Lucille Bernard interview recording, 1994 August 11

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Kate Ellis	Would you just say your name?	0:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Lucille Bernard.	0:00
Kate Ellis	Lucille Bernard.	0:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	0:00
Kate Ellis	And you were born December 6, 1913?	0:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	1913, yes.	0:21
Kate Ellis	Where were you born?	0:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Out here	0:29
Kate Ellis	Out here?	0:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	0:29
Kate Ellis	Okay. I turned this on. I'm wondering if you would just tell me about your time, what you remember about your life out here.	0:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And raised here. I was raised by a stepfather, which was a wonderful man. It was a good life for me, for my family, because my mother worked, and I've been working since I was nine years old. And we went to school, and Mr. Patout, Mr. William Patout's father, first went to the school board and he said, "Could he get some books for the Colored." That's what it was called. "Colored children on the plantation." So the school board told him, "Yes, but where was he going to teach?" He said, "Well, I'll see about that." He said, "I will see if I can get a teacher from Baton Rouge." And he gived us a house to have school in it. Now, that's where we first learned our ABCs our first grade was primer, and we went to school in the quarters here.	0:36
Kate Ellis	You mean in this neighborhood?	1:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Uh-huh. And then he went back to the school board, went back to the elders of the church, and we started school in the church. We also had a teacher come in from Baton Rouge. His name was Mr. Frank.	1:58
Kate Ellis	Mr. Frank.	2:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He married a girl from here. Her name was Adeline Green.	2:18
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	2:26
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And from then on we went. A storm came and blew the church down. We walked from here to the next little farm that is called Baya.	2:26
Kate Ellis	Baya?	2:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. Baya.	2:38
Kate Ellis	Like	2:40
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	2:40
Kate Ellis	Okay.	2:40
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	2:40
Kate Ellis	Okay.	2:40
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	2:40
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. You said that was the next little town?	2:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, it's the next door farm.	2:45
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. Got it. Uh-huh.	2:45
Lucille Casimore Bernard	We all went to the same school. The Whites had their school up there.	2:50
Kate Ellis	Up—	2:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	In the front. Yeah.	2:59
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	2:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	The front, where you came. Here, up on the street around there, on the road around there.	3:02
Kate Ellis	Oh. Yeah.	3:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	See, we used to have We had one, two, three, four At one time we had five stores right up in that little village up there.	3:14
Kate Ellis	Really? In Patoutville?	3:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes, Patoutville.	3:17
Kate Ellis	Huh.	3:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And then we had a dego stand. You see Paska.	3:24
Kate Ellis	Wait, A dego stand?	3:24
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	3:25
Kate Ellis	What was—	3:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It was a He had a We used to call it the dego store.	3:31
Kate Ellis	What did that sell?	3:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It sell all kind of stuff; fruits and peanuts and anything he could lay his hand on the sell, he would sell it.	3:39
Kate Ellis	Who was he? Who was—	3:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Paska.	3:47
Kate Ellis	Paska.	3:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Paskali.	3:47
Kate Ellis	That's what his name was.	3:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	3:47
Kate Ellis	Okay. Let me just go back for a second about So I just met William Patout?	3:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No.	4:02
Kate Ellis	Who did I just meet?	4:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	You met Robert Patout.	4:03
Kate Ellis	Robert Patout, thank you.	4:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	We call him Bob.	4:05
Kate Ellis	Okay, Bob.	4:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	His brother's William the third.	4:08
Kate Ellis	So his brother's the older one?	4:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, that's the older one.	4:12
Kate Ellis	Okay, third after his the older brother.	4:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	4:18
Kate Ellis	Okay. So it was William Patout, Senior. Was it William Patout, Senior or—	4:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	The brother?	4:18
Kate Ellis	The person who helped to start the school?	4:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, no. Yes, that's that was	4:30
Kate Ellis	Was that Bob Patout's grandfather?	4:30
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	4:30
Kate Ellis	It was his grandfather.	4:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	His grandfather, yeah.	4:36
Kate Ellis	Okay. I guess, were you alive at the time that school was	4:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	4:46
Kate Ellis	Okay.	4:46
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. I went; we were taught through the sixth grade.	4:48
Kate Ellis	But I mean, he started the school during your lifetime.	4:56
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. During—	5:01
Kate Ellis	Okay, so it was right when in your early days.	5:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes, in my early days. And well, we didn't have screens. We didn't have window panes or nothing like that. This was a big window open. But it was much nicer.	5:09
Kate Ellis	It was nicer.	5:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	5:22
Kate Ellis	Why was it? How was it nicer?	5:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It was nicer because no one thought they were more than others so we all was alike.	5:26
Kate Ellis	Oh.	5:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	You see.	5:37
Kate Ellis	Well, yeah. What you I mean, nobody living on the plantation thought that they were more? So everybody like you mean—	5:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Like the White also. They could speak Creole. My mother could speak Creole you see? And she was, my mother was in ninth grade when she stopped school. She was educated.	5:50
Kate Ellis	Now, where did she get How did she get that school?	6:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, she wasn't From where she was My mother was born in Glencoe, Louisiana.	6:05
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	6:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's another G-L-N-C-O, Louisiana.	6:10
Kate Ellis	Oh, that's Okay. And so she went to the school in Glencoe?	6:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And Jeanerette.	6:19
Kate Ellis	She went to school in Jeanerette as well?	6:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. You see that professor that you, Mr. Polk?	6:26
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	6:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, he My children He been retired, but they still call him The Professor.	6:40
Kate Ellis	So what do you remember about his contributions to the community?	6:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, he was a good, I know my children went on him. I have four children. I had four. My oldest son, I buried him this year.	7:01
Kate Ellis	Oh.	7:12
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And one daughter and two sons live in Beaumont, Texas.	7:13
Kate Ellis	And so did they all go to the school that he was the principal of?	7:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's right.	7:23
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see.	7:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's right. My nephew was out there. My sister's children, they all went to the school. Yeah.	7:23
Kate Ellis	Well, so this is interesting. So Mr. Bob Patout's grandfather, he's the one that started the school.	7:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That started the school, yeah.	7:45
Kate Ellis	He got the books and he got the teacher.	7:45
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's right.	7:45
Kate Ellis	I'm assuming it was a Black teacher.	7:45
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	7:45
Kate Ellis	From Baton Rouge?	7:45
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. And he married a girl from here	7:54
Kate Ellis	Who? A girl who'd grown up on the plantation?	8:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	8:07
Kate Ellis	And so he lived here too.	8:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, for a while until the school we move up to the church. And after we moved up to the church, then he got a job in Baton Rouge. After he married his wife was named Adeline Green, and they were wonderful. We had good teachers. Our first teacher was Ms. Rachel, Ms. Labore.	8:07
Kate Ellis	Miss, I'm sorry?	8:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Rachel.	8:31
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	8:32
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	8:32
Kate Ellis	I thought that Mr. Frank was your first teacher.	8:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, that's what I wanted to say. No, Ms. Labore was after him.	8:40
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. I see. Labore.	8:43
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And Ms. Rachel.	8:45
Kate Ellis	And the church, which church was it that it was in?	8:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Protestant Church but Baptist on that end.	8:56
Kate Ellis	What was it called?	8:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mount Carmel Baptist Church.	8:58
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. And so that blew down?	8:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	8:58
Kate Ellis	When did it—	8:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And they re-built it.	9:07
Kate Ellis	Okay. And so that's still your church?	9:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes, still my church.	9:10
Kate Ellis	When did it blow down?	9:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, Lord. That's been so long. Most of the children that I went to school with is dead. Yeah. So that's been a long time. I don't know what year because I didn't keep up with that. And we had a good life because at that time, they would plant mustard green, turnips in the field, sweet potatoes, and the children could go in after the plantation got what they wanted, then he'd say, "Y'all go and get what y'all can get." So we would do it.	9:19
Kate Ellis	Really?	10:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. So we always had a lot to eat. As for me, I never was known to not have a good meal because my stepfather believed in buying food. And my mama would cook it. And when she wouldn't, he was a professional cook.	10:06
Kate Ellis	He was?	10:24
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. And if she wouldn't cook it, he would cook. But you see, I guess that's the way I learned how to cook. And them boys can cook too because they can cook sometime better than me.	10:25
Kate Ellis	What boys can cook?	10:44
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Bobby and Billy.	10:45
Kate Ellis	Oh, really?	10:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yep.	10:52
Kate Ellis	What kind of food do they make?	10:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Anything Louisiana can handle.	10:52
Kate Ellis	Really?	10:54
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	10:54
Kate Ellis	Where did they learn how to cook?	10:54
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Looking at, they had made each one of them a little stand, a little box, you know. And they would get them when I'm cooking, and they would want to stir the pot.	10:58
Kate Ellis	When you were cooking.	11:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	11:23
Kate Ellis	So they'd watch you cook.	11:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They'd watch me cook, yeah.	11:23
Kate Ellis	Okay. I want to hear about that let me just get [indistinct 00:11:24]. So your stepfather, where did he cook?	11:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	On the boats when the Patouts would go on vacation and things like that.	11:24
Kate Ellis	Oh, so he'd get go on the boat.	11:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	11:31
Kate Ellis	And what did your mother do? Where'd she work? Did she work in the field?	11:31
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, she worked for Bobby's dad, Bobby's grandfather. Mr. Bob with Bob. Mr. Bob Patout.	11:39
Kate Ellis	Bobby's Grandfather.	11:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, his uncle.	11:52
Kate Ellis	Bobby's uncle.	11:56
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	12:01
Kate Ellis	So Bob Patout.	12:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	[indistinct 00:12:07]?	12:06
Kate Ellis	No, you're fine.	12:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. That Mr. Bob Patout. See they got Mr. Willie Patout and Mr. Bob Patout. But Mr. Bob died before Mr. Willie did.	12:06
Kate Ellis	This is We're talking about Bobby Patout's grandfather?	12:14
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Grand Uncle, Grandfather, and Uncle. Bob Patout is his uncle, and Mr. Willie Patout was his grandfather.	12:21
Kate Ellis	Okay. What was the name of Bob Patout's father?	12:31
Lucille Casimore Bernard	William Patout, Jr. He died. He died last year.	12:31
Kate Ellis	Okay. Patout, Jr. was the father.	12:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	12:52
Kate Ellis	Okay. So you were saying as far as what your mother did her work.	12:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah, she did house work, domestic work. When he died, when Madam Bob died, she died She had a hemorrhage, and she died laying across my mama lap, you know.	13:00
Kate Ellis	Who died lying across your mother's lap?	13:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Bob aunt.	13:19
Kate Ellis	Oh.	13:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mr. Bob Patout's wife. Not Mr. Willie.	13:22
Kate Ellis	Okay. Aunt. Okay. Aunt. She died on your mother's lap.	13:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, across my mother's lap.	13:31
Kate Ellis	Wow.	13:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And at 12:00. Yu used the ring a bell, you know?	13:34
Kate Ellis	Wow. So she hemorrhaged?	13:39
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	13:39
Kate Ellis	How old was she about? Was she young or old?	13:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh? She wasn't young.	13:48
Kate Ellis	She was an older woman.	13:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	She was older. All her children was grown and everything.	13:50
Kate Ellis	So your mother worked in the home of Bob Patout's uncle and aunt. She was pretty much their—	13:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	14:00
Kate Ellis	their housekeeper?	14:01
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. That's what she was.	14:02
Kate Ellis	I see. Did she raise some of their children?	14:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No.	14:06
Kate Ellis	No? I see. So she worked in the home and her husband, your stepfather, worked cooking on the boat.	14:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, and the mill, you see the mill wasn't large as it is now. It was a small mill. Everything nice run most automatically to the mills now. But they had to keep the fire going. And whenever it was grinding enough for the mill to run. But now you see it's large enough.	14:16
Kate Ellis	Yeah. It's right over. That's all part of it?	14:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Oh, yeah.	14:50
Kate Ellis	So your stepfather also worked in the mill?	14:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He worked in the mill doing grinding.	14:54
Kate Ellis	Okay.	14:56
Lucille Casimore Bernard	After grinding, they would go on trips to the Gulf of Mexico and all those places; killed ducks, and doves, and things. Well, that would be after grinding. They would, Mr. Miller would take his men, farmers, little farmers, he would take them on a trip. And then Mr. Landow, that was my stepfather, he would go and cook for them.	14:56
Kate Ellis	He would take You said he would take the little farmers?	15:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	On a trip.	15:30
Kate Ellis	Who were the little farmers?	15:31
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, that's right, I forgot. You don't know what that is.	15:35
Kate Ellis	No.	15:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They would, anybody who wanted to crop, they would lease them maybe 13 acres, 14 acres, 15 acres of land, and they would work that, you see. And they were called little farmers because they didn't have all the grounds that the big farmers had.	15:39
Kate Ellis	And they were leasing the land.	16:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They were leasing the land, that's right. It's just like that alcohol plant they built over here. You saw it all there?	16:08
Kate Ellis	I don't know if I've It's an alcohol plant just down that?	16:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, let me see how I'm going to cut that. They came in at least 13 acres of land. All of that stuff is put on that piece of land. But they never used it. This the claim they run ran out of money. But that man came here in two brand new jets who was the head of the money. They give him money to do it. But now that's all of this stuff is on that 13 acres. And they can't take it off because they didn't pay the rent on that land.	16:20
Kate Ellis	Who can't take it off?	17:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, the—	17:03
Kate Ellis	The people who rented the land—	17:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	17:05
Kate Ellis	can't take their stuff down?	17:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	17:05
Kate Ellis	Who did they rent? They leased it from the Patouts?	17:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	From the Patouts.	17:10
Kate Ellis	So they leased it from the Patouts, built all of this machinery here because it was supposed to be an alcohol plant—	17:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Plant, yeah.	17:19
Kate Ellis	and then they spent the money and didn't develop a plant-	17:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Didn't develop a plant.	17:24
Kate Ellis	so the stuff is just sitting there.	17:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It's just there. When you go back, you pass turn when you get up there to the corner.	17:26
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	17:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Turn and go down this field. We call it the Field Road. And all of that, you're going to see all of that, all rusting and everything. But still, they don't have no money to give nobody, you know? So you go down If you're going back toward New Iberia, you go down Field Road. After you get up there, you're going to see a little old station. Used to be a old train station.	17:34
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	18:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mr. Patrick bought that, and he said what he was going to do with it before he died. But he died uncertainly.	18:04
Kate Ellis	He did. He died. Oh. They didn't expect him to die.	18:16
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-uh.	18:17
Kate Ellis	So, okay.	18:21
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And you go down the service road until you get to the end, then you turn and you got back to New Iberia.	18:23
Kate Ellis	Okay. And so the alcohol plant will be right around?	18:30
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Right down here.	18:33
Kate Ellis	Okay. Look at that big chicken.	18:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	18:36
Kate Ellis	Again, I'm not used to seeing chickens around. It's so funny. That's a big Is that a big one?	18:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, it's a rooster.	18:41
Kate Ellis	It's a rooster.	18:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	My nextdoor neighbor chickens.	18:43
Kate Ellis	Okay.	18:45
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	18:46
Kate Ellis	Okay. Oh, funny looking birds.	18:46
Lucille Casimore Bernard	You never seen a live chicken?	18:49
Kate Ellis	Well, I have. It's just that I don't see them. It's rare for me to see them.	18:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And you know another thing? None of the young people want to eat yard chickens. That's all we had to eat.	18:57
Kate Ellis	Oh, really?	19:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	19:04
Kate Ellis	So you were used to eating these kinds of animals.	19:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yes, and they good.	19:07
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry.	19:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They're better than them ones they're all frozen and cook in five minutes out the store.	19:09
Kate Ellis	So these are the kinds of This was the kind of chicken you have—	19:16
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	19:19
Kate Ellis	Regularly.	19:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. And we had light, you know what we call homemade light bread?	19:21
Kate Ellis	Homemade light bread?	19:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Oh, yeah.	19:29
Kate Ellis	What was that? I mean, bread but it was light bread.	19:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. We called it light bread, you see. A lot of things y'all don't talk, say it like we said. But a lot of time But only time we would have store-bought bread would be on a Sunday. So everybody in the quarters would make homemade light bread.	19:34
Kate Ellis	But you preferred the store-bought bread?	19:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	French.	20:00
Kate Ellis	It was store bought French bread?	20:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That one, we used to go to town and get it.	20:04
Kate Ellis	Okay. Yeah. And so that was kind of the special—	20:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	20:08
Kate Ellis	a special treat on a Sunday.	20:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, Lord yes, child. That was special.	20:08
Kate Ellis	Really. So you'd have a good meal on Sunday. What would you have on other days? I know that you never went—	20:14
Lucille Casimore Bernard	White bean, red beans, black-eyed peas, mustard greens, turnip greens, everything, you know. Mostly you could tell what people were cooking at that time; just pass down through the quarters. You could tell what people was cooking. But now people can cook cabbage and all that other stuff. You don't even smell it on account of that fertilizer, you see.	20:19
Kate Ellis	Oh, because all this stuff is fertilized?	20:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	20:52
Kate Ellis	Oh, interesting. So it's really changed the smell of the food.	20:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And the taste.	20:58
Kate Ellis	The taste and the smell of food. Wow. Huh. No, it's just interesting. The stuff that I just never would've known, you know?	20:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh. No.	21:07
Kate Ellis	I mean, that's interesting that you would	21:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, everybody would make their bread, and we would buy skim milk.	21:14
Kate Ellis	So you'd buy milk. You didn't have cows that you would milk?	21:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No.	21:22
Kate Ellis	Here.	21:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No Uh-huh.	21:22
Kate Ellis	Okay. Oh, I was just going to say, so these little farmers who leased the land, were they White?	21:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	21:33
Kate Ellis	They were all White?	21:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, later on, as the years ran on, they began to lease land to some of the Blacks who was willing to work it.	21:35
Kate Ellis	Who were willing to work the land.	21:46
Lucille Casimore Bernard	To work the land, and plant whatever they wanted, and whatever the one you leasing it for. If they wanted a row, I don't know what else to say, but if they wanted to plant something, they could plant it. And then the Blacks could plant theirs too.	21:48
Kate Ellis	And then the Blacks could plant next to it, you're saying?	22:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.	22:13
Kate Ellis	So did people on this plantation, did you all ever have little plots of land where you would plant your own vegetables? Or did you eat the vegetables from the ones—	22:16
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. They would give you a couple of places where you could plant.	22:32
Kate Ellis	Did your family ever do that? Did you all ever plant your own vegetables?	22:39
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-uh, but we raised our own hogs.	22:51
Kate Ellis	Your own what?	22:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Hogs.	22:51
Kate Ellis	Oh, really?	22:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	22:51
Kate Ellis	So you had hogs.	22:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. We never Because my stepfather used to work all the time. He was a ditchman. You know what a ditchman is?	22:51
Kate Ellis	No.	22:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They work with a comforter.	22:58
Kate Ellis	They work with a?	23:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	A comforter. So many acres they could do in the day, clean the ditches. That's what they was.	23:04
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. So he was cleaned ditches. So he did a lot of different things.	23:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	23:15
Kate Ellis	He cooked on the boats, he cleaned ditches, and he worked during the grinding season, which is right after the harvest season, right?	23:16
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Right after the harvest. What we about to go in now.	23:29
Kate Ellis	You're about to go into the harvest.	23:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Now, yeah. Plant planting the cane, and then after planting the cane, then But nowadays, they got cane cutters, loaders to load the cane, you know? I worked in the field. When I first went in the field, we was getting 50 cents a day. I had a little brother, my oldest brother worked for 25 cents a day.	23:30
Kate Ellis	Your oldest brother did?	23:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh. But he was young boy. But yeah, I worked for 50 cents. We all of us left school because we had no way to get to Jeanerette. We worked for 50 cents a day.	23:58
Kate Ellis	Oh. So you said you went, you'd gone to sixth grade, and you were nine years old. And so because you couldn't get the bus There wasn't a bus—	24:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	There wasn't a bus.	24:29
Kate Ellis	to take you to school to Jeanerette. I see.	24:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And I had nobody I could go live with in Jeanerette. In fact, I was invited to come live with somebody, but I wouldn't go.	24:33
Kate Ellis	Why?	24:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Because all us children was going in the field.	24:39
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? So all your friends were going?	24:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Well, I'll tell you	24:44
Kate Ellis	What?	24:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I've worked. I worked in the fields. I worked in the mill sewing, what you call filter press bag. Filter press bag with catch all the mud from the cane or whatever.	24:55
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	25:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And after that I worked We had a slaughterhouse where we slaughtered cows and hogs and thing for the store. I worked there. And then I worked in the boarding house.	25:18
Kate Ellis	What's the boarding house?	25:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, it was where we would cook for the men that came from different places and feed them.	25:30
Kate Ellis	Oh, like are those what are called migrant workers?	25:41
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. No, but these was Black.	25:47
Kate Ellis	So these were Black.	25:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	25:47
Kate Ellis	Migrant workers. Okay. And did they come during harvest season?	25:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes, during harvest season, from Opelousas, Washington, Mamou, all them different places.	25:53
Kate Ellis	I see. And so they'd stay in a boarding house, and you used to cook for them?	26:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Well, me and other ladies. One of them is really in bad shape right now. I worked with the Germans, prisoners. I've worked with When these people, these Spanish people from different places would come, and they would always put them to work. I know what they were saying, and I wanted to help them, but I couldn't speak their language.	26:05
Kate Ellis	And they were Spanish?	26:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	26:50
Kate Ellis	Spanish and German people?	26:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	German people, yeah.	26:50
Kate Ellis	What were German people doing here?	26:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They was prisoners.	26:52
Kate Ellis	German prisoners?	26:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Prisoners, yeah.	26:59
Kate Ellis	Came here to work in the fields?	26:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. See, they used to have a prison across Bayou Teche on the other side, and they would send these prisoners out to work.	27:00
Kate Ellis	But they happened to be German prisoners?	27:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	27:14
Kate Ellis	I don't understand. I mean, I don't understand why they were They spoke Why would there be German prisoners here at all?	27:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't know, but they had a bunch of them. They was working in the fields.	27:22
Kate Ellis	And they all spoke German?	27:26
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. They all spoke German.	27:27
Kate Ellis	And so where did they stay if they were working in the field?	27:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They had a prison across the bayou.	27:31
Kate Ellis	Okay. I see. They'd stay the prison, and they'd come over here and do the work.	27:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh. They'd send them places like they do now to work.	27:35
Kate Ellis	And then the Patouts would pay a little bit for them, right?	27:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I guess so. I don't know that.	27:44
Kate Ellis	And then the Spanish workers, who were the Spanish people?	27:46
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, we had Cubans.	27:49
Kate Ellis	Okay.	27:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Every year we had Cubans.	27:52
Kate Ellis	Oh, so they also were migrants? They'd come to work and then they'd go back?	27:54
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, that was before Castro took over.	27:57
Kate Ellis	Right. But the Cubans, did they go back to Cuba every year?	28:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	28:07
Kate Ellis	So they'd come here to work, and then they'd go back to Cuba.	28:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	28:09
Kate Ellis	And so they stayed in the boarding house.	28:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Now, they got Filipinos.	28:12
Kate Ellis	Working in these fields.	28:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Going to do the sugar. You see, that's what they would come to do.	28:17
Kate Ellis	Is the sugar. What else did the Patouts grow?	28:21
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, at one time in the early years, they would grow sweet potatoes.	28:27
Kate Ellis	That they would You mean to sell?	28:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They tried cotton. They tried pepper.	28:34
Kate Ellis	In the early years.	28:41
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, in early years.	28:41
Kate Ellis	But what happened?	28:41
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, all of a sudden, they got a nice sugar cane.	28:41
Kate Ellis	I see. But when you were around in the beginning So you've picked cotton?	28:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes, indeed.	28:55
Kate Ellis	Hell, yeah.	28:55
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And pepper too.	28:57
Kate Ellis	Oh, have you?	28:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yes.	28:59
Kate Ellis	What's picking I've heard that picking pepper is a fairly, can be kind of makes your fingers hurt.	29:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. On your fingers.	29:06
Kate Ellis	What's it like? What gets you with the peppers?	29:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I didn't pick that long, but when I did pick, my fingers was all sore, and a lot of other people. But some of those girls could pick good.	29:12
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	29:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Some of those girls can pick good. They can pick, yeah.	29:25
Kate Ellis	They were good at it?	29:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	29:27
Kate Ellis	But you never got that good at it?	29:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	29:30
Kate Ellis	It hurt.	29:30
Lucille Casimore Bernard	So Ms. Patout told me, she said, "Lu, you don't have to pick pepper. You don't have to pick cotton. You don't have to." She said, "Come work for me." Well, I was working. I was doing domestic work for ladies in Patoutville, you know?	29:30
Kate Ellis	You mean for other?	29:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. And so—	29:51
Speaker 1	[indistinct 00:29:57]	29:54
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Hi.	29:59
Kate Ellis	Cutie girl.	30:01
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's a little mixed Mexican.	30:03
Kate Ellis	Oh, she's Mexican?	30:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mixed.	30:06
Kate Ellis	Mixed, oh.	30:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Her daddy Mexican.	30:09
Kate Ellis	She's working.	30:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	30:10
Kate Ellis	So you were doing domestic work, you said?	30:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	30:17
Kate Ellis	For different ladies in Patoutville.	30:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	30:17
Kate Ellis	So you lived on a plantation, but you could work off the plantation for other people?	30:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. But Mrs. Patout told me, she called me one day and she said, "Lu," she said, "Would you just like to work for me?" I said, "Yes." I said, "but I have a husband, and I have four children I have to send to school." She said, "Look," she said, "do what you got to do to your house. Send your children to school." She said, "and you come to work if it's after 12:00, it's perfectly all right with me." So I worked there until she died. That was Bobby's mother.	30:26
Kate Ellis	Okay.	31:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I was with her. She had liver cancer.	31:17
Kate Ellis	She liver cancer.	31:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. And I was with her. She had a sister had brain cancer. I went to New Orleans. I was with her, I was with her mother, and I was with her mother-in-law.	31:20
Kate Ellis	When you say you were with them, you helped all of them?	31:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Yes.	31:29
Kate Ellis	You worked for all of them?	31:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes. Well, I helped. But she and I would go to New Orleans and see about Mr. Williams, Bobby grandmother.	31:38
Kate Ellis	Her mother-in-law.	31:45
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. Oh, she was a wonderful woman, though.	31:46
Kate Ellis	The mother-in-law?	31:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, the mother.	31:51
Kate Ellis	Oh, Mrs. Patout.	31:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. I'm going to show y'all picture. She was pretty.	31:53
Kate Ellis	Oh, I'd love that. I'd love to see a picture. So she was a nice woman.	31:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. He was too. But he and I used to fuss all the time because she took He used to like to tease me.	31:59
Kate Ellis	He did?	32:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	About my race. I said, "Wait till I find something about your race."	32:08
Kate Ellis	What would he tease you about? What would he say?	32:14
Lucille Casimore Bernard	About my people, my color. And my son, one of my sons stayed in the Navy in Norfolk, Virginia for 21 years. And so I was going to see about him in Norfolk. He was sick in the hospital. So they brought me as far as Charlottesville, Virginia. But that's where his sister was living. They put me on the bus to go Norfolk. So he told his brother-in-law, he said, "Look," he said, "don't bring Lucille nowhere where she go throw it up to my face."	32:16
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He said, "Well, I'm going to bring her where I feel like bringing her. So that's when I saw I told him He used to talk about, he would tease me all the time. He used to talk about Black people. I said, I'd say, "Y'all wrote the book." I said, "We didn't write it." And so his brother-in-law brought me to the, in Norfolk Virginia, in Charlottesville where Booker T. Washington University where he built it. And then he brought me to the slave quarters.	32:56
Kate Ellis	This was in Charlottesville?	33:41
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. He brought me in the slave quarters.	33:42
Kate Ellis	Okay. This is, I'm trying to get this face. The person who brought you to the slave quarters is?	33:46
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Was his brother-in-law.	33:50
Kate Ellis	Was Mr. Patout's—	33:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Brother-in-law.	33:52
Kate Ellis	Brother-in-law, okay. Mrs. Patout's brother?	33:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, that was He was the He was Mr. William brother-in-law.	33:56
Kate Ellis	Okay.	34:01
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Bobby daddy brother-in-law.	34:03
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. Okay.	34:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They only a only a brother and a sister.	34:06
Kate Ellis	I see. And so he brought you, he took you around Charlottesville.	34:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	34:13
Kate Ellis	He took you to the slave quarters.	34:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	The slave quarters. I said, I told Mr. William, "I didn't believe, I believe everything that " What's the name of the history? I said, "Because I never read no Black history. I'd read White history." So we went there, and I asked that old man. He had been there all his life, and if you'd give him a quarter or 50 cents, he would show you what happened.	34:16
Kate Ellis	What life was like—	34:44
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	34:45
Kate Ellis	in the slave quarters.	34:45
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And he brought us in the house where the real Black people used to live in. And he said, I said, "Well, what about when they had children?" I said, "Where they were doing?"	34:47
Kate Ellis	What about when they had children?	35:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Because you see, this place had four little rooms to the top and four little room to the bottom, two stories. And he said, "If a mother was about to break a child, all of the husband and children would get in the corner, and she would be in this corner, birthing the child."	35:10
Kate Ellis	Wow.	35:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And-	35:28
Kate Ellis	This is an old man—	35:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes.	35:29
Kate Ellis	who grew up on this plantation.	35:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes. Yes.	35:32
Kate Ellis	Had he been a slave?	35:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. He was a slave. But he said he wasn't going to leave because he didn't know where to go. And his master said he could stay for the rest of his life. Well, his daughter and son-in-law was living in a big house. And this old man would take care of this piece of ground.	35:35
Kate Ellis	He would take care of the	36:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	36:00
Kate Ellis	I didn't hear what you said.	36:01
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yep. He would take care of the surrounding that they told him he could. He said that was for him, but it wasn't for him. But long as he lived, he could stay in that house. He showed us Little William was with us. He showed us the pans. It was all rust and everything, but they used to eat out. He showed us the forks. He showed us the You ever seen straight razor strap that you sharpen your razor on?	36:02
Kate Ellis	Say it again? The what?	36:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It's a strap that you sharpen your razor on.	36:39
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	36:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It's a straight You heard of that?	36:48
Kate Ellis	I've heard of it,	36:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Well, he had a bunch of them hanging inside the wall. So I said, "Well, I just read not too long ago that when ladies got too pregnant and couldn't do nothing, they were laid across a hole and whipped." He said, "Yes, ma'am. They'd be out there, and they had a whole line of them." He said, "Yes, ma'am. That's true."	36:48
Kate Ellis	They would whip the pregnant women?	37:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They would whip the pregnant women.	37:13
Kate Ellis	Who were slaves.	37:14
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And I saw all of that stuff. I saw all of it.	37:14
Kate Ellis	What did you think when you saw it?	37:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, we couldn't do nothing about it. It's just something you look and believe that it was really true. And I forgot the name of the hotel in New Orleans where the blocks is still there, where the mulatto women used to put their daughters on the block and the White man took his choice.	37:30
Kate Ellis	Of the mulatto daughters.	37:54
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. That was the truth.	37:54
Kate Ellis	So you went by there as well.	37:54
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.	37:54
Kate Ellis	That's interesting that Mr Patout or the father, the son, the brother-in-law had taken you to see all that.	38:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	38:20
Kate Ellis	Why did he take you to see all that?	38:21
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Because I wanted to.	38:22
Kate Ellis	Because you asked him.	38:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I had read it, and Mr. William kept telling me it wasn't true.	38:24
Kate Ellis	Who told you it wasn't true?	38:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mr. William, Bobby's daddy. But he used to like to tease me. And he said, "Oh, that's not true, Lu." He said, "Don't believe everything you read." I said, "Oh no?" So when Mr. Pat was his brother-in-law. He brought me. When we came back, he said, "Pat, what Lucille think about her people in town?" He said, "Well, I didn't bring her to see them people." He said, "I brought her to see the slave quarters." He said, "Pat, why you did me that?" He said, "I'll never hear end of that." I said, "Well, it's the truth." And it was the truth.	38:29
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Well, I mean, is it I would guess that the Patout family a long time ago had slaves?	39:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	39:20
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	39:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I guess so. I don't know. I don't remember that.	39:24
Kate Ellis	But it's possible.	39:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	39:29
Kate Ellis	Just because he said when we talked Mr. Bobby Patout here, when he had said that this family had had this plantation since 1925, and slavery goes to about '65.	39:30
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	39:40
Kate Ellis	As you know. So, huh	39:40
Lucille Casimore Bernard	A lot of our people He had White slavery too, you know.	39:46
Kate Ellis	Where? Here?	39:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Yeah.	39:54
Kate Ellis	Wow. On these plantations there were White slaves, you think?	39:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't think so.	40:08
Kate Ellis	But there was White slavery.	40:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	There was White slavery, yeah.	40:08
Kate Ellis	Do you think it was as bad as Black slavery?	40:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't know. I don't think so. They sold them; that's just as bad. I don't see nothing different in selling them. Yeah. Just so they didn't let them die in a hole and all that stuff.	40:16
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	40:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But we come from a long ways.	40:36
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Things are a lot different now.	40:39
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes, indeed. Like, you see right out there? On the ground out there, way out there.	40:42
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	40:49
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They had two brick tombs. They on the ground. We never knew when they went on there. They on the ground.	40:50
Kate Ellis	Wait, two tombs?	40:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh, brick tombs.	40:59
Kate Ellis	Of?	41:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And I tried to find out if it was Who was in it, and who I can't get none of them to dig that up and find out.	41:01
Kate Ellis	Really? But what? You think they might be slaves or something?	41:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't think so.	41:12
Kate Ellis	Well, who do you thinks buried there?	41:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	During the time when the war was on, I guess people was hiding they stuff, the rich people.	41:16
Kate Ellis	Oh wait, but when you say that's tombs, I thought you meant tombs, like of dead people.	41:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, they brick tombs. You see the church, the Catholic church, used to be in the middle of the quarters down there. And every year when my stepfather and his buddy would ditch out the ditches, they would find coffins in the ditches, take them, and put them out on top of the ground and dig the ditches out and put them back.	41:28
Kate Ellis	Wow.	41:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	41:55
Kate Ellis	Wow. That's amazing. So there were coffins in the ditches. Did they have a guess at who was buried there?	41:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No. Nobody tried to find out.	42:05
Kate Ellis	They had just come back and say, "We found a coffin."	42:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	42:11
Kate Ellis	And then buried it again.	42:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Well, they didn't know who was buried there, but the White folks know who was buried there.	42:13
Kate Ellis	The White folks do know.	42:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, sure do. Now, I don't know if any alive today that knows, but they knew then.	42:21
Kate Ellis	White folks did know.	42:26
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	42:26
Kate Ellis	I wonder if it's likely that it would've been Black folks in the coffins because there was no headstone or cross or anything.	42:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, it was through the Catholic church, and they moved it in Patoutville.	42:39
Kate Ellis	They moved the Catholic church—	42:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	From here.	42:51
Kate Ellis	off the quarters—	42:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	42:53
Kate Ellis	into Patoutville.	42:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Um-hmm.	42:54
Kate Ellis	What was the name of the Catholic church?	42:54
Lucille Casimore Bernard	St. Nicholas on Grand Marais out there, where one priest fought them all away and he got them to move the church.	42:57
Kate Ellis	Is that, do you need to get that?	43:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	43:09
Kate Ellis	Let me So I want to just get this straight about the St. Nicholas Church. It used to be on the slave, not the slave, the quarters here.	43:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	43:20
Kate Ellis	And then it was moved into Patoutville,	43:21
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	43:22
Kate Ellis	Which is And that's the church that people go to from Grand Marais?	43:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	43:30
Kate Ellis	Because I know that Grand Marais I guess there are a lot of Catholics who live in Grand Marais.	43:30
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, yeah, they're all Catholic.	43:34
Kate Ellis	Okay. And so they all go to the church. But so did the people from Grand Marais used to come to the church—	43:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	In Patoutville?	43:41
Kate Ellis	But they used to come to the church The church is now in Patoutville?	43:43
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, it's in Lydia.	43:47
Kate Ellis	Okay, I see. So first the church was here, then they moved it to Patoutville, and then they moved it to Lydia.	43:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Lydia, yeah.	43:57
Kate Ellis	When the church was in these quarters, did people from Grand Marais come here?	43:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't remember. I don't know.	44:04
Kate Ellis	Okay.	44:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Because it was gone by the time I come to the world.	44:06
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see.	44:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. And my stepfather told us about it. He said that Mrs. Patout, the old lady gave a piece of ground for the little Methodist church, the Catholic church, and the Baptist church.	44:09
Kate Ellis	Okay. Now, the Methodist church What's the name of the Methodist church?	44:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	St. Matthews? It's not in the audit. The storm blew it down and nobody ever came to say nothing about.	44:40
Kate Ellis	Oh, so it just—	44:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It just got a little graveyard.	44:55
Kate Ellis	But the Baptist church.	44:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes.	44:59
Kate Ellis	That's the one you go to.	44:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	45:00
Kate Ellis	And that was Mount Carmel.	45:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	45:03
Kate Ellis	And that's in Patoutville.	45:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Yeah, that's in, yeah.	45:07
Kate Ellis	And then she—	45:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	40 Apple Road.	45:08
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry? On the	45:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	40 Apple Road.	45:12
Kate Ellis	Okay.	45:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But that's in that in Patoutville.	45:13
Kate Ellis	Okay. And then, so she gave land, the grandmother Patout.	45:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Her tomb would be in the middle of the church. So when-	45:23
Kate Ellis	Middle of the Catholic church?	45:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. So when Father Abad fought them to put it to Grand Marais, they left her tomb there. It's still there. You can see it from the road.	45:29
Kate Ellis	So the grandmother is too?	45:49
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes.	45:50
Kate Ellis	It's by the church.	45:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	45:52
Kate Ellis	It's by the church, St. Nicholas—	45:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	45:54
Kate Ellis	that used to stand in Patoutville.	45:54
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. The graveyard is still there.	45:56
Kate Ellis	Oh, the whole graveyard.	45:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	46:00
Kate Ellis	Is that where a lot of the Patouts are buried?	46:01
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	46:03
Kate Ellis	I think I'll go by there.	46:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It's Mrs. Patout and they have mausoleum they just completed not long.	46:09
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	46:12
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They have a mausoleum, you know?	46:13
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see. What was the grandmother Patout's first name?	46:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Miss Pauline Patout.	46:22
Kate Ellis	Pauline? I think I'll look for her. She was the grandmother. So she gave a piece of land to Who did she give the land to?	46:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't know. That's all they ever told me. I don't know.	46:41
Kate Ellis	But was it.	46:44

Kate Ellis	Did she give the land to Black people, or was it more to the church parishioners?	0:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I guess that's the way it was.	0:10
Kate Ellis	Which?	0:12
Lucille Casimore Bernard	To the church parishioners.	0:13
Kate Ellis	I see.	0:14
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But to build three churches, because that's all the churches they had at that time. Catholic, Methodist, and Baptist.	0:16
Kate Ellis	I see. Okay. She made sure that one was built for each of those groups?	0:26
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. That's right.	0:30
Kate Ellis	Interesting.	0:30
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	0:32
Kate Ellis	What do you mean about Father Adera fighting to have it put—	0:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Have St. Nicholas moved.	0:39
Kate Ellis	From Patoutville?	0:39
Lucille Casimore Bernard	To Lydia.	0:42
Kate Ellis	Why did he want to have it moved?	0:43
Lucille Casimore Bernard	We don't know bought it. They fought that a long time.	0:45
Kate Ellis	Who fought it?	0:49
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But he moved it. Miss Patout and them.	1:05
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see.	1:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Bobby's mother.	1:05
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see. Mrs. Patout. The woman that you worked for?	1:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	The first one.	1:05
Kate Ellis	That you were close to?	1:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	1:05
Kate Ellis	She wanted to keep it here.	1:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	All the Patouts around. But they fought it for him not to move it, but he moved it. He got it moved.	1:07
Kate Ellis	I wonder why that is? I wonder why he wanted to have it moved?	1:14
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't know.	1:28
Kate Ellis	Do you think that the people in Grand Marais are glad that it's in Lydia/	1:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, of course, they are.	1:28
Kate Ellis	Why? Because it's close—	1:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Because they think they're White.	1:28
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	1:30
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They think they're White. They're stupid.	1:30
Kate Ellis	They think they're White?	1:39
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. But when the church was up here in Patoutville, we had a friend, me and my girlfriend had a friend. We would come and they were Catholics from St. Martin's then, and we would go to church. I don't care how many seats was, but it was amped. The White folk didn't come to their seat and mulattoes couldn't sit in.	1:39
Kate Ellis	Which church was this?	2:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	St. Nicholas in Patoutville.	2:05
Kate Ellis	Oh. Even though you're saying the mulattoes like in Grand Marais thought they're White.	2:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They think they—	2:17
Kate Ellis	The White people in the church wouldn't let them sit with them?	2:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, they aren't.	2:30
Kate Ellis	Why do they think they're White?	2:30
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't know. But they do.	2:33
Kate Ellis	Why? How do they act?	2:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They act like they won't have nothing to do with Black people. They got their own little world.	2:33
Kate Ellis	Really?	2:41
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Married cousins and first cousins and second cousins. Yeah.	2:41
Kate Ellis	You mean just to kind of keep—	2:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, just to kind of keep it in.	2:48
Kate Ellis	Keep with each other?	2:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's right. That's right.	2:52
Kate Ellis	Stay light maybe?	2:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	2:54
Kate Ellis	Oh, is that what you were saying? I remember when we started talking, you said that, I don't know if this is what you were thinking of, but you had said that in older times people didn't try to act like they were better than other people.	2:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-uh. Not here.	3:15
Kate Ellis	Is this what you were referring to as far as these days people do act like they're better?	3:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yes, yes, yes. I don't understand. I've known, now the younger generation, they act better. But them older generation, they thought they was White. I told them, Mr. William, I said, "You mulattoes think they're White." I said, "But I can tell them they ain't White, and I can tell them how they got that." He said, "How they got that?" I said, "Well, you know one thing?"	3:23
Kate Ellis	We what?	4:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I said, "You know one thing?" I said, "The reason why they the color they is," I said, "because the more women used to go stay in the house and then when the mistress would die, they'll still stay in the house."	4:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	4:33
Kate Ellis	That's how they got—	4:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's right. Yeah. But they got something out of it. They got a piece of land. But they could use land that they could give to their children. Yeah.	4:42
Kate Ellis	The mulatto children?	4:55
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	4:57
Kate Ellis	I mean, the children of the—	4:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's right. That's right.	5:01
Kate Ellis	The father and the Black mistress.	5:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	The mistress. That's right.	5:05
Kate Ellis	They got land. They got the land from their daddy?	5:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. It was, well I'm sure the old man promised the mother land, and just went down from one to the other. Oo, Lordy.	5:11
Kate Ellis	Yeah. The folks in Grand Marais have land?	5:26
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. They have land and beautiful homes and everything.	5:29
Kate Ellis	They got it from the—	5:35
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	5:36
Kate Ellis	Well, let me ask you a delicate question. Do you think that any of those you don't think You want me to turn this off?	5:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Huh?	5:49
Kate Ellis	You got to look at some?	5:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Let me.	5:52
Kate Ellis	Let me unhook you. Don't answer this question if you don't want, because I'm not trying to get into their business at all. I mean, at all. Is it possible that the Patouts might have, any of the Patouts? I mean, do you think anybody in Grand Marais could be related to somebody from the Patout family?	5:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't think so.	6:10
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	6:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't think so because no.	6:12
Kate Ellis	You don't think they'd do that kind of thing?	6:21
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Now, maybe they'll do it, but I don't think so because I was with them a long time. We went to all different places in Mexico and everywhere. But I don't know nothing. I'm sure she wouldn't, but if he could, I guess, he would. A man is a man.	6:28
Kate Ellis	Right You mean Mr. Patout?	6:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.	6:49
Kate Ellis	Men will be men?	6:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Men will be men, yes, he will.	6:53
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those funny questions because on some level you never know.	6:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, yeah, that's true.	7:02
Kate Ellis	You can take a guess. Yeah. Well, that sounds like an interesting community.	7:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	7:11
Kate Ellis	Right nearby us.	7:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. Yeah.	7:14
Kate Ellis	What else was I was going to ask you about? We've gone over most of the topics. I was going to ask you more about your work in the home. It sounds like you worked very closely with the Patouts?	7:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh yes, and with her. She and I could work together so good. She knew when I was dissatisfied or when I was sad, and when I worked for all those years, every morning I would walk in say, "How are you today?" She said, "Fine, Lu, how are you?" I said, and she could tell when I was happy, and when I was unhappy. I could tell when she was unhappy, and she and I could work together because she used to like to party.	7:36
Kate Ellis	She liked to?	8:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, she used to like to party.	8:21
Kate Ellis	To party?	8:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	8:25
Kate Ellis	Is that what you said?	8:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	8:25
Kate Ellis	To have parties?	8:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	To have parties.	8:25
Kate Ellis	Okay.	8:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	She and I could put it together, and her sister-in-law would say, "Well, I could have parties like Hester if Lucille was with me." I said, "Yeah, y'all keep saying that." I say, "Y'all talk like Miss Hester don't do nothing." I said, "She does. Oh, yeah."	8:28
Kate Ellis	She works too?	8:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	She would work too. Yeah. Mm-hmm.	8:48
Kate Ellis	Let me stop for one second, I want to check the sound on this. You'd help her organize parties?	8:55
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh yeah. Mm-hmm.	8:57
Kate Ellis	You'd cook and?	8:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yep. Yeah. She could make all those fancy dishes. You know?	8:57
Kate Ellis	Did you make fancy dishes, too? Or was she the—	9:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, we'd work together.	9:13
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	9:14
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. We would work together. She was a nice person. When she got sick, she didn't want nobody to see her but me.	9:18
Kate Ellis	She didn't want anybody, I'm sorry?	9:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	9:25
Kate Ellis	I didn't hear what you just said.	9:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	She didn't want nobody to take care of her but me, so I stuck with her. She was a wonderful person.	9:26
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Was it hard when she died? Did you miss her?	9:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. I still stayed working for him twice a week. He said, "You don't have to come here every day." He said, "I know Miss Hester told you to see about me," he said, "but I twice a week is plenty enough." I said, "Well, I'm glad you pay me my same money."	9:42
Kate Ellis	He does?	10:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, he did.	10:02
Kate Ellis	He did?	10:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	10:04
Kate Ellis	Did they give you a decent wage? Did they pay you okay?	10:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Oh, yeah.	10:07
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh?	10:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh, and still paying me.	10:07
Kate Ellis	Really?	10:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	10:07
Kate Ellis	You what you needed?	10:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. Oh, yes.	10:07
Kate Ellis	Tell me something else. I'm mean, you helped, you raised her boys?	10:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes.	10:27
Kate Ellis	Tell me what you would do with them. How much you were with her boys and—	10:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, well, I was there all day, practically. Or when they would go off somewhere, I would stay with the boys, especially that one that left here. He's so obedient. He was so obedient.	10:35
Kate Ellis	Really?	10:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yes. He's wonderful.	10:53
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. It seems like you're close.	10:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. Because I told him when he came over, I said, "Well, where in the world y'all going?" He said, "I went to New Orleans." He said, "I ain't going to do that no more. No, I'm going to call you when I leave," he said.	11:06
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	11:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I had left on their machine, I called, and his secretary to the office. I wanted to talk to Billy, but Billy and his wife in Europe, going to Russia, child.	11:20
Kate Ellis	Really? Traveling the world.	11:35
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes. I told her, so she called his house. He said, "Well, you didn't tell Lucille you was going? She asked where you was." He came over here right away.	11:38
Kate Ellis	Huh.	11:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He got a nice wife, too.	11:56
Kate Ellis	Really?	11:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	She's from San Antonio.	11:58
Kate Ellis	They've got one daughter?	12:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	One daughter.	12:01
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:12:03]. She wrote that letter.	12:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Nice child.	12:03
Kate Ellis	Now, she's at Duke University.	12:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	She was.	12:05
Kate Ellis	Oh, she was at Duke University.	12:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	She graduated from there.	12:09
Kate Ellis	That's so funny that he didn't say anything when I told him that I was at Duke.	12:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	12:12
Kate Ellis	I wonder what he thought?	12:12
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't know.	12:13
Kate Ellis	Huh? Well, what, why? I mean, he seems like a really I mean, it was nice to meet him.	12:16
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	12:22
Kate Ellis	I was glad to meet him.	12:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	12:22
Kate Ellis	I'm just curious. I mean, I was wondering. I don't know why he thought he'd be here to, I don't know, he said stir up trouble. I wasn't sure.	12:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, no. He said the reason why I said what you said I said, but I would talk about myself.	12:34
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	12:43
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He said, well, he say, "She didn't know if it was somebody stir up trouble," they have done it before. Girls can come. Not with me, but other people in the quarter.	12:43
Kate Ellis	What kind of trouble?	13:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, they would ask them things and tell them, well, they would ask them how they were living and will they fix their houses and stuff like that? They'll just go from their big mouth and know they ain't going nowhere. They say, "Oh, they ain't going to never fix the house. They ain't going to never do this. They ain't going to never do that." But this is those people houses, fix them as they want. Anywhere else, you got to pay to have them fixed. But you see my house?	13:01
Kate Ellis	This?	13:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	This house is rebuilt. It burnt down flat.	13:36
Kate Ellis	It burnt down?	13:40
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. My husband and I was sitting in the room, I was eating and I heard something pop. Earl said, "What is that?" I said, "I don't know." He went out, and he looked, but he didn't see nothing. It started in the washhouse where the hot water tank is. The girls next door saying, "Lucille, y'all get out there because the house is burning."	13:42
Kate Ellis	Oh, no.	14:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, and we lost everything.	14:11
Kate Ellis	Oh, no. That must have been	14:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Ms. William used to tease me all the time, "You burnt my house down, I had to build you another house." I said, "I ain't burnt no house down."	14:18
Kate Ellis	How long ago was that that it burnt down?	14:26
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Let's see, about six years.	14:31
Kate Ellis	Six years?	14:32
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	14:32
Kate Ellis	This was old man William? This is the old William?	14:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Uh-huh.	14:36
Kate Ellis	The man who always teased you?	14:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Uh-huh.	14:38
Kate Ellis	Wow.	14:40
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He rebuilt the house. I didn't think he was going to rebuild it.	14:44
Kate Ellis	What did you think he'd do?	14:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, there was a plantation household. The stockholders had to agree to build it. You see?	14:51
Kate Ellis	The stockholders had to rebuild it?	14:55
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No. Had to agree that he—	14:57
Kate Ellis	Had to agree?	14:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That he rebuilt it.	15:00
Kate Ellis	The stockholders?	15:01
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	15:02
Kate Ellis	Oh, stockholders in the company.	15:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Uh-huh.	15:03
Kate Ellis	Had to agree to the expense of rebuilding the house?	15:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's right. After it was built and everything he told Earl, me and my husband, he said, "Now, you know" he said, "Lucille got a house to staying for the rest of her life and so do you, but if you leave, you ain't got no house up there."	15:07
Kate Ellis	I see he built you a brick house?	15:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. The other one was brick, too.	15:31
Kate Ellis	Oh, it was? Okay. Because these houses are wooden houses.	15:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	15:36
Kate Ellis	How come you get a brick house?	15:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, I tell you what, I used to live down there, way down there. Ms. Patout, she wanted me to sit with the boys, so she wanted me to come and serve supper or something, she would've had to go down there. She got stuck down in the mud. When they was building this house, she came to the carpenter and she asked, "But who is city building this house for?" He said, "Well, I don't know." She said, "Well, I know who." She said, "I'm going right now to the office." She said, "I want Lucille to live in this house. I'm not going back down there." I've been here since.	15:41
Kate Ellis	How long? That was a long time ago, huh?	16:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That was over 20 years.	16:19
Kate Ellis	Wow.	16:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	16:22
Kate Ellis	Huh.	16:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	16:22
Kate Ellis	Was it a relief to be able to work in the home instead of in the fields?	16:26
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.	16:33
Kate Ellis	Is that kind of a step-up, in a sense—	16:35
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	16:36
Kate Ellis	to be able to work in the home?	16:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. In the home. That's right. And then you see, I worked in the boarding house. I was cook the boarding house, doing grinding. I sewed shelter press bags, doing grinding. And then before, all those years before that, well I wasting a field. Corn, sugar cane, cutting sugar cane. Oh, yeah.	16:43
Kate Ellis	Wow. You've really done all sorts of—	17:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	17:09
Kate Ellis	jobs here.	17:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	17:10
Kate Ellis	Well, how old were you when you stopped working in the fields?	17:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	15.	17:17
Kate Ellis	15?	17:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	17:19
Kate Ellis	When you're 15, you went from working in the fields to doing what?	17:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	To working in the boarding house.	17:24
Kate Ellis	In the boarding house as a cook?	17:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	17:32
Kate Ellis	Okay. And then from the boarding house as a cook, how long did you do that for?	17:32
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, after grinding, I would go back to Miss Patout. You see? And work.	17:39
Kate Ellis	Oh, boarding house cook during grinding. I get it. For the first few years of your life, it was the fields, then it was the boarding house as a cook, and then also domestic.	17:43
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	17:55
Kate Ellis	In the house.	17:55
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's right.	17:56
Kate Ellis	For Mrs. Patout, but then for other families off the plantation?	17:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But the same thing.	18:00
Kate Ellis	But the same work.	18:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, the same work.	18:01
Kate Ellis	Was the pay better than working in the fields?	18:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	18:06
Kate Ellis	Yeah?	18:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	18:07
Kate Ellis	Is it double the amount that you work—	18:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Just about.	18:10
Kate Ellis	I see. Even if it's not double, it's still better?	18:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Better. Yes, indeed.	18:14
Kate Ellis	And then, I see. But then, what about the part when you were doing sewing and the grinding, around how old were you when you were doing those kinds of jobs?	18:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, well I already had my children.	18:27
Kate Ellis	I see.	18:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	18:27
Kate Ellis	It sounds like you had a combination of jobs all throughout.	18:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	18:36
Kate Ellis	You'd be doing grinding, sewing.	18:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	18:41
Kate Ellis	You'd be doing domestic work. You'd be doing cooking.	18:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	18:42
Kate Ellis	I see.	18:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And then all of a sudden, I stopped those other jobs, and only stayed with her.	18:44
Kate Ellis	When she called you?	18:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	18:51
Kate Ellis	Oh, that must have been good.	18:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That was good. Because she was so nice.	18:55
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	18:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. She was so nice.	18:57
Kate Ellis	Huh. Let me just, I know we've been talking for a while and we can stop soon, but I'm just curious about how you met your husband and when you got married.	19:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I got married in He was from New Iberia. What year was that? I forgot, child, I'm going to tell you the truth.	19:15
Kate Ellis	That's okay.	19:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Because I don't keep up with nothing like that.	19:33
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	19:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, I met him here. His sister and I were good friends, and his father said he was going to miss out on something good if he didn't marry me. Well, we got married.	19:38
Kate Ellis	Where did you get married?	20:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	At our church.	20:04
Kate Ellis	At Mount Carmel?	20:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	20:07
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	20:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	20:09
Kate Ellis	Did you have a little celebration?	20:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. We had a celebration and we stayed married. When he died, we was married 57 years.	20:11
Kate Ellis	Wow.	20:24
Lucille Casimore Bernard	57 years.	20:24
Kate Ellis	Wow.	20:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It wasn't all milk and honey though.	20:26
Kate Ellis	It wasn't?	20:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But I promised the good Lord that if I would have children, I would stay, keep my children in one house. You know?	20:29
Kate Ellis	Wouldn't split up?	20:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-uh.	20:37
Kate Ellis	He never left?	20:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He never left. He never left. But he did me enough for him to leave. Yeah.	20:40
Kate Ellis	Really?	20:44
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It wasn't easy. I can tell you that much.	20:44
Kate Ellis	He was—	20:44
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, he was a drunk.	20:50
Kate Ellis	Really?	20:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	20:53
Kate Ellis	That's hard.	20:55
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	20:56
Kate Ellis	That's tough.	20:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's what he was. But he would work every day of life. We never wanted for nothing, you know. But it's that drinking I didn't like.	20:57
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	21:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But he was a good man, and I had four children. One of my sons just died.	21:11
Kate Ellis	Sad. How did he die?	21:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He went to the hospital for poor circulation. He married a no-good woman, who after he got sick, she was through with him.	21:22
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	21:40
Lucille Casimore Bernard	She was through with him after	21:40
Kate Ellis	Oh, she sort of abandoned him once he was sick?	21:40
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. But me and his sister didn't abandon him. We stuck with him.	21:47
Kate Ellis	He's your baby. He's your son.	21:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Hmm?	21:48
Kate Ellis	He's your son.	21:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes, Lord. Yes, indeed. Oh, yeah.	21:48
Kate Ellis	There been some hard times in there, huh?	21:49
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. It hasn't been easy. I don't think with no marriage, it's going to be milk and honey every day. You have to work at it, and work at it hard.	21:49
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	22:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	57 years when he died, and I was in a car with him, we had just come from a doctor, paying a bill and the car stopped on us. This old boy came like lightning.	22:21
Kate Ellis	What? Oh.	22:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And hit us. But it didn't do me nothing. But it busted him up all inside. He left 13 days.	22:42
Kate Ellis	18 days after?	22:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	13 days.	22:47
Kate Ellis	Oh, 13 days.	22:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I stayed with him.	22:47
Kate Ellis	In the hospital?	22:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, and he died.	22:56
Kate Ellis	How long ago was that?	22:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Four years ago.	23:06
Kate Ellis	Four years ago? It was a car wreck. That must left you with some nightmares.	23:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It did.	23:16
Kate Ellis	Did it?	23:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It did. I'm telling you, I had some nightmares and things in the hospital. The nurse told my daughter, she said, "I don't know." She said, "Mama." It looked like the whole hospital was moving and stuff. My daughter said, "My mama need some medicine." That nurse said, "I'll tell you what," she said, "You take your mama home. Your mama been here long enough." And he died. See, he hit him on the driver's side.	23:19
Kate Ellis	He was driving?	24:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. That it has, and then my son took sick right after that. I had to see about him.	24:07
Kate Ellis	Oh.	24:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And then now I have a what you call it? What you call it?	24:17
Kate Ellis	I think what she wrote in here, an aneurysm?	24:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Aneurysm.	24:24
Kate Ellis	Wow.	24:24
Lucille Casimore Bernard	In the stomach.	24:28
Kate Ellis	Ooh.	24:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I can't do nothing. I can't sweep, can't mop, poor me, don't go over the stove and cook no food, nothing. I had one daughter and my daughter wanted me to come live with her New Iberia. But I said, "Uh-uh, I'd rather be to my own house." You know.	24:29
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	24:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I'll go sometime weekends like that.	24:50
Kate Ellis	Right.	24:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But I know it hurt her because she would like her mama to be with her.	24:53
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	24:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	She's a wonderful daughter.	24:57
Kate Ellis	She lives in the city? In New Iberia.	25:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	25:03
Kate Ellis	What is she doing in New Iberia?	25:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, she's with the senior citizen. Oh?	25:04
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	25:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	25:07
Kate Ellis	Did she doesn't work for the Council on Aging? Does she?	25:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	25:12
Kate Ellis	She does.	25:12
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	25:12
Kate Ellis	What's her name?	25:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Earlie May. Earlie May Pushaw.	25:13
Kate Ellis	I know I didn't meet her, but I went over to the Council on Aging.	25:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	You went over?	25:22
Kate Ellis	I met a few people over there. I met a guy named Baron Coleman. He's in his nineties.	25:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	25:28
Kate Ellis	Nice guy. Yeah.	25:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Well, yeah, she works. She take care of the food.	25:30
Kate Ellis	Oh, she does?	25:35
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	25:35
Kate Ellis	She does. Okay.	25:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Her office is not in the front where other girls at.	25:37
Kate Ellis	It's to back to the back?	25:39
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It's to the back.	25:39
Kate Ellis	Okay, so maybe I didn't see.	25:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh, maybe not.	25:42
Kate Ellis	Can I just ask you a couple more questions about life here? When you were coming up, what would you do about medical care? What made me think of it was when you were talking about your son and your husband.	25:46
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	26:00
Kate Ellis	How did you get care when you were young?	26:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, let me tell you, we had our doctor, Dr. Perrat.	26:03
Kate Ellis	Dr. Perrat?	26:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Perrat. P-E-R-R-A-T. His little office is still up there.	26:12
Kate Ellis	He's not there anymore?	26:24
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, no.	26:25
Kate Ellis	But his office still is there?	26:26
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. The little office is still there.	26:27
Kate Ellis	Was he like a plantation doctor? I mean, did he administer to all the people on the plantation?	26:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	On the plantation. Deliver babies.	26:33
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	26:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Yeah.	26:38
Kate Ellis	He was White. Was he White?	26:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. Uh-huh.	26:40
Kate Ellis	But he was who you'd go to if you were sick?	26:43
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. If you were sick. He'd do the best he could, you know?	26:45
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	26:49
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Because it wasn't, not like now. These doctors are so educated.	26:51
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	26:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	You have to help him pay the education.	26:58
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Yeah.	27:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But not country doctors.	27:00
Kate Ellis	Were they much better. I mean, I've heard about, and you probably know about this, I've heard about older people who knew all sorts of remedies.	27:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	27:15
Kate Ellis	As far as helping people with colds and—	27:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Well, you see, people didn't go to a doctor because they had a fever, because they had a cold or nothing like that. Because them old folks would get wild tomato root. That was for so throat.	27:16
Kate Ellis	Through wild tomato root?	27:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	27:29
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	27:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	For sore throat. Then they got something they call elder leaves.	27:30
Kate Ellis	Elder leaves?	27:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Yeah. Something they call elder leaves. They'd wrap the children up in those and break the fever.	27:38
Kate Ellis	Interesting.	27:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes. Yeah.	27:49
Kate Ellis	There were people on the plantation—	27:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	27:53
Kate Ellis	who would know—	27:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Who would know what to do.	27:54
Kate Ellis	Were they kind of like doctors too?	27:57
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Yeah. You take those span, like my granddaughter lives across. She married one of the El Salvadors.	27:59
Kate Ellis	One of the?	28:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He don't want the doctors to see about his children. He wanted do it himself with his remedy.	28:12
Kate Ellis	This is still now or?	28:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	28:20
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	28:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	28:20
Kate Ellis	You said he was a Spaniard?	28:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, he lived right there.	28:24
Kate Ellis	I see, I see. And then as far as, you told me that there were different stores in Patoutville.	28:31
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	28:33
Kate Ellis	Did you have Patout money? Was there?	28:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, Brozin, they used to call it.	28:37
Kate Ellis	What?	28:39
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Brozin.	28:39
Kate Ellis	Brozin?	28:39
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It was made like money, but they thin.	28:44
Kate Ellis	Oh.	28:44
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They had that at one time.	28:45
Kate Ellis	They were like coins?	28:54
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It didn't last long. It didn't last long.	28:55
Kate Ellis	Oh. But they were like coins or something?	28:55
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	28:56
Kate Ellis	I see. I see what you're saying when you say it didn't last long.	28:56
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-uh, it didn't last long.	29:00
Kate Ellis	They didn't do that for very long.	29:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, Uh-uh.	29:00
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see. Well, look, let me ask you, let me do this family history with you, if that's okay. Because I know we've been sitting here for a while.	29:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Okay.	29:15
Kate Ellis	Your last name is Bernard?	29:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	29:18
Kate Ellis	Okay. First name is Lucille.	29:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	29:24
Kate Ellis	What was your maiden name?	29:26
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Caismore, C-A-I-S-M-O-R-E.	29:28
Kate Ellis	Okay.	29:30
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Caismore.	29:30
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. Did you have a middle name?	29:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No.	29:38
Kate Ellis	Okay. What is this address here? What's your—	29:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Route One, Box 304.	29:45
Kate Ellis	Route One, Box 304.	29:46
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Earl Road.	29:49
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	29:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Earl Road.	29:53
Kate Ellis	Earl Road. That's Patoutville?	29:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Patoutville, yeah. Or Jeanerette, either one. They know.	30:01
Kate Ellis	Okay. Do you know your zip code? What the zip is here?	30:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	318.	30:05
Kate Ellis	318?	30:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	30:05
Kate Ellis	That's the zip code. Okay.	30:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I believe that's what it is.	30:05
Kate Ellis	Yeah. I'll take your word for it. And then "um" you're the twelfth month, sixth day, 1913. Now, you were born on this plantation, is that right?	30:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No.	30:26
Kate Ellis	Oh. What'd you tell me?	30:26
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I was born about a mile from here.	30:27
Kate Ellis	Oh.	30:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	A place they call Rosetown. One mile from Jeanerette.	30:30
Kate Ellis	Rosetown?	30:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	30:33
Kate Ellis	I've never heard of Rosetown.	30:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	30:33
Kate Ellis	Like Rose, like the flower?	30:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Rosetown.	30:33
Kate Ellis	That's near Jeanerette? But that's Iberia Parish, huh?	30:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. All of that.	30:50
Kate Ellis	Yeah. I'm going to say your occupation has been, can I say domestic work?	30:54
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Domestic work. That's what it has been.	31:12
Kate Ellis	You're widowed.	31:14
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	31:14
Kate Ellis	And your husband's name was Earl?	31:14
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes, ma'am.	31:16
Kate Ellis	Did he have a middle name?	31:16
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Earl Bernard.	31:17
Kate Ellis	Earl Bernard.	31:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	31:17
Kate Ellis	He died four years ago?	31:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	31:17
Kate Ellis	How old was he when he passed?	31:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, let me see. How old he was. He had retired. He must have been 70—something.	31:17
Kate Ellis	70-something?	31:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, I done forgot.	31:17
Kate Ellis	That's okay.	31:24
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't have remembering like I used to.	31:26
Kate Ellis	Do you think he was older than you or younger than you?	31:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, he was older than me.	31:49
Kate Ellis	Okay. I'll say—	31:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, when he died, he would've been 82 years old.	31:53
Kate Ellis	82.	31:56
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.	31:56
Kate Ellis	Okay. Where was he born?	31:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	In New Iberia.	32:01
Kate Ellis	Okay. You met him, if he was in New Iberia and you were here, how did you meet? I guess, you said you were friends with his sister.	32:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I was friends with his sister. And then they moved back out here from New Iberia here.	32:10
Kate Ellis	Onto the plantation?	32:16
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Onto the plantation. Yeah.	32:17
Kate Ellis	Oh, was that common for people to move back? New Iberia to the plantation?	32:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh. Oh, yeah.	32:20
Kate Ellis	Because I've heard more about people moving off the plantation and into New Iberia.	32:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	32:26
Kate Ellis	But there are other people who did the opposite?	32:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	The opposite. Older people. You know?	32:28
Kate Ellis	Oh.	32:31
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	32:31
Kate Ellis	But he wasn't older when he moved back?	32:31
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, but his daddy moved.	32:33
Kate Ellis	Oh, so he came with his daddy.	32:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. See, his mother died when he was 13.	32:36
Kate Ellis	Oh.	32:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	His father moved back. He took his children, but he moved back to the country.	32:43
Kate Ellis	Gotcha. As far as writing his occupation, I know he did a number of things. Should I say that he was a cook and—	32:49
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, no. Uh-uh. That's the wrong one you're writing about.	32:56
Kate Ellis	Oh, oh. Oh, you're right. Tell me about—	33:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Earl?	33:01
Kate Ellis	Oh, yeah.	33:01
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Well, he worked in the sugar refinery.	33:03
Kate Ellis	Oh. I guess I never did ask you what he did.	33:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-uh. Uh-uh.	33:09
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry.	33:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	You sure didn't.	33:09
Kate Ellis	See, my mind is slipping.	33:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He worked in the sugar—	33:09
Kate Ellis	That's what he did?	33:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	33:09
Kate Ellis	You said that he worked every day?	33:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yes.	33:18
Kate Ellis	I mean, despite his problems.	33:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Uh-huh.	33:21
Kate Ellis	He got up and went to work every day.	33:21
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Every day. Well, he didn't drink during the week.	33:22
Kate Ellis	Oh.	33:24
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It was just on weekend he would drink.	33:26
Kate Ellis	I see.	33:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	So—	33:30
Kate Ellis	The weekends were something to not look forward.	33:30
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Not look for, you're right.	33:34
Kate Ellis	Did you kind of dread? You sort of knew it was coming?	33:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I sure did.	33:38
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	33:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I sure did.	33:38
Kate Ellis	Did folks around here help you with, I mean—	33:41
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They all do.	33:44
Kate Ellis	It's a close community, so everybody knows what's going on.	33:45
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. All them old men drank. I have a grandson that is the state trooper. He said, "All of them old men make him think about his grandpa," he said. "Because you tell what you doing driving in this car? Look, mister, you're drunk." He says, "I'm not drunk. Look boy, I'm not drunk." He said, "Now, mister, I'm trying to be nice, but I'm not no boy." He said, "I'm 28 years old. I finished college at McNeese, and I finished police academy in Baton Rouge." He said, "I'm not no boy," and he'd take out his things and show them. He said, and "Look, you're trying to have his papers too."	33:47
Kate Ellis	Trying to what?	34:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Have his papers too. Them old men be full of liquor. He said, "Well, okay then come on, if you are not drunk." He said, "I'm going to put make a line with my chalk, and you walk it, and if you walk it straight," he said, "I'll let you go." He said, "I can't walk in straight. What's wrong with you?" He said, "Well, walk it, mister." He said, "Get up there, mama. This like papa all up stairs."	34:35
Kate Ellis	Weaving back and forth.	35:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Back and forth. Yeah.	35:07
Kate Ellis	That was what was most of the men around here on the weekend?	35:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	35:12
Kate Ellis	That's what they did.	35:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	35:13
Kate Ellis	They'd drink. What would the women do when this happened?	35:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Done nothing but sit down and look.	35:17
Kate Ellis	Really?	35:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Because none of them drank that I ever knew. The women folk.	35:21
Kate Ellis	I see. The men drank?	35:32
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	35:32
Kate Ellis	The folk—	35:32
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Somebody had to take care of the children, if they both would've got drunk.	35:32
Kate Ellis	Where'd they get their booze from?	35:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, when the store was open, they used to buy wine and whatever it was could afford.	35:36
Kate Ellis	Did that ever cut into the family budget?	35:46
Lucille Casimore Bernard	A lot of them.	35:49
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	35:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Not me.	35:50
Kate Ellis	Really?	35:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-uh.	35:52
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh, but for some people—	35:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It did. Yes, it did.	35:56
Kate Ellis	Kept food off plates?	35:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	36:01
Kate Ellis	What about your stepfather? Was he?	36:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He didn't drink. Mm-mm.	36:08
Kate Ellis	He was good?	36:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, he didn't drink. He was the best stepfather, because my mama had two children for him. Three of us was not his. He promised her all of us a whipping, we never got it all our lives.	36:09
Kate Ellis	Really? He just threatened to whip you?	36:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	He threatened to whip us. If we said something we didn't want to eat, and mama would say, "You got to eat it." My stepfather say, "Well, if they don't want it, don't ever make a child eat what they don't want," and he'll get up and go cook what we say we wanted to eat.	36:31
Kate Ellis	Really?	36:49
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. That's how good it was.	36:50
Kate Ellis	Wow.	36:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I guess, that's the way I was with my children.	36:53
Kate Ellis	Really?? What happened to your mother's first husband, to your father?	36:56
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I don't know. I never saw him. I don't know.	37:06
Kate Ellis	You were real—	37:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I didn't look for him either.	37:10
Kate Ellis	Yeah. But you don't think he died?	37:12
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, he died.	37:14
Kate Ellis	What I mean is, I mean—	37:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, he have a bunch of other children.	37:19
Kate Ellis	He has a bunch of other children?	37:21
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. He have a bunch of other children.	37:21
Kate Ellis	You know who his children are?	37:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.	37:28
Kate Ellis	I guess, what I meant is it's not like he'd gotten in an accident and was killed?	37:30
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, no. Uh-uh.	37:33
Kate Ellis	He was around and he left?	37:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	37:36
Kate Ellis	Was he living on the plantation?	37:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No. I don't know when my mama met him.	37:42
Kate Ellis	Sounds like she had much better luck the second time around.	37:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	37:49
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	37:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	She sure did.	37:51
Kate Ellis	That's good. That's good. Well, let me ask you, okay. Earl's, I'm sorry, Mr. Bernard's occupation was, well, let's say worked in sugar refinery?	37:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	38:07
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Okay. And then what was your mother's name?	38:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Lettie.	38:18
Kate Ellis	Lettie?	38:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Lettie Carrie.	38:20
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	38:21
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Lettie Carrie. C-A-R-R-I-E, L-E-T-T-I-E.	38:21
Kate Ellis	Oh, Lettie Carrie, and Lettie Carrie Bernard, I mean, not Bernard.	38:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Caismore.	38:32
Kate Ellis	Caismore. What was her maiden name?	38:39
Lucille Casimore Bernard	What was her maiden name?	38:42
Kate Ellis	Yeah, her maiden name.	38:43
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Carrie.	38:46
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I thought that Carrie was her middle name.	38:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-mm. Mm-mm.	38:49
Kate Ellis	Okay. I don't guess that when she was born. Do you know about when she was born?	38:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I used to know, but I done forgot.	39:03
Kate Ellis	Well, let me ask it this way.	39:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	When she died, she was 65.	39:06
Kate Ellis	Okay. That's great. What year did she die? Or about what year did she die? It doesn't have to be exact.	39:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	You know, Earl used to say all the time, "Always keep papers. Maybe they may not look, you may not have to use them again." He say, "But always keep your papers." You see, I should have kept all them.	39:21
Kate Ellis	Because then somebody like me would come along.	39:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	39:44
Kate Ellis	Ask your about this stuff. Look, if you don't I'm sorry, go ahead.	39:44
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But I really can't. I remember because, when she was 65 years old, that's when they started to painting. Old folks painting.	39:48
Kate Ellis	Oh.	40:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I went and read it to my mama, and I had to send to Kansas City to get her birth certificate. I don't know where none of that No, it burned up in the house.	40:00
Kate Ellis	Oh, right. Because your house—	40:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's what happened. Yeah.	40:11
Kate Ellis	But do you think she died 20 years ago?	40:14
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	40:17
Kate Ellis	At least 20 years ago?	40:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. At least 20. Yeah. Both of them.	40:19
Kate Ellis	Both of okay.	40:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	40:23
Kate Ellis	Okay. Okay. About 65 when she died. Where was she from?	40:24
Lucille Casimore Bernard	She was from Jeanerette.	40:39
Kate Ellis	Okay.	40:40
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Ain't that something?	40:48
Kate Ellis	We got that on tape. All right.	40:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, you got it on tape?	40:50
Kate Ellis	Yeah, I can bring that to New York.	40:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes, indeed.	40:58
Kate Ellis	You know what I should do? I could wake up to it every morning.	40:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. You're getting it, child.	40:58
Kate Ellis	Play it for myself. Okay. Her occupation was?	41:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Domestic.	41:08
Kate Ellis	Domestic, too.	41:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	41:18
Kate Ellis	Okay. And then your father's name was? What was your father's name?	41:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Walter Caismore.	41:21
Kate Ellis	I've got a caterpillar on my pen. He died around the time that your mother died?	41:31
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, before, about two years before.	41:35
Kate Ellis	This was a long time ago?	41:39
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	41:41
Kate Ellis	You don't know when he was—	41:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No.	41:44
Kate Ellis	Okay. That's all right. Where was he from?	41:46
Lucille Casimore Bernard	From Rosetown. Right up there—	41:54
Kate Ellis	Okay. Rosetown.	41:55
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	41:56
Kate Ellis	That's so funny that I've never Rosetown is in Iberia?	41:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Huh?	41:59
Kate Ellis	Rosetown is in Iberia Parish?	41:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Oh, all of that is in Iberia Parish.	42:02
Kate Ellis	Now, your father was the one I had meant to refer to. He was a cook and a farm laborer?	42:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	My stepfather?	42:14
Kate Ellis	I mean, your step Yeah, that's what I'm asking.	42:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	42:18
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	42:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	42:19
Kate Ellis	What should I put for his occupation is one, should I say that he was a?	42:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, he was a cook.	42:26
Kate Ellis	Worked the sugar refinery.	42:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, he worked at the sugar refinery. That's right, in the boiler room.	42:30
Kate Ellis	Okay. And then, oh, there's something else I just going to ask you. I don't know. Okay. What were your brothers and sister's names?	42:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, I had two brothers and we were three sisters.	42:57
Kate Ellis	Okay.	43:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	My older sister was named Daisy.	43:03
Kate Ellis	Daisy.	43:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Caismore. My name was Lucille Caismore.	43:05
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	43:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	My brother, one of them was Caismore.	43:16
Kate Ellis	His name?	43:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Johnny Caismore.	43:21
Kate Ellis	Okay. And then who else?	43:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	My sister, Nancy William.	43:28
Kate Ellis	Now, that William, that was?	43:35
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's her marriage name. That's right. You don't want the marriage name?	43:36
Kate Ellis	No, I can have The marriage name is fine.	43:40
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	43:40
Kate Ellis	It's fine. Daisy never got married?	43:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, no.	43:44
Kate Ellis	Okay.	43:44
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-mm.	43:45
Kate Ellis	Nancy?	43:45
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Nancy have 12 children.	43:46
Kate Ellis	Oh, wow.	43:49
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes, indeed. But she's in a wheelchair.	43:49
Kate Ellis	Oh.	43:49
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And then Clarence Antoine, that's a brother.	43:56
Kate Ellis	Clarence Hebner?	44:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, Antoine. Antoine.	44:03
Kate Ellis	Antoine?	44:03
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	44:04
Kate Ellis	Whose last name? That was by your stepfather? Whose last name was Antoine?	44:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Clarence. That's stepfather.	44:12
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry.	44:12
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's my stepfather son.	44:16
Kate Ellis	Oh, I thought that your stepfather's name—	44:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Nancy Antoine. Nancy William is his daughter. That's all. He only had two children.	44:21
Kate Ellis	Okay. I'm sorry. I thought that the so you kept your birth father's name.	44:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Hmm?	44:37
Kate Ellis	Well, as far as the last name, as far as your maiden name is concerned?	44:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	44:44
Kate Ellis	Is this the name of Oh, I see. It's your mother's. No, no, no. As far as your stepfather's name?	44:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Lando Antoine.	44:58
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. When I wrote down your father's name, I was writing down your real father's name.	45:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.	45:07
Kate Ellis	Okay. As far as what I put for the occupation, I might have put something wrong then.	45:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Maybe so.	45:13
Kate Ellis	When I was putting down the occupation, I was putting on down the occupation of your stepfather.	45:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.	45:19
Kate Ellis	Okay. Let me fix that. But your father, Walter Caismore, you know that he was from Rosetown?	45:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	45:31
Kate Ellis	But you don't know anything else about him?	45:32
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No.	45:33
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry.	45:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's okay.	45:35
Kate Ellis	You don't know what he did for a living?	45:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-uh. Mama never talked about him.	45:37
Kate Ellis	No, I wouldn't expect that she would. Okay. Nancy Antoine Williams, Clarence Antoine. Were there any others?	45:40
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No.	45:47
Kate Ellis	Okay.	45:49
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Just them two.	45:49
Kate Ellis	Okay. Okay. And then what are the names of your children?	45:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, Earlie May.	46:01
Kate Ellis	Earlie May?	46:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	46:05
Kate Ellis	E-A-R—	46:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	—L-I-E. E-A-R-L-I-E.	46:05
Kate Ellis	Earlie May.	46:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Pushaw. Don't you ask me to spell it.	46:05
Kate Ellis	Okay.	46:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Because I don't know.	46:05
Kate Ellis	Say it to me one more time and I'll see if I figure it out.	46:19
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Pushaw.	46:20
Kate Ellis	Pushaw.	46:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Now, I got a card, if you really have to have it.	46:23
Kate Ellis	I don't really have to have it.	46:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh, because I had one of her cards.	46:26
Kate Ellis	Okay.	46:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And then I have Roland Green.	46:33
Kate Ellis	Rolland Green?	46:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. And Nathaniel Green.	46:39

Kate Ellis	— How many grandchildren do you have?	0:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I think 16.	0:02
Kate Ellis	Okay. What are the names of your children?	0:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, my children?	0:10
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	0:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, that's what I was giving you. Ella Mae Broussard—	0:11
Kate Ellis	Okay.	0:12
Lucille Casimore Bernard	— and Roland Green, and who else?	0:14
Kate Ellis	But so Roland Green is your—	0:21
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It's my daughter's son.	0:22
Kate Ellis	Okay. What I'm wondering is, just tell me what the name of your own child are, not your grandchildren.	0:24
Lucille Casimore Bernard	My children?	0:28
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	0:28
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Ella Mae, that's my daughter.	0:31
Kate Ellis	Okay. Do you have any other—	0:32
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Yeah, I've got two boys living.	0:33
Kate Ellis	Okay. Their names—	0:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Frederick Bernard.	0:38
Kate Ellis	Frederick Bernard?	0:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. Clarence Bernard.	0:40
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	0:46
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And Felton Bernard, but he died.	0:50
Kate Ellis	Felton?	0:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	1:06
Kate Ellis	Oops. And they were all— I'm sorry.	1:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's my children.	1:06
Kate Ellis	Okay.	1:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	1:06
Kate Ellis	And they were all born in Patoutville?	1:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. Midwife.	1:06
Kate Ellis	You had a midwife, okay. So the doctor didn't come?	1:09
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, well, we couldn't afford the doctor, so the midwife took over.	1:18
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see.	1:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	1:25
Kate Ellis	So even though you had a—	1:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	You've heard of midwives, huh?	1:26
Kate Ellis	You had a plantation doctor, but you couldn't afford him?	1:27
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, uh-huh.	1:30
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. But you had a midwife?	1:31
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Priscilla—	1:33
Kate Ellis	Oh, Priscilla?	1:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	— Edwards, was the midwife.	1:40
Kate Ellis	Okay. Okay. Then tell me the years that each of your children were born.	1:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I should know, this is dumb.	1:52
Kate Ellis	If you don't, that's fine.	1:55
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I should've— When my daughter called me last night, I should've— Because she—	1:57
Kate Ellis	Well, you didn't know that I was going to ask you all these questions.	2:01
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, I know it. She got twins, you see. The only girl she have a twin to a boy.	2:03
Kate Ellis	Oh?	2:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	So the twins is 27 now— 29.	2:12
Kate Ellis	Oh, my.	2:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No! The twins is 35. Yeah. And the state police is 27.	2:19
Kate Ellis	He's the one that stopped the old guy?	2:29
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	2:30
Kate Ellis	Now, this Felton Bernard, your son. He died a couple years ago?	2:31
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	2:34
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:02:40].	2:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, about year before last. Mm-hmm.	2:34
Kate Ellis	Okay. All right, let me just— That's so curious. I just figured those graves that your step-daughter found—	2:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	2:54
Kate Ellis	— that's just the most curious thing.	2:55
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	3:00
Kate Ellis	And I see— I know this and you've been saying that is was where the Catholic church had stood.	3:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	3:06
Kate Ellis	So what that Catholic church originally— That Catholic church would've been for people working on the plantation?	3:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I guess so. You see we—	3:11
Kate Ellis	I mean, it would've been a Black church on the plantation?	3:14
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I didn't know nothing about it. But I used to pay close attention, my step-father knew all about it. That's how I did them though. Because even being a little child, I used to play close attention to what they would be saying. Then later on when Father Hebert was trying to take the church from the Catholic church, then all of this came out, you see?	3:18
Kate Ellis	It all came out, like you mean that people had been buried—	3:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. And—	3:47
Kate Ellis	— on the plantation?	3:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. And then Mr. Poli Patout had give the land for the churches.	3:55
Kate Ellis	Right.	3:56
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	3:56
Kate Ellis	So there was this big fight about—	4:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	4:02
Kate Ellis	— where people were buried and who gave the land. Is that what you mean? Is that—	4:02
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. And that's two tombs down there, they down there. We used to play little house on those things, mud cake.	4:07
Kate Ellis	On whose tombs?	4:13
Lucille Casimore Bernard	We don't who was buried there.	4:15
Kate Ellis	Those were tombs that you were saying over there—	4:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	4:15
Kate Ellis	— that also don't have any identification.	4:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	4:15
Kate Ellis	So is there sort of a bit of a mystery here about who was buried?	4:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Who was there. They never worried about it, so I guess it wasn't a mystery about who is buried there.	4:27
Kate Ellis	But to you, it's a mystery.	4:32
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It's a mystery, yeah.	4:32
Kate Ellis	And your step-father—	4:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	4:39
Kate Ellis	Did he know or did—	4:41
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, he didn't know.	4:41
Kate Ellis	But he wondered?	4:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	4:45
Kate Ellis	Okay.	4:45
Lucille Casimore Bernard	When they first dug the tombs out— I mean, the coffins out, they told the head bossman and he said, "Well," he said, "we don't know who in there and y'all don't know who in there, so let them stay there."	4:46
Kate Ellis	Just let them, what? Let them—	4:58
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Let them stay there.	4:59
Kate Ellis	Oh.	5:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But they went under. But every now and then, you can tell where each one of them was, they puffs up.	5:01
Kate Ellis	Because of the water?	5:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	The water.	5:06
Kate Ellis	Because of so much rain?	5:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	5:09
Kate Ellis	Okay. Now you've lived in Patoutville all your life.	5:12
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah. Oh, yeah.	5:16
Kate Ellis	Okay. Do you remember the name of the school that you went to?	5:23
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, everything was Patoutville.	5:34
Kate Ellis	Okay. So all just Patoutville School?	5:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Patoutville School, yeah.	5:38
Kate Ellis	You said you had good teachers?	5:41
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. We had good teachers.	5:41
Lucille Casimore Bernard	You know time back—	5:42
Kate Ellis	I know—	5:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	— at teacher didn't have to go to college to teach school. The 9th grade, if you could get there, then you could teach school.	5:52
Kate Ellis	Really?	6:01
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But now, you have to have all kind of [indistinct 00:06:05] and all that.	6:02
Kate Ellis	Does it seem like a lot to have to have?	6:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	6:17
Kate Ellis	Huh, yeah. Then as far as your work, I'm going to say Domestic Worker—	6:17
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	6:25
Kate Ellis	— for the Patout family.	6:25
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes.	6:26
Kate Ellis	Do you think that was since— You had kids when you became a domestic worker— Let me just ask you this, around what time did you first have children? About how old were you when you got married?	6:33
Lucille Casimore Bernard	21.	6:48
Kate Ellis	You were 21 when you got married, and you had four kids shortly after that?	6:49
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes, yeah.	6:49
Kate Ellis	So you think your kids were born in the 1920s?	6:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They were born— I guess, maybe? I'm sure.	6:52
Kate Ellis	Around 1920.	6:53
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	6:53
Kate Ellis	If you were— Oh, I'm sorry, I'm figuring this wrong. You were born in 1913.	6:59
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	7:05
Kate Ellis	And you were about 21 when you married?	7:05
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	7:06
Kate Ellis	Which would be 1923— 1934. So your kids were probably born in the 1930s.	7:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	In the '30s.	7:10
Kate Ellis	Okay.	7:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	I know, yeah. Because my son made his 60th birthday—	7:13
Kate Ellis	Before [indistinct 00:07:21]?	7:20
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	7:20
Kate Ellis	Okay. I see. That makes sense. And so since 1930s, you worked for the Patout family?	7:21
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	7:33
Kate Ellis	Then before that, you did field work and—	7:36
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Field work, domestic work, in different houses.	7:40
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Refinery work?	7:41
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	7:46
Kate Ellis	From when you were nine years old? So that was the 1920s. Okay. I'm getting it. Have you ever won any awards, anything?	7:52
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh.	8:06
Kate Ellis	And you are Baptist?	8:06
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, I'm a Baptist.	8:07
Kate Ellis	It's the Mount Carmel Baptist Church?	8:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's right.	8:13
Kate Ellis	And it's always been that?	8:18
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	8:21
Kate Ellis	Have you ever belonged to any kind of organization or anything? Do you have any hobbies or interests that you haven't mentioned to me?	8:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Well, I'm telling you I was— Interests, I used to like to preserve and put food up and things. But I can't do that no more, no.	8:32
Kate Ellis	But you used to cook and make preserves and stuff?	8:44
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, every year, put up vegetables and stuff.	8:48
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry, put up—	8:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Vegetables.	8:48
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	8:48
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	8:48
Kate Ellis	Vegetables. Can— So like canning food and stuff?	8:50
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	8:50
Kate Ellis	Do you have any favorite sayings?	9:04
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Favorite, what?	9:07
Kate Ellis	Like a favorite saying.	9:08
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Saying?	9:10
Kate Ellis	Like a favorite phrase or quote or something?	9:10
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, not that I know of.	9:14
Kate Ellis	That's okay. All right. That's basically it. I was just curious of one thing. It sounds like you've had— I mean, I'm curious about how Whites and Blacks got along around here as you were coming up.	9:15
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, they got along all right.	9:35
Kate Ellis	Yeah?	9:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. They got along— You see that, on the other end of the corner, that's where we used to live.	9:38
Kate Ellis	On the other end of the—	9:43
Lucille Casimore Bernard	The corner, down there.	9:44
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	9:44
Lucille Casimore Bernard	But on this same line. And they had a lot of White folks used to live there, and they all got along. Oh, yeah.	9:48
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	10:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	People is what people make of themselves, whether they White, Black, Yellow, no matter what color. And I don't understand why people hate each other. That's not religious at all, and they all was in the church.	10:02
Kate Ellis	The people who hate each other?	10:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah.	10:22
Kate Ellis	You know who they are?	10:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yes.	10:22
Kate Ellis	You mean Whites hating Blacks and Blacks hating Whites?	10:22
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, White hate White, too.	10:32
Kate Ellis	And Whites hating Whites?	10:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah.	10:37
Kate Ellis	Yeah, so just not even—	10:38
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Just a hatred going around.	10:40
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	10:42
Lucille Casimore Bernard	It's just a hatred going around.	10:42
Kate Ellis	A hatred.	10:44
Lucille Casimore Bernard	And you can break it if you want to. But I like everybody, I really do. Because hate is one of the worst things you can do. You get more help out of— Say, for instance, if you get on the highway and your car break down and Whites pass by you and not help you, but a poor, Black man'll come along, he'll help you and do the best he can. You see? But I don't know what— There is so much going on in this world. And I heard so much about— Why do—	10:45
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Growing up, I had never heard— It used to be a rare thing to hear somebody done rape somebody. But now they raping the little boys as much as they did with the little girls. That kind of messed up.	11:40
Kate Ellis	That's—	11:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's awful. That's awful.	11:51
Kate Ellis	So you didn't have a whole lot of that here?	11:51
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh. No. Uh-huh.	11:51
Kate Ellis	Sometimes I've heard that sometimes way back—	12:07
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm?	12:11
Kate Ellis	— that Black men might be killed by White men—	12:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm.	12:11
Kate Ellis	— sort of— Did you ever hear about stuff like that happening around here?	12:11
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No.	12:11
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Did you—	12:12
Lucille Casimore Bernard	No, I never heard of it but I'm sure— When it get in one city or one town, it spreads.	12:12
Kate Ellis	Yeah. So it might have happened around—	12:34
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, yeah.	12:37
Kate Ellis	— but you didn't—	12:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Sure.	12:37
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	12:37
Lucille Casimore Bernard	That's a shame.	12:37
Kate Ellis	Yeah, yeah. The whole question of people being lynched and—	12:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.	12:47
Kate Ellis	But you didn't know about— That wasn't something that—	12:47
Lucille Casimore Bernard	They talked about it.	13:00
Kate Ellis	They didn't talk about it?	13:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Uh-huh. You married?	13:00
Kate Ellis	No.	13:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, I thought I saw a ring.	13:00
Kate Ellis	Oh, no. What you might have seen was my pen coming out.	13:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Oh, yeah.	13:00
Kate Ellis	That's all, you'll never know.	13:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	You never know, you'll soon get married.	13:00
Kate Ellis	I hope so. Well, look, it's been wonderful to talk with you.	13:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Yeah, I enjoyed it, really did.	13:00
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	13:00
Lucille Casimore Bernard	Let me show you, I've got a picture I [indistinct 00:13:27].	13:00
Kate Ellis	Okay.	13:26

Item Info

Title:

Lucille Bernard interview recording, 1994 August 11

Date:

August 11, 1994

Creator:

Bernard, Lucille Carsimore

Contributor:

Ellis, Kate

Description:

Name: Lucille Carsimore Bernard; Date of birth: 1913-12-06; Place of birth: Rose Town, LA; Occupation(s): domestic; Residence: Patoutville, LA
Informant ID: 606; Interviewed by: Kate Ellis.

Occupation:

Domestic worker

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-2004

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-1062
RL00170-CS-1063
d4377eb0-fe35-47fb-a914-0cc5a1a46052
behindtheveil
066c0438-0725-4e75-affd-48ead4edad2e
ark:/87924/r4wd42952
066c0438-0725-4e75-affd-48ead4edad2e

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4wd42952

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Lucille Bernard interview recording, 1994 August 11

Transcript

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1. Lucille Bernard administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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