I was born on Oct 3, 1923 at Woodside which is about ten miles south of Simmesport on the

Atchafalaya River on a houseboat which we lived on that was our house – which had three

rooms, a kitchen and two bed rooms. The house boat was built on a barge of wood. In the

kitchen was we had a table and one iron wood stove – which was used for cooking, baking, and

heating. You had to heat hot water (on the stove) for washing dishes and bathing. We used a

No. 2 washtub for bathing. It was kept hanging on the side of the houseboat when not in use.

In one room was a bed where my mama and daddy slept and a wood burning heater for

the winter heating. But we lived happy.

My mama was a home maker and my daddy was a fisherman for a living. He would fish lines

sometimes of the year other times he would fish nets. Most of the time, Gree would trade his

fish for food (flour, rice, beans). We would plant a garden on the side of the river. My

mama and I would knit nets for him to fish – mostly catfish when the water would rise in the

bayou. When I was about 10 or 12, I helped Mama knit nets for some of the fishermen in

Simmesport. We would nail them up on the side of the fireplace and knit there. Papa Gree

made the shuttles we used. (LG). We lived up and down the river (Atchafalaya and Mississippi)

from Simmesport to Fort Adams, Miss., about two miles south of Fort Adams (and Buffalo

Bayou LG). When we were of school age, we had to walk to school. We would bring our lunch

in a little half gallon syrup bucket. My mama would get up and bake biscuits and fix eggs or

potatoes for our lunch. We went to school in a one-room school with one teacher for all. When

margarine came out, we would have to mix the yellow color into it. It was a treat (LG).