back again. Tell me about when you were growing up, what you used to do for pastime and work time.

Mrs. Lou Ivy: Well, we didn't have any pastime except on Sunday or when we had company, because there's work to do all the time. My stepmother was in awful bad health and I had a new baby brother or sister about every two years. I used to say she had the children and I had to tend to them.

I was the oldest one of the children, and my sister was younger than me. She didn't have no patience. And she had one of the children and would tend to it, rocking it. Where she'd pinch it or something, make it cry and I'd have to take it.

And the way I studied my spelling, I'd get the rocking chair and that baby in my lap and I'd rock and spell the word and make a song out of it. Sing it to put it to sleep. And when I got ready to work my arithmetic... It wasn't called math then, it was arithmetic... I'd sew on the floor, this old wooden floor. You could see the chickens through the cracks. And put the baby between my legs that way and put my paper and pencil out here and do my math or English if I had any diagramming. Or write a story from a picture, whatever I had to do, and hold the baby.

Hubert Laster: How many cows did you used to milk a day?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: Each morning, each night, milked from seven to fifteen cows.

Hubert Laster: What kind of cows? That's a lot of milk, isn't it?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: No, it's not a lot of milk because they were beef cattle type. They didn't give much milk. They were [inaudible 00:02:31] cows and you had to take a pole to beat them to get a cup of milk from each cow. Of course, we had more milk than we could use. And milk we didn't use, I'd give to neighbors, hands was on the place. Pop always worked a couple of half hands and a monthly hand. Well, we'd give milk to our neighbors and then give it to the chickens, the hogs, whatever.

Hubert Laster: Bunch of well-fed animals, I suppose. You built a chimney or you know how to build a chimney.

Mrs. Lou Ivy: I helped build, I don't know... Five, I know of. I remember helping build five.

Hubert Laster: How do you build a chimney?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: Well, you cut a place out, not quite as wide as those two windows. I'd say those windows is two foot, that's four foot. You'd cut a place outside the wall about, oh, I reckon five-foot high. And then in the floor you'd come out. We always made a big hearth. Some people say hearth, some hearth. I don't know which is proper. And then we'd build a box where they cut this out under the house and fill it up with dirt and rocks and fix it slightly back that way.

And then we'd get [inaudible 00:04:13] pine posts that's taller than the house, about two or three foot taller than the house, and put outside there. And have four of them, one on each side nailed to the wall. And then posts holding them put the other two out there. And then we'd cut a tree down and make boards, because we didn't go to sawmill and buy boards because there weren't many sawmills around. We'd split our own board. And after we'd fill this box up with dirt, Pop would take the wagon and go to what we'd call chimney dirt. Just any dirt won't make a chimney. You have to go to a kind of pin-oak swamp and get that kind of dirt. And then he'd make a big box and work it up that we'd all get in there with our feet barefooted and work that dirt up.

And have moss. He'd go to the moss hills and get the moss and bring, and got that dirt worked up. You'd get that moss and a big double, a handful of that wet dirt. Mix up moss in it, make it a cone shape. It wasn't hardly, you couldn't call it a loaf of bread. And they were called cats. These things that she made the chimney. These sticks then, that we had rived out of pines, oak, whatever was handy for us to nail them to these posts and lay these cats over these sticks like that. And to keep it going on up until you got it to the top with the cats.

Hubert Laster: Okay. You'd have to put rocks in it, right?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: No, you didn't put no rocks in it.

Hubert Laster: No rocks at all?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: No, it just had moss. And if you couldn't get the moss, I have helped build them with hay before it was cured.

We'd always build a fireplace in the house, a way out. Saw up a log, and we always built a big fireplace. So we'd now cut such small wood and make it slanting. And so if we'd go to bed at night, the logs wouldn't roll back on the floor.

And we'd go to bed with a good fire and next morning we'd have plenty of big coals there, and get in our kindling wood at night and just put on the kindling and blow. You had to be saving matches back then. And each one of the children had their certain evenings to do up the kindling and get the wood in on the porch.

And I never did tell my children but the first time what to do. And if they happened to forget it, I'd go their said time. If it happened to be Leroy's time to get up the kindling, I'd go wake him up and he had to go out in the deep frost or some snow and get the kindling and bring it in next morning. And believe me, they'd never forget it but one time.

Hubert Laster: So that's how you make a chimney? I didn't know. I'm glad you told me.

Mrs. Lou Ivy: And build a fire back in there, you see, out of the house. The fire wasn't in the house, but the heat, you know, come back in the house. And you've heard mantle boards where it was always put a shelf over the top. And if you didn't have a big grandfather's clock, you had them big striking clocks and they'd sit on the mantle. And people didn't have living rooms then. That big room, the fireplace room they called it then, was so big they had two beds in the, what we called a living room.

Hubert Laster: So it was a living room and bedroom?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: Bedroom.

Hubert Laster: I see.

Mrs. Lou Ivy: Besides the other bedrooms.

Hubert Laster: We need to take a break right now and we'll be back momentarily. In case you just joined us, we're visiting with Mrs. Lou Ivy down Coldwater way. We were talking before about how to make a chimney. Now my next question to you is how do you make sure that the smoke doesn't come back into the house?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: Only way I could explain that is it's narrow at the top and it's going up. And I guess it just wouldn't turn and come back. I couldn't tell you that.

Hubert Laster: It's wide at the bottom, then?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: A whole lot wider at the bottom. And it goes up.

Hubert Laster: How much above the rooftop did the chimney-

Mrs. Lou Ivy: About three feet above the rooftop. Most people would build it and they'd gable in. And after that it had to be a taller chimney. But in later years, the last few chimneys were built it on the side and didn't have to [inaudible 00:10:08]

Hubert Laster: What about things falling into the chimney? Did you have anything to catch it?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: No. I didn't know was you needing. We never had no trouble.

Hubert Laster: Well, I don't guess you needed it then. You were talking about a Model T hood?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: Yeah, we'd always, if we could find one, we'd put it inside the chimney so that when you throw the stick of wood in, that wouldn't gouge a little hole in the dirt.

And we'd always have to cure the chimney before we could build a big fire in it. And curing it is keeping a little slow, slow fire in it for several days. And where it wouldn't dry out fast.

Hubert Laster: I see.

Mrs. Lou Ivy: Bake in that.

Hubert Laster: These chimneys that you build like you're talking about, once they're cured, are they hard like brick?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: Yeah, they're hard like brick. If you just put them big sticks of wood in there and throw them in, it wouldn't bust the chimney. I had them without these Model T hoods in them. And once in a great while we'd have to patch it in summer, a little hole maybe or something. But they were...

Hubert Laster: They were all right?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: They were all right.

Hubert Laster: Good.

Well, right before you went to bed at night... Changing the subject... What did you do for pastime? Or was there any time?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: Yeah, we always had time because after dark we couldn't do much outside. And in the fall and the wintertime, we'd always gather plenty of hickory nuts and walnuts and burst them before dark. Have a big pan, sit around the fire and eat hickory nuts. Or we'd have parched peanuts. And in the summertime we'd play games like with corn or peas, play hull-gull or draw pictures or rigging-

Hubert Laster: What's hull-gull?

Mrs. Lou Ivy: Everybody'd have so many grains of corn or peas. And say like you give them twenty-five, and I'd put one or two or three, whatever went into my hand. And I'd say "hull-gull," like we was playing to you and you'd say, "How many?"

No, let me see. What you would say, I'd have peas or corn and a great pinch of corn in my hand, and I'd say, "How many?" to you. And you'd tell me. If I had five in my hand, you would say seven, well, you'd have to give me two.

And if I'd had ten in my hand and you said four, well you'd have to give me six. And the one that used up all the corn first, the one that had the most corn when we quit playing, won the game. Most of the grains of corn.

Hubert Laster: It sounds like a fun game. At the time anyway.

Well, Ms. Lou, it was very enjoyable visiting with you today.

Mrs. Lou Ivy: ... having you here. Because it seems like the children have enjoyed listening to it because that's why they all was calling me. My neighbors was, when they played the wrong tape when you supposed to play my tape.

Hubert Laster: Thank you.

I don't know what to say. To our listeners out there, if you have memories that you would like to share also, would you please call 352-8647 and I'll be most happy to record them. From the Retired Seniors Volunteer Program and myself, good day.

In a follow-up discussion, Hubert Laster interviews Lou Ivy about taking care of her stepsiblings, milking cows, how to build a chimney, pastimes, and childhood games.

Episode Tags: podcast, memories, oral history interview, natchitoches parish, childhood games, milking cows

May 21, 2026

69. Lou Ivy pt. 1

Transcript

Hubert Laster: Good morning. I'm Hubert Laster, and this morning on the Memories Program, we're going to be visiting with Aunt Lou Ivy. We'll be back in just a moment after a word from our sponsor, Peoples Bank and Trust.

Hi. We're visiting with an incredible woman. She is... Well, she's incredible. I'm just going to let her talk to you, Aunt Lou.

Aunt Lou Ivy: Well, I was born in Texas and lived there about three years.

Hubert Laster: Wait a minute, when were you born?

Aunt Lou Ivy: In 1897. And we come to Louisiana in a covered wagon. My papa had a horse and mule, and we had to camp out and come across Sabine River on the ferry boat and we stayed there all night. The children, there was me and my sister and baby brother, and we slept in the wagon. Papa and mama slept under the wagon.

And we come to Victoria and Papa traded a mule for 40 acres of land and then homesteaded 80 acres. And when they had to work to pay for the land, had two houses on it, and when we didn't have any garden to pay for it, he cut wood because there were no electricity in the little town of Victoria. He cut fire wood and stove wood for everybody. And to pay for the land, he cut this wood, as I said, and we had to save every penny we could.

And we had cornbread and water for dinner and supper and breakfast when we had no vegetables. And sometimes he'd go in the woods and kill a deer and bring it home and we had some of the meat. And he sold the venison to the people in Victoria community, their town. And we paid for the land.

And I had two more brothers, but each one of my brothers died and it was just my sister and I. And then my mother died when I was five years old and I stayed with my aunts until he married again. And after he married again, he sold Victoria Place and went to Robeline and bought what was known as the Wynn Place.

I think that Mr. Jack White was the first person that had that place I knew anything about. And we stayed there and I went to school at Robeline, my sister and I. And when we rode a wagon, two mules pulled the wagon, and when it was bad weather, all the girls and boys that was big enough had to get out and help the mules push the wagon up the hill. And finally we would be so muddy when we got a home, Papa cut a trail from our house, across the pasture and would come in close to the colored schoolhouse. And we could always beat this school bus there and we wasn't so muddy and nasty.

And when I was in ninth grade, I married. I run away and married. My Papa didn't know nothing about it.

Hubert Laster: What did you do when he found out about it?

Aunt Lou Ivy: Well, I'd already left. We went to Brother Middleton's there in Robeline, got married. My husband's name was Roy Horn. And Papa, he come through Robeline... The people, some of the old people tell you now, and everybody would see and ask where I was and they'd tell them they didn't know because, naturally, they didn't know. And he got so mad about it.

Then, my husband and I had two children. He died in 1918 and I worked some. I had just one child then. My oldest little girl died just before her daddy died. And then in... Then, I've got my pages, I guess, cold. I can't read them. Married Tom Aida then, and we had eight children and times were sure hard back then. That was during Depression.

We didn't have enough to open the land. My papa already died and this was his estate and it was divided up, and was no house on the place. So we had to buy old barns and old houses and things to build a house. We just built a frame and moved in.

And, well, you couldn't get a job. My husband walked for weeks and weeks and couldn't get a job. He said you'd have to kill a man to get a job during that time.

Hubert Laster: I've heard that. We need to take a break and let's come back and talk about the Depression. If you've just joined us, we're visiting with Aunt Lou and she's going to tell us about the Depression as she knew it.

Aunt Lou Ivy: Well, we had a large family. We built the frame house, we moved in and put partitions in with the lumber. Built a fireplace. We had eight children, and we would work all the land that was cleared on my strip that I inherited. And at night we'd put the children to bed and go down next to the cleared and we'd clear land and save the poles and trim them up until we got a good piece cleared. And then two or three nights every night, we'd go work til 12:00 and come home and go to bed, and get up next morning before daylight.

After we got a good bit cleared, then we'd set the brush piles apart to see how to dig post holes and build a fence with the poles. And we had one horse and we raised good-sized crops. And the children, as soon as they'd come in from school, they changed the clothes and got them something to eat. If there's anything in the garden, it'd be onion blades and a piece of corn, and right into the field they'd go. And we always bought meal flour in sacks, and I'd save the sacks and made underclothes for the children out of them. And when we'd pick our cotton, we'd take the cotton sacks and make our towels out of them. And you can guess they wasn't very soft. They were not the towels we have today.

Hubert Laster: I don't guess so. Kind of rough on the skin.

Aunt Lou Ivy: Before we went on the WPA though, him and the two older boys would strip cane for a gallon of syrup a week.

Hubert Laster: Now, wait a minute. What is stripping cane?

Aunt Lou Ivy: Stripping cane is cutting it with big knives, cutting the leaves off the cane, haul it to the mill to make syrup out of it.

Hubert Laster: Uh huh, okay.

Aunt Lou Ivy: And we got a gallon a week for the work. And the syrup, you couldn't get over six bits a gallon of syrup after it was made. So, you know, we didn't have very much money and we didn't buy any luxuries at all. We bought our coffee and sugar and after we got to farming, we had biscuits on Sunday morning. And the rest of the time it's cornbread that we'd raised and carried to mill.

Hubert Laster: You know, I've heard that if you're going to go out in the fields and plow, that you better have a piece of cornbread with you. Don't take no biscuits. A piece of cornbread. Is that right?

Aunt Lou Ivy: I reckon it's pretty true because I eat a whole lot more cornbread than I have biscuits. But we finally got enough open land where we didn't have to work on a rent land or rent land from Miss Maude Valentine. We rented land from Mr. Wesley [unintelligible 00:11:05]

Hubert Laster: Oh, don't worry about it.

Aunt Lou Ivy: Oh, one little neighbor bought the house on Westlake... part of Mr. Wesley Sanders' land. And he was so tight, he wouldn't let the children eat the blackberries on the end of the road. He'd say he wanted to save them, but him and his wife, neither one ever picked them and he wouldn't let us have water out of his well. We had to carry our water to the field with us.

Hubert Laster: Sound like a tight old man. I don't think I'd want to work for him.

Aunt Lou Ivy: Well, we got his land a little cheaper to work for him, but we had a hard time of it.

Hubert Laster: I think I have worked for people like that. Well, we have really enjoyed visiting with you, but it's time to go now.

Aunt Lou Ivy: Well, it was nice to have you.

Hubert Laster: If you would like to share your memories with us, would you please call the Retired Senior Volunteer Program? That number is 352-8647. This is Hubert Laster wishing all of you a good day.

Hubert Laster interviews Lou Ivy about traveling to Louisiana in a covered wagon, her father trading a mule for forty acres of land, eloping, building a house, her memories of the Great Depression, and clearing land.

Episode Tags: podcast, memories, oral history interview, natchitoches parish, covered wagon, mules, great depression

May 14, 2026

68. Leatter Dupre Coutee

Transcript

Jim Colley: ... Memories with Leatter Coutee. We'll be back-

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Put Dupré on that. Put Dupré on that.

Jim Colley: All right.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Because you know who my ancestors were.

Jim Colley: We'll be back with her in just a moment after this word from Peoples Bank & Trust.

Good morning again. This is The Memories Program, and we're visiting with Mrs. Coutee. Now what did I leave out of your name that you wanted me to say?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: D-U-P-R-E, with an accent on the E.

Jim Colley: And so people will know who your ancestors were?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: That's right. That's right. That's right.

Jim Colley: We were visiting about Melrose and the Cane River Country, and you were talking about the 24 Mile Ferry.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Yeah, that's right.

Jim Colley: Tell me about that.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Okay, 24 Mile Ferry was just on the other side of JB. And Paul Dupré used to charge 10¢ a fare to go across it.

Jim Colley: Now that was on the Cane River?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Right here. Right there on Cane River. Right there.

Jim Colley: Right here south of Melrose?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Right side, right side next door to JB there. Right there, right there. Right between Colleen and JB.

Jim Colley: So it cost-

Leatter Coutee Dupre: There was a store there, a billiard room there. That's why it's called the B-Yard. They always called the B-Yard. It's a billiard room there too, a store. There was a grist mill, corn mill, you know. And on this side was Paul's uncle. He had a big blacksmith shop. His name was Sobren Dupré. He had a blacksmith shop, he had a sugar mill, and he had cattles, horses, buggies. A buggy in those days was a luxury. That was a luxury. Very few people had buggies in those days.

Jim Colley: Now what time are we talking about?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: We talking way back 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, all the way down the line.

Jim Colley: So there was a little community here called the Billiard?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: The B-Yard was the store.

Jim Colley: B-Yard. Ah.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: The B-Yard, that's the billiard room. They all used to play. Women didn't go there. Men only went there. But they had the women went in the store part, just separated. And there was a big mansion there. Charles Dupré's mansion was painted white and green, and there were six cedars in front of that house. [inaudible 00:02:10] cedars painted white. The bottom was painted white. Painted white. Then the store. Then the store.

Jim Colley: So that was quite a little community there?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Oh yes, it was like a small village in a way, because the houses were near together. And [inaudible 00:02:24], just below that, he also had a sugar mill. Made syrup. You cook syrup long because you have sugar. That's the idea. He was down there. And as a child of five years of age, when I'd hear the boat call, I'd grab my grandmother by her hand. She said, "Don't bother me, I'm..." In French, she would say to me, " [foreign language 00:02:45]."

And I would grab her by the hand, and, "Let's go on the bank. Let's go on the bank and see the boat in there. Let's go see it." And she'd go with me, sit on the bank, and we see those big people, those big husky men unload the boat right in front there. [inaudible 00:02:59], right there. The merchant was there.

And the dances used to be at the Perrine's house.

Jim Colley: Now wait a minute, don't get to the dances. Tell me about those boats. Were those the big river steamboats?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Oh yes. Those boats, these come from New Orleans. They delivered the stuff for the people. They took the cotton from here and brought back the merchandise. That's how they would do.

Jim Colley: And you remember seeing those boats come up here?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Oh yes, in 1905, sure I do.

Jim Colley: Did they turn around here and go back? Or did they go-

Leatter Coutee Dupre: I don't know. Now that I don't remember.

Jim Colley: You just remember-

Leatter Coutee Dupre: I remember seeing them unload. I used to love to watch them unload. And no matter what my grandmother was doing, I'd bother her. She'd fuss with me, but she would take me. And take me aside. "Let's go see. Let's go see. I say to her." And she'd grab me by the hand, "[inaudible 00:03:46]," said, "[foreign language 00:03:47], you're bothering me," she would say. And we'd go and we'd go.

Jim Colley: But she always went with you.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Oh, she wouldn't let me go on the bank alone. Oh, no.

Jim Colley: How often did those boats come up from New Orleans?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: I think about once or twice a month. I'm not quite sure.

Jim Colley: So it was a special kind of occasion when they came up?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Oh, yes. People used to order things from New Orleans, and wait for the boats to come home to get their stuff.

Jim Colley: What would you order from New Orleans?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: I didn't order. The store. We'd get from the store. The stores would order them. But I remember my grandmother telling me, my grandfather, Sobren Dupré used to go very often with the boats, him, and buy things and bring back for his family. A lot of people did that, you know. A lot of them did go back with the boat. A lot of them did. And they'd come back, and a lot of stuff for the family.

Jim Colley: Ms. Coutee, we're going to take a break right now for Peoples Bank & Trust, but we'll be back in just a moment.

This is The Memories Program, and I'm Jim Colley. And we're visiting with Ms. Coutee about Melrose Community down Cane River. What did folks do back in the early 1900s for recreation?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Well, we had dances, private parties, private dances, private parties. Sometimes we'd dance on lemonade and cake. Sometimes we'd have popcorn balls. Sometimes, it was pralines. And during Christmas, it was eggnog.

Jim Colley: Oh, boy.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: They'd dance too. And we used have that. We always had that during Christmas.

Jim Colley: Where were the dances held?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Different place. Different homes. Oh, different homes.

Jim Colley: But always in a home?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: In a home, yes. Different... There were no halls yet then. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

Jim Colley: Where were the very best dances held?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: At Dupré's. Dupré, J Dupré. That was the best dances there. It was, that house was enormous house. Way up in the daytime, there was a great big parlor. For dances, they'd move the furniture out, and the dances were there. Cousin Edward used to play the music there. And that was the best dances of all there.

Jim Colley: So that was the top society?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: That was the top society. When you were invited there, you were somebody. Oh, yes.

Jim Colley: Now who was that person, where the dances were held?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Dupré, J Dupré. He was married to Perrine Metoie, the ex-daughter-in-law of [foreign language 00:06:06]. Because her first husband was Garcian. And then he was, Garcian... She was Garcian's third wife. But she was my uncle's second wife, my great uncle's second wife. That's my grandfather's brother.

Jim Colley: I bet she was an interesting person.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: She was. She was a rather strong, masculine woman. Very strong and masculine. And when she spoke, she spoke. And wherever she went, she carried her seven sisters with her.

Jim Colley: Uh-oh.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Oh, yes. She used to go play for the Cajuns on Little River. She'd play for anybody. She'd come across that river, and in her buggy, and she'd pick Louise, her husband's niece, or me, sometime both of us. We want to go. We'd go with her. And she'd go to the woods, and we'd say to her, "Cousin [inaudible 00:06:54], aren't you afraid?" She said, "Not long, I got my Seven Sisters with me." Oh, she carried a gun, no worries.

Jim Colley: So she was safe with her gun?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: She called it her Seven Sisters.

Jim Colley: And she called that gun her Seven Sisters?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Seven Sisters.

Jim Colley: And that was all she needed?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: That's all she needed. And believe it, nobody didn't monkey with her either. Nobody monkeyed with her. A man, nobody. They didn't monkey. Frankly, a lot of the Caucasians didn't monkey with her either.

Jim Colley: Nobody did.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: No, no, no. Not her, not her brother, not her father.

Jim Colley: Where did the bands come from?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: There were no bands. She played.

Jim Colley: Who played? She played?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: She played.

Jim Colley: On the piano?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: No, no, on the fiddle.

Jim Colley: On the fiddle?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: No, she had a violin, a beautiful violin. I know what they'd got it when her house burned down. She played. And sometimes she'd have somebody accompany with her on the guitar. I don't remember who it was anymore, but she, with her a violin.

Jim Colley: So she hosted the party and she provided the music?

Leatter Coutee Dupre: And she made them behave too.

Jim Colley: She was the bouncer.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: That's it.

Jim Colley: All rolled up into one.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: That's it. My husband was telling me, Manlow tried to behave bad. And Manlow is a big six-footer. She threw him down the steps.

Jim Colley: Whew. That was something else.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: But I remember Zickel and Adams. I think it was Zickel and Adams. Zickel Dupré, a relative, a grand-nephew. And Adams [inaudible 00:08:14] had started to fight. She told them don't fight her ballroom. And they wouldn't listen. So she just took to them, dragged them to the front porch. She knocked their heads together and threw them out.

Jim Colley: Whew. Well, we were glad to visit with you this morning. We're all out of time, but we'll come back and see you. And we thank you for being on The Memories Program.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: Oh, good.

Jim Colley: We'll see you later.

Leatter Coutee Dupre: All right.

Jim Colley interviews Leatter Dupre Coutee about the 24-mile ferry, watching the steamboats unload, the Melrose community, dances at the Dupre’s, the “Seven Sisters”, and her formidable relatives.

Episode Tags: podcast, memories, oral history interview, steamboats, melrose, 24 mile ferry

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