Prosper Bijou interview recording, 1994 August 09
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Felix Armfield | Today is August the 9th, 1994, and I'm Felix Armfield, the interviewer. I'm going to conduct this interview along with Rosalind Miller, and we're at the home of Mr. Prosper Bijou. Mr. Bijou, would you state your full name just for the record, please? | 0:04 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Prosper Albert Bijou. | 0:21 |
Felix Armfield | Prosper Albert Bijou. How long have you lived here in New Iberia? | 0:24 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Since 1900. | 0:30 |
Felix Armfield | Was that when you were born, in 1900? | 0:34 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's the year I born. | 0:45 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. So you've been here all your life? | 0:45 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 0:45 |
Felix Armfield | All your life. And you were born in 1900? | 0:45 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's right. | 0:45 |
Felix Armfield | Where did the family live back in that time when you were a small child? Where did you live here in New Iberia? | 0:45 |
Prosper A. Bijou | We lived in uptown. | 0:51 |
Felix Armfield | Now, what's it called? | 0:53 |
Prosper A. Bijou | They called it The Hill. | 0:54 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 0:55 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 0:56 |
Felix Armfield | Roz, you know about The Hill area? | 0:58 |
Rosalind Miller | That's over by— | 0:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | On James Street. | 1:02 |
Rosalind Miller | —James Street, Landry Street, all around. | 1:03 |
Prosper A. Bijou | After you passed Landry Drive, that was The Hill. It sat right by Landry Drive. | 1:05 |
Rosalind Miller | Yeah, [indistinct 00:01:12]— | 1:10 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's what they call The Hill in them days. | 1:12 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Okay. | 1:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Well, I mean they done changed now. Landry Drive. | 1:13 |
Rosalind Miller | Yeah. And James Street. | 1:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Fulton. | 1:27 |
Rosalind Miller | Where Josephine Jones stay, where my aunt and I be, all of that. | 1:27 |
Felix Armfield | All that's called The Hill? I gotcha. Yeah. Well, how big was the family? | 1:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | What? Our family? | 1:30 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 1:32 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Eight children, my mother and father. | 1:36 |
Felix Armfield | Eight children and your mother and father, so there were 10 people in the family altogether? | 1:36 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 1:39 |
Felix Armfield | There were 10 people in the house altogether? | 1:40 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, yeah, yeah. | 1:42 |
Felix Armfield | What do you remember about the family house? What was the structure? What was the layout of the house? Was it a comfortable house? Was it a big house? | 1:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, no, it was a big house, comfortable. It was a big house. | 1:49 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 1:56 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 1:56 |
Felix Armfield | What did your mother and father do for a living? | 1:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | My mother didn't work nowhere. My father was a carpenter. | 2:00 |
Felix Armfield | Father was a carpenter? | 2:04 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 2:04 |
Felix Armfield | Was he one of the first Black carpenters in this area? | 2:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. I don't know. | 2:12 |
Felix Armfield | I've run into— | 2:12 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I can't answer that question because he was working carpenter work when I was born. After I got I'd say maybe 10 or 15 years old, they had plenty of carpenters. So I can't answer that, if he was the first one. | 2:14 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Okay. But he certainly was already doing carpenter work when you were born? | 2:36 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Way before I was born. | 2:38 |
Felix Armfield | I see. I see. That carpentering. That was how he provided for his family was doing carpenter work? | 2:42 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's all he did. | 2:53 |
Felix Armfield | Because you live in— | 2:54 |
Prosper A. Bijou | He lived to be 86. That's all he ever did. | 2:55 |
Felix Armfield | And your mother was a housewife? | 2:57 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's all. | 2:59 |
Felix Armfield | She didn't work outside the home? | 2:59 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Uh-uh. Uh-uh. | 3:00 |
Felix Armfield | She never did any kind of domestic work or anything? | 3:01 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, no. She used to work for the church there, St. Edward's Church. | 3:04 |
Felix Armfield | So the family has always attended St. Edward's Church? | 3:10 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 3:12 |
Felix Armfield | So you're a longtime Catholic family? | 3:14 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, yeah. I made my first communion at St. Peter's Church. We didn't have no church when I was born. St. Edward's Church, I helped to build St. Edward's Church. That was 1917 till 1919. | 3:17 |
Felix Armfield | When you built St. Edward's? | 3:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 3:40 |
Felix Armfield | And you helped to build St. Edward's? | 3:40 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, I was 17 years old in June in 1917. Yeah. Started working there in June. I was working there when the war was over. That's where I was in— | 3:43 |
Felix Armfield | You got a pretty sharp memory on you, Mr. Bijou. | 4:03 |
Prosper A. Bijou | 1918, 11 of November, that's where I was working. | 4:05 |
Felix Armfield | That's where you were working? | 4:12 |
Prosper A. Bijou | At that St. Edward's Church. | 4:13 |
Felix Armfield | Now, did you specifically build St. Edward's for the Black congregation in New Iberia? | 4:15 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Yeah. | 4:21 |
Felix Armfield | Now, was this because St. Peter's Black people had gotten ready for their own parish or what was happening? | 4:22 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. From what I can remember, they put us out of St. Peter Church. | 4:29 |
Felix Armfield | They had put you all out of St. Peter's? | 4:34 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 4:37 |
Felix Armfield | And when did that occur? | 4:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | It might have been around '16 or '15. I misremember, but I know we had to leave St. Peter's Church. And then we started building St. Edward's. | 4:38 |
Felix Armfield | When did you all finish St. Edward's, Mr. Bijou? | 4:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | 1918. | 4:38 |
Felix Armfield | And the congregation was ready to move in? | 4:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | In 1919. | 4:38 |
Felix Armfield | In 1919. Now, is St. Edward's, was the original structure where it is today? | 4:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, the priest house was on the corner of French and Robertson, and they moved it from French and Robertson. They moved it to—What street your aunt live on? | 4:38 |
Rosalind Miller | Providence. | 4:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Providence and in the front of the school. What that— | 4:38 |
Rosalind Miller | It's called Porter Street now. | 4:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 4:38 |
Rosalind Miller | It's called Porter Street now. | 4:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Porter? | 4:38 |
Rosalind Miller | That's what they call it now. | 4:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Well, they moved the rectory over on Providence. | 4:38 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Okay. But it was clear that the Black Catholics in the area were going to have to leave St. Peter's? | 4:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 4:38 |
Felix Armfield | Had anything in particular happened at St. Peter's? | 4:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I can't remember. I know we had to leave. | 4:38 |
Felix Armfield | Now— | 4:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | We just didn't volunteer and leave. I think they must have put us out or something. I misremember. But we just didn't volunteer and say, "Well, we're going to build a church and going to leave St. Peter." So I think they must have put us out. | 4:43 |
Felix Armfield | Now how— | 6:51 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I'm not sure, but— | 6:52 |
Felix Armfield | How was the service structured there at St. Peter's? Did you all sit freely where you wanted to? Did you do your communion with them? Can you recall? | 6:53 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, I'll tell you. You never sit down with White people or go church or nowhere. So we built St. Edward Church. But when we was going to St. Peter's Church, they had a little—I guess it was about eight feet, and we'd go to communion after the White people. | 7:03 |
Felix Armfield | So you— | 7:30 |
Prosper A. Bijou | At St. Peter. | 7:30 |
Felix Armfield | When you were at St. Peter's? | 7:31 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 7:33 |
Felix Armfield | You never could do communion along with them at the same time? | 7:33 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Uh-uh. | 7:37 |
Felix Armfield | You had to go— | 7:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | A little aisle we had, maybe about four people in a seat or five. A little space to walk to go to the railing. I saw White people had—Oh, they had big seats, and we just had a little small place. | 7:40 |
Felix Armfield | But eventually when you would get out of St. Peter's and got to St. Edward's, did you feel good about the fact that you had built your own parish out there? | 8:09 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. | 8:15 |
Felix Armfield | Why were you so glad to have your own parish, Mr. Bijou? | 8:31 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, I mean you could go to church when you wanted to go. Well, I guess you could go at St. Peter when you wanted to go, too. I didn't go too much to St. Peter. I made my first communion 1911, I believe, or 1910. I used to go to church on Sunday, but I mean— | 8:31 |
Felix Armfield | So you were about 10 or 11 when you made your first communion? | 9:01 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. About 10 or 11. But we used to go to church on Sunday. I remember going to church every Sunday at St. Peter. | 9:10 |
Felix Armfield | So you did take your mass at St. Peter's? | 9:15 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. But that's when we built St. Edward. I felt more happy and thing. I was kind of at peace, it looked like. I don't know. | 9:16 |
Felix Armfield | Did your father find plenty of carpentry work? | 9:48 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Did he was? | 9:53 |
Felix Armfield | Did your father always have plenty of work to do as a carpenter? | 9:54 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. No. No, nobody didn't have no plenty of work to do in many years. Might work maybe a month and he'd be out of work maybe two week, three weeks. I guess I was about maybe 15, 14 year. They had about 7,000 people here. See, they got about 6,000 people today. The poor people, White and Black, they were poor when I was coming up. Just wasn't the Black people poor. The White people was poor, too. They didn't have no money to build no house and thing. It's not like today. | 10:01 |
Prosper A. Bijou | But we always had a piece of bread to eat though. We didn't have plenty of money like people got today to spend because people could spend plenty of money today. You'll take a trip, get on a boat, spend 4 or $500. When I was a young man at your age, didn't have that. | 10:50 |
Rosalind Miller | When they did carpentry work, did the Blacks have to work with—Would somebody White hire a Black carpenter if they needed? | 11:20 |
Prosper A. Bijou | A Black carpenter worked, they wouldn't— | 11:32 |
Rosalind Miller | Or did the Black and White work with— | 11:32 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, they wouldn't leave White and Black carpenter. A bricklayer could work with a White bricklayer. But a Black carpenter couldn't work with a White. They wouldn't let you work with them. | 11:32 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, so Black and White carpenters did not work together? | 11:49 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, they didn't work. | 11:52 |
Rosalind Miller | Why? | 11:53 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I guess them White people was running this world. | 11:53 |
Felix Armfield | A lot of carpentry work sometimes occurs inside the house. | 12:01 |
Rosalind Miller | Yeah. You got to work in the house. Bricklayer, you work outside the house. | 12:03 |
Felix Armfield | You think that may have had something to do with it, Mr. Bijou? | 12:03 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, I don't know. Might have been just they didn't want the Colored man to make the money what the White man was making. | 12:17 |
Rosalind Miller | In the '30s, did New Iberia have a strong Black community? Because I know now you have the church, like St. Edward's Church, and we tend to be a community. I was just wondering, way back then, when Mama and you and all y'all were together, was there a strong Black community where people could feel comfortable? I know my mom said sometimes y'all used to get together and have dances. You always had it separate from the White. | 12:20 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I guess so. It's just kind of hard to explain them days and today. At your age, if I tell you a lot of things, you'd say, "Well, I don't believe this could happen or something," at your age. Because there's plenty of things that happened in my young days, plenty of things. | 13:06 |
Felix Armfield | Such as? | 13:31 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Between White and Black, plenty of things. | 13:35 |
Felix Armfield | What kinds of things were happening in those days, Mr. Bijou? | 13:36 |
Prosper A. Bijou | If you look at a White lady, they might want to lynch you or send you to penitentiary or do you anything. | 13:43 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 13:51 |
Prosper A. Bijou | And on the other hand, the White man was living with the Black woman, but you couldn't look at a White woman in my day when I was your age. It's just hard to explain. I mean the young people, they didn't have too far to come. But people at my age and your grandmother, we come from a long ways, a long ways ago. Things had been rough. | 13:55 |
Felix Armfield | How much schooling did you receive, Mr. Bijou? | 14:42 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Me? | 14:44 |
Felix Armfield | Yes, sir. | 14:45 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Eighth grade. | 14:45 |
Felix Armfield | You got through the eighth grade. And where did you complete eighth grade here? Was that at St. Edward's or? | 14:46 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 15:13 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 15:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, no. I helped build St. Edward's. | 15:13 |
Felix Armfield | That's what I was about to say. | 15:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. Public school. I went to public school. | 15:13 |
Felix Armfield | And which school was that? | 15:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Simon. | 15:13 |
Rosalind Miller | AB Simon. | 15:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | AB. | 15:13 |
Felix Armfield | AB Simon? Okay. What are your thoughts of that public education that you received back then? How do you look back on that? Was it good schooling? Were the teachers excellent? | 15:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, I guess they did the best they could, what they know every. People wasn't all that smart, I don't guess. I don't know. That's something I can't explain. But I mean I was treated nice and I learned. But those things are kind of hard to explain. It's hard. | 15:24 |
Felix Armfield | What was the school structure at AB Simon? Was it a wooden-structured school? | 15:50 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, a wooden building. Yeah. All the schools was wooden when I come up. All wooden. | 15:54 |
Felix Armfield | Where was AB Simon located here in town? | 16:01 |
Prosper A. Bijou | You know where— | 16:05 |
Rosalind Miller | Johnston Street? | 16:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. French. Right down there. They got a church. | 16:08 |
Felix Armfield | Where that church sits now? | 16:16 |
Prosper A. Bijou | See where that church at? | 16:17 |
Felix Armfield | Yes, sir. | 16:19 |
Prosper A. Bijou | All right. Do you see that White house— | 16:20 |
Felix Armfield | Uh-huh. | 16:21 |
Prosper A. Bijou | —on Frank Street? That's where the public school was. | 16:22 |
Felix Armfield | That's where your school was. Was it a one-room school? | 16:26 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, no. They had maybe about six or seven teachers and a principal. | 16:28 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, okay. Who was your principal? | 16:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | AB Simon. | 16:38 |
Felix Armfield | So the school was named for the principal? | 16:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | But he been dead about 30 years, I guess. That was his name, AB Simon. They had another Simon. He used to live on Walton Street. | 16:47 |
Felix Armfield | Keep talking. | 17:02 |
Rosalind Miller | Hmm? | 17:02 |
Felix Armfield | Keep talking. | 17:05 |
Rosalind Miller | He left us, Mr. Prosper. | 17:05 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Walter Street. He was a professor. He been dead quite a while, but you could remember. | 17:10 |
Rosalind Miller | Did they have any type of fighting or [indistinct 00:17:35] or anything like that in New Iberia? | 17:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 17:36 |
Rosalind Miller | Did they have any fights between the Whites and the Blacks back then in New Iberia? Here, we don't have it too, too much. | 17:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. | 17:51 |
Rosalind Miller | But not too much fighting or nothing like that? | 17:52 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, uh-uh. No. | 17:56 |
Rosalind Miller | So it sounds like what would happen is you had two separate societies. | 17:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah, yeah. | 18:01 |
Rosalind Miller | Blacks used to enjoy themselves in their company— | 18:02 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 18:06 |
Rosalind Miller | —and the Whites had their little things. But did it seem like people were upset with that or people just accepted it? | 18:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | They never did mix. You see? They never did mix. | 18:17 |
Rosalind Miller | Did it seem like the Blacks were angry about that or it was just a matter of fact? Because my mom kind of seemed like they just accepted it. | 18:18 |
Prosper A. Bijou | White people just didn't want to be bothered with the Colored. | 18:28 |
Rosalind Miller | You know how they say in some places like Alabama, the Blacks would try to force their way in? | 18:33 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, no, no. We didn't. | 18:46 |
Rosalind Miller | So we were like, "Well—" | 18:46 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, no. | 18:47 |
Rosalind Miller | So we didn't do all that? | 18:47 |
Prosper A. Bijou | We knew where our place was, and we stayed. Of course, we had a few young fellows got in trouble by White women. Yeah. But we stayed in our place. In a restaurant, you know you couldn't go through the front door. You know that, in front. They had a little window. You'd go in the back or on the side and get what you want. They'd sell it to you, but you couldn't go in the front. | 18:49 |
Rosalind Miller | So we didn't have— | 19:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | And— | 19:11 |
Rosalind Miller | Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. | 19:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | So— | 19:11 |
Rosalind Miller | We didn't have people trying to force their way in the front? | 19:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. They had a lot of Colored people. They know they don't want them there. They should not want to go there. Me, I'm an old man right now. I hate to go in a White restaurant just on account of what they have did to me. I just hate to go in there. | 19:11 |
Felix Armfield | Is there anything in particular that happened to you? | 19:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 19:46 |
Felix Armfield | Is there anything in particular that happened to you? | 19:46 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, no, no. There ain't nothing. Uh-uh. | 19:46 |
Felix Armfield | You ain't never have a run-in? | 19:49 |
Prosper A. Bijou | My brothers or my daddy or nothing. Yeah. My brother ain't never been arrested, and I ain't never been arrested. My daddy ain't never been arrested. Her grandfather, he ain't never been arrested. Her grandmother and all them, they were nice people. Yeah. So many other people, they were nice people. Well, any town you go in, they're going to have some low-class people. They won't act right if the Lord would be right there and catch them by the hand. You got some Black people that— | 19:49 |
Felix Armfield | Did lynchings occur here in New Iberia? | 20:49 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 20:51 |
Felix Armfield | Was there ever any lynchings and things like that that occurred here in New Iberia? | 20:53 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, my daddy told me that they lynched a Colored fella. That was before I was born though. So I can't tell you. He just told me they lynched a fella by a White woman. Hung him on the bridge, my daddy told me. It was sad. | 20:58 |
Felix Armfield | There were never none that you knew of in your lifetime? | 21:26 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, no, no, no, no. | 21:27 |
Felix Armfield | Did you ever hear of lynchings in the surrounding areas? | 21:32 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Mm-mm (negative). | 21:35 |
Felix Armfield | What kind of social life were you given access to here in New Iberia? I mean did you go to— | 21:44 |
Prosper A. Bijou | We'd play baseball, and we had a movie house. We used to— | 21:48 |
Felix Armfield | Did you go sit where you wanted to in the movies? | 21:59 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, no. We had separation, sit. | 22:02 |
Felix Armfield | And where was that? | 22:04 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Downstairs. | 22:06 |
Felix Armfield | You sat downstairs? | 22:07 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. White people sat upstairs. | 22:08 |
Felix Armfield | That's interesting. | 22:12 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Now it's different now though, sit down around anywhere. | 22:14 |
Felix Armfield | But when you were a youngster, you can remember going to the theater and Black people would sit downstairs and White people sat upstairs? | 22:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | But it cost you about $4.50 to go to a movie today, and it was 10 cents in them days. | 22:30 |
Felix Armfield | And you saw everything you wanted to see? | 22:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. You'd stay up there all day if you want. But it just was different. | 22:37 |
Rosalind Miller | For the restaurant, y'all couldn't go and sit down. You had to go get your food and leave? You couldn't— | 22:51 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 22:54 |
Rosalind Miller | In the restaurant, y'all couldn't even sit in the back of the restaurant or you couldn't— | 22:57 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Couldn't go nowhere but up to that little window, little section— | 23:00 |
Rosalind Miller | Oh, wow. So you couldn't— | 23:08 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Couldn't go in them restaurant, not at all. | 23:08 |
Rosalind Miller | They had the separate water fountains and all that stuff? | 23:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I couldn't tell you nothing. They had a little window there if you wanted a sandwich. What you want, you'd you get it, and you'd go ahead on about your business. I ain't seen no water around there. If they had it, they had it inside. | 23:21 |
Rosalind Miller | Yeah, probably. | 23:40 |
Prosper A. Bijou | But they didn't allow no Colored people in there. | 23:40 |
Rosalind Miller | Would they cook? Would they let us cook? | 23:40 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. They hired a cook. | 23:40 |
Rosalind Miller | So we were cooking in the restaurant, but we couldn't eat in the restaurant? | 23:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's right. | 23:46 |
Rosalind Miller | Oh, I see. Wow. | 23:47 |
Prosper A. Bijou | In them days, you could be cooking there and your mama couldn't eat there. You could be cooking, and they wouldn't let your mama eat in there. | 23:53 |
Rosalind Miller | The mama had to go to the window? | 24:00 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Sure. | 24:00 |
Felix Armfield | And that time— | 24:00 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Boy, things done changed a lot. Yeah. Things changed a lot for the Black people. | 24:07 |
Felix Armfield | I can imagine from the time you were born, Mr. Bijou, in 1900 up until now, you've seen some major changes. | 24:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yes, indeed. | 24:30 |
Felix Armfield | Some changes that you hopefully approved of and then some that I'm sure you must have not necessarily approved of. | 24:30 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. | 24:34 |
Felix Armfield | But certainly things have changed. | 24:34 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I don't think none of them I approve of, what I've seen. | 24:37 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 24:44 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I mean things they get better for Black people. But sometime I feel like Black people don't know how to handle themself. I don't know. I might be wrong. They had a senator. He said he voted against the civil rights when they want to pass the civil rights. He voted against them. He said why he voted against them because the Black people wasn't ready for it, and he was quite right because, of course, the Black people is getting better now. But I mean Black people wasn't ready for the integration when they did it. Oh, no. | 24:46 |
Felix Armfield | Why do you feel Black people weren't ready for integration at the time? | 25:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Because they do so many things. They go hollering in a place. That was in the '70s. Me and another guy went and got a cup of coffee, and the lady told him—He put in a nickel or a dime or whatever it was to put in the music box. The lady told him the music box wasn't working. That was in the '70s. Boy, he got hot and started raising hell with the lady. So I answered, "Well, let's go." I said, "You don't need to be in here. The lady told you the thing was broken." She even had a piece of paper in it where you put the money, and he got hot. That's why I say Colored people—I don't know. | 25:43 |
Rosalind Miller | My mom said it seems like we've lost some of our values when integration came. She said it seemed like instead of us getting together more, we kind of separated and started just doing wrong things as opposed to right things. She said it looks like our values system changed. That's what she had said. | 26:51 |
Prosper A. Bijou | It's hard to [indistinct 00:27:20] the Colored people. It's hard. Me and my wife would be sitting right there. I mean about maybe 20 or maybe 20, 22, 23 years old, the language, what be coming out their mouth. But they wouldn't go do that if the White people were sitting on the porch. We don't have that much respect for our people, see? We don't. We don't love one another. | 27:20 |
Rosalind Miller | Oh, no. We sure don't. [indistinct 00:28:11]— | 28:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. No, we don't love one another. Because you teaching, you working, and if you go buy a new car, your neighbors right around here where you live at, you go buy a new car, they'll hate you for that. And then they'll ask you, "You want to take me somewhere?" | 28:11 |
Rosalind Miller | Yeah, that's— | 28:29 |
Prosper A. Bijou | "You want to do this for me." But they still hate to see you have it, they don't have it. They hate to see you have something. I'm not like that because if you ain't got nothing—See, I got good common sense. If you ain't got nothing, you can't help me. I don't see why I'd want to be down on you because you got a car and I ain't got none. Maybe one of these days I want you to take me somewhere. You can take me somewhere. | 28:33 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. What did you recall happening in the 1930s during the Depression? What was that like for you as a young man? | 29:08 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well— | 29:28 |
Felix Armfield | In the 1930s, were you married during that time? | 29:29 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. The Depression came in '29. You could feel it in '28. | 29:32 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 29:36 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 29:36 |
Felix Armfield | Well, some say— | 29:36 |
Prosper A. Bijou | '29. | 29:36 |
Felix Armfield | Some say Black people were feeling it long before then. | 29:41 |
Prosper A. Bijou | '29, '30, '31. | 29:46 |
Felix Armfield | Basically all throughout the '30s. | 29:48 |
Prosper A. Bijou | About three or four years, you couldn't even buy a job. | 29:51 |
Felix Armfield | Couldn't buy a job? | 29:53 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, no. They had the WPA, and I had two sisters teaching. They said, "Well, that was enough." Those two was working. That was enough to buy food. I couldn't even get a job on the WPA because I had two sisters teaching. | 30:00 |
Rosalind Miller | Really? | 30:19 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. That was in 1929 and '30, '31. | 30:19 |
Rosalind Miller | How long it stayed like that, just in the '30s— | 30:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | About four years. Three or four year. | 30:39 |
Felix Armfield | Before Roosevelt implemented his second New Deal. | 30:48 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Roosevelt came in '34, I believe, '35, somewhere like that. | 30:48 |
Felix Armfield | Did jobs start coming open at that time? | 30:50 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, I mean it may have took them maybe about six months or maybe eight months. | 30:55 |
Felix Armfield | Well, what was the first job you got after that period? | 31:05 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I was working with my dad. I was a carpenter. | 31:10 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. So you were doing carpenter work with your father? | 31:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 31:13 |
Felix Armfield | How many brothers did you have? | 31:14 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Two. | 31:16 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. So did all three of your brothers worked with your father as carpenters or were you the only one? | 31:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, I'm the onliest one. | 31:22 |
Felix Armfield | The only brother who did carpentry? | 31:23 |
Prosper A. Bijou | My brother, he stayed in the Army 30 years. | 31:23 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, okay. | 31:23 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, he stayed in there, and I— | 31:23 |
Felix Armfield | During this period of the Depression, was it hard for you and your father to find work? | 31:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. It was hard to find work. People didn't have no money in them days. Yeah, it was hard. Yeah, plenty hard. | 31:48 |
Felix Armfield | What kinds of things did you end up having to do to make a living? | 31:52 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, it was normal after a year or so after, maybe two years, and it was okay. But people used to farm, and you had bricklayer, carpenter. There were a few working on the railroad. People were waiting on the railroad for a dollar a day. | 31:57 |
Felix Armfield | But that dollar went a long ways back then. | 32:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. I'm telling you, you'd go to a movie picture for 10 cents. Today, you pay about $4.50, $5 to go, just one person. | 32:29 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 32:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. You could feed, you had a wife and two, three kids off of about $3 a week. Everything was nickel and dime. But now I think everything is higher than that. | 32:43 |
Felix Armfield | I see. What happened when the war broke out, the Second World War? Did you sign up for the war? Did you have to sign up for the draft? | 33:05 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, but I never heard from them. | 33:12 |
Felix Armfield | Never heard from them? | 33:12 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Uncle Sam— | 33:12 |
Felix Armfield | You would have been about 40 years old, right? | 33:12 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 33:20 |
Felix Armfield | At that time of the Second World War, you would have been about 40 years old? | 33:21 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, yeah. I went to work for the Navy though. | 33:28 |
Felix Armfield | You did? | 33:29 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. I went and worked a while in Mobile, Alabama, and I went to Utah. | 33:33 |
Felix Armfield | So what did you do? You did defense kind of work? | 33:41 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Carpenter work. | 33:42 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. But that was— | 33:44 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Let me see where I got my pin there. Excuse me a minute. | 33:50 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Let me get you unplugged here. Bay County's District Council, carpenters, July, August, September of 1947. Was this your— | 33:54 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's the union, but— | 34:34 |
Felix Armfield | This is the— | 34:35 |
Prosper A. Bijou | —you had to be in the union to work. | 34:36 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Okay. So this was the union for carpenters? | 34:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 34:39 |
Felix Armfield | Now, Bay County— | 34:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's in California. | 34:39 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, out in California? | 34:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. That was out in— | 34:39 |
Felix Armfield | So you went out in California for a while? | 34:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. I went out to Utah. I worked out in Utah. | 34:52 |
Rosalind Miller | [indistinct 00:34:56]— | 34:55 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. He was out there. Leonard John, myself. | 34:56 |
Felix Armfield | So how long did you stay out there? | 35:00 |
Prosper A. Bijou | About a year. Then I stayed in California about seven years. | 35:03 |
Felix Armfield | So this was after the war that you— | 35:09 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. But I was in California during the war. | 35:12 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. I see. | 35:14 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I was in California for '42 New Years Day. | 35:17 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 35:20 |
Prosper A. Bijou | New Years Day of '42. | 35:21 |
Felix Armfield | All right. | 35:24 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oakland, California, that's the Bay Area. | 35:24 |
Felix Armfield | Bay County. | 35:24 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I keep that pin. | 35:29 |
Felix Armfield | I'll bet you. Bay County's District Council. That's July, August, September of 1947. | 35:33 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yes. | 35:37 |
Felix Armfield | So this basically was a pin that said that you were in the union? | 35:40 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 35:44 |
Felix Armfield | Therefore, you could get work if you wanted to get— | 35:45 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. Well, I mean they had plenty of work after the war and before the war. They had plenty of work. | 35:47 |
Felix Armfield | Well, was it an integrated union? Was it a Black and White union? | 35:55 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Anybody could join. | 36:01 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah, it was an integrated union. | 36:10 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Anybody. | 36:10 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. So you got in— | 36:10 |
Prosper A. Bijou | If you was a Dutchman or a Jew— | 36:19 |
Felix Armfield | Whatever. | 36:19 |
Prosper A. Bijou | —Black, you could join. When they'd send you out, you'd have to go to the hall. Sometime you'd get on the job. Maybe you'd wait two, three months. But if you be out of a job and you go to the union hall, they'd send you out on a job. They'd send you and a White guy. | 36:20 |
Felix Armfield | I see. | 36:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | But they wouldn't send two Black or two White in California. See? But they'd send a White and a Black. | 36:44 |
Felix Armfield | That's carpentry. | 36:50 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. If you might be on a job six months, some of them got jobs the whole year. | 36:56 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 37:04 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 37:05 |
Felix Armfield | So there was plenty of work out in California? | 37:05 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. There was plenty of work. Yeah. When the war was over, I'll never forget that. We was working at Hunter Point. That's in Frisco. The fella, our foreman, he came. We was on a big roof. He said, "Get down. Get down." I said, "Oh, what done happened now?" We got down. You talk about a sad thing. | 37:12 |
Rosalind Miller | What? | 37:51 |
Prosper A. Bijou | We got down, and he said the war is over. You're talking about something sad. Them men cried like a baby. | 37:52 |
Rosalind Miller | Who was? | 38:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Because the war was over. Because they was making money, you know. | 38:06 |
Felix Armfield | This was in 1945? | 38:07 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, in "45. That's when the war was over. | 38:08 |
Rosalind Miller | Yeah. Because no more jobs. | 38:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | They closed down the work there for about two months. Then after that, it got normal. What you do with my little button? I don't want to lose it. | 38:15 |
Rosalind Miller | Oh, I put it in your pocket. | 38:35 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, you did? Thank you. Yeah. I've been having it that long. I'm going to keep it. | 38:36 |
Rosalind Miller | Oh, I guess. | 38:43 |
Felix Armfield | Mr. Bijou? | 38:53 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, sure. | 38:53 |
Felix Armfield | I know this probably may be a sensitive subject for you. | 38:55 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Hmm? | 38:59 |
Felix Armfield | I know what I'm about to ask you about may be a somewhat sensitive subject for you. But we'd like to get what you can recall of the 1943 incident that occurred here in New Iberia. | 39:00 |
Prosper A. Bijou | You mean— | 39:15 |
Felix Armfield | When— | 39:18 |
Prosper A. Bijou | They run the doctors out? | 39:18 |
Felix Armfield | When they ran the doctors out of town— | 39:19 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, now— | 39:20 |
Felix Armfield | —and that welding school that they were [indistinct 00:39:23] for Blacks. There were people who lost their lives behind that incident. | 39:20 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. That's Leo— | 39:22 |
Felix Armfield | Can you tell us a little bit about what happened? | 39:22 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's Leo Hardy. He died. Pierson, he was a dentist, and he died from being beaten. Dr. Dorsey, he was ordered out of town, but he didn't leave till two, three days after. But they didn't do him anything. Dr. Scoggins, he was ordered out of town. They didn't do him anything for about two, three days. They left on their own, Dr. Dorsey and Dr. Scoggins. See? Now, they had another fella, Faulk, up here. | 39:45 |
Felix Armfield | Now, why were they bent on running these people out of town? | 40:33 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 40:37 |
Felix Armfield | Why were the White mobs concerned with running these people out of town? | 40:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, you see they had union people for welding. That's somewhere around about a couple blocks from here on Robertson Street for welding. Leo Hardy, they brought him up to the sheriff's office. That's what Leo told me. See, he was the head of that welding for the Black people. | 40:47 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Was he your local president of the NAACP, also? | 41:20 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Same man. They told him he had to leave town, but they hadn't did nobody anything yet. Told him he had to leave town and they gave him 24 hours to leave town. He didn't leave at that time. So they picked him up. They picked him up the next night, like today, and they gave him 24 hours to leave town and pick him up the next night. They'd beat him up, brought him out of town, beat him up. | 41:24 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's what the people say. I can't say whether they beat him up. But they must have beat him up because he died and he was beaten up. | 42:08 |
Felix Armfield | How soon did he die after they had beat him up? | 42:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | A few months. | 42:17 |
Felix Armfield | A few months? | 42:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 42:17 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. I see. Were you with him at the time that they picked him up? | 42:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. I was with Leo Hardy. He was coming over to have supper with me. | 42:28 |
Felix Armfield | He was coming to have supper at your place? | 42:32 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. A policeman stopped him and called him. We was on the sidewalk. | 42:34 |
Felix Armfield | You were in your car? | 42:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, I didn't have no car. | 42:40 |
Rosalind Miller | Walking. Walking. | 42:42 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, you were walking? | 42:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, walking. | 42:43 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. And they pulled over and stopped you? | 42:47 |
Prosper A. Bijou | He got in the car. That's the last time I seen him. | 42:47 |
Felix Armfield | Now, did you actually go see him during the time after they had beat him up? | 42:53 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. No. He wasn't here. I done forget. He had married a lady from somewhere. I'm just trying to think. But it wasn't around here. That's where he went, to his wife home. That's where he died. | 43:00 |
Felix Armfield | Now, were you, in fact, active with the NAACP, also? | 43:35 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 43:39 |
Felix Armfield | Were you active with the local NAACP yourself? | 43:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. | 43:42 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. You were not active? | 43:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. | 43:45 |
Felix Armfield | But your friend, Mr. Leo Hardy— | 43:45 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah, he was. Yeah. He was— | 43:47 |
Felix Armfield | He was the local president. | 43:48 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 43:49 |
Felix Armfield | You two were coming over to have dinner or supper with you, and that's— | 43:51 |
Prosper A. Bijou | He was a good friend of mine. | 43:53 |
Felix Armfield | —when they pulled over on the side of the road? | 43:53 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 43:53 |
Felix Armfield | Now, but the interesting thing is that they didn't bother both of you. | 43:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, no. They didn't tell me nothing. | 44:02 |
Felix Armfield | They didn't do nothing to you? | 44:04 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, from that day till this day. | 44:05 |
Felix Armfield | Really? So you saw who the people were? | 44:07 |
Prosper A. Bijou | They ain't told me anything. | 44:07 |
Felix Armfield | Really? Now, when this occurred, did you mention it to anyone at the time that you saw who those men were? Were they police officers? | 44:15 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Oh, yeah. Police officers. Sure. They were police officers. They was a policeman and sheriff's deputy. Oh, yeah. | 44:22 |
Felix Armfield | And they know you saw them, right? | 44:40 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. I had to go around to New Orleans and testify. | 44:42 |
Felix Armfield | You went to New Orleans? | 44:49 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 44:50 |
Felix Armfield | Just such that they wouldn't bother with you after you heard that they beat Mr. Hardy up? | 44:50 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, no. I don't know. Them White people, I say them good White people, I guess. They got a hold to that, and they stopped that. They stopped it. | 44:57 |
Felix Armfield | And they stopped it? | 45:05 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 45:05 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. What do you mean when you say they stopped it? They didn't allow these senseless beatings to continue? | 45:08 |
Prosper A. Bijou | They run Dr. Pierson, they beat him up, too, and Leo Hardy. That's the two men they beat up. Dr. Dorsey and Dr. Scoggins, they ordered them out of town, too. And then they ordered some other people. I done forgot their name. I'd see— | 45:24 |
Felix Armfield | Were there only doctors that were asked to leave town or were there others that were asked to leave as well? | 45:52 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. Just doctors. Dr. William. They was all professional people. | 46:03 |
Felix Armfield | Professional people and, for the most part, they were doctors that they ran out of town? | 46:05 |
Prosper A. Bijou | And then Dr. Dorsey, he was planning on building a clinic. I guess that's why they got hot with him and run him out of town, too, I guess, because he was going to build a clinic. Remember where— | 46:20 |
Prosper A. Bijou | But anyway, Dr. Dorsey, that's where he had his clinic. He was fixing to build a big clinic, so I guess them Whites, you know they ain't going to let that Black man build no big clinic here, not them White doctors, yeah. | 0:02 |
Prosper A. Bijou | They run him out of town too. But I don't think they did him anything than scold him. And Dr. Williams. They didn't do him nothing. | 0:25 |
Felix Armfield | So those doctors that did stay in town, were they permitted to continue practicing? | 0:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, they left. | 0:48 |
Felix Armfield | So none of them stayed? | 0:49 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, no. Uh-uh. | 0:50 |
Felix Armfield | So you didn't have a Black doctor here? | 0:50 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, we didn't have one for quite a while. | 0:54 |
Rosalind Miller | Dr. Diggs. | 0:56 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Dr. Diggs was the first Black doctor after they run them doctors out of town. | 0:58 |
Felix Armfield | And can you recall when Dr. Diggs came back to town, or when he came to New Iberia? | 1:03 |
Prosper A. Bijou | He came after they run them doctors out of town. | 1:12 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 1:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | And he been here ever since. | 1:13 |
Felix Armfield | Now we've heard stories that there was a Black woman that came to town here as a doctor— | 1:19 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. It was— | 1:21 |
Felix Armfield | —to try and get started but she never got off the ground because they pretty much asked her to leave also. | 1:41 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I believe she slap a law— | 1:41 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, she spoke back— | 1:41 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Slap him or something. | 1:41 |
Felix Armfield | She spoke back in the courtroom to stay— | 1:41 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, or something. | 1:41 |
Felix Armfield | Because they didn't address her as doctor? | 1:41 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I'm trying not to check on them. Well, she stayed a little while after that and then she left. Dr. Chatters, you ever heard of her? Dr. Chatter, think that was her name? You ask your grandmother. | 1:48 |
Rosalind Miller | Doctor who? | 2:02 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Chatters. I think that was her name. | 2:03 |
Rosalind Miller | My mom might know. | 2:06 |
Felix Armfield | So what did Black people do for health care during this time then? | 2:18 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, they didn't have no nothing to help. The White and the Black, not just the Black. The White and the—Didn't have nothing to help no poor people. | 2:22 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. How often did you see the doctor? | 2:44 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, I guess when you got sick but mostly, the older people they had they remedy for different thing, you know? | 2:47 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 2:55 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Doctor would come to they house albeit for a dollar, a dollar a visit, and you could get medicine. I don't care what kind of sickness you got, you would need to pay a dollar for a prescription. | 3:03 |
Felix Armfield | So the doctors would do house visits for a dollar? | 3:24 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. The doctor. Yeah, sure. | 3:25 |
Felix Armfield | How often did you all—As children, did the doctor visit your house? | 3:25 |
Prosper A. Bijou | At times when we was sick but I don't know, I don't think we was that sickly when we was coming up because I can't remember a doctor coming too often to my house because I wasn't— | 3:32 |
Felix Armfield | Pretty much your parents— | 3:55 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I used to go to the doctor sometime once a year. But I was about 62 years old before I started going to a doctor regular. | 3:55 |
Felix Armfield | How old were you? | 4:05 |
Prosper A. Bijou | About 62. | 4:06 |
Felix Armfield | Ooh. | 4:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 4:06 |
Rosalind Miller | Well, Mr. Bijou, if somebody got hurt real bad, like they needed to go to the hospital, what would Black people do? Let's say if we got in an accident or broke a leg or got cut real bad— | 4:34 |
Felix Armfield | We were severely hurt. | 4:55 |
Rosalind Miller | I mean, could you go to the hospital or [indistinct 00:04:56]— | 4:55 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, you could go to the hospital. | 4:55 |
Felix Armfield | Even in New Iberia? They would treat Black people? | 4:55 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, Dauterive Hospital once they didn't treat Colored people. | 5:01 |
Felix Armfield | Which hospital was that? | 5:05 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Dauterive. | 5:06 |
Felix Armfield | Gertrude? | 5:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Dauterive. | 5:06 |
Rosalind Miller | Dauterive. | 5:06 |
Felix Armfield | Dauterive. | 5:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Mm-hmm. | 5:06 |
Felix Armfield | They wouldn't treat Black people, but New Iberia General would? | 5:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 5:15 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 5:15 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Then they had another hospital on Main Street, it was run by Dr. Lanter, I don't forgot the name of it but that's a long time ago. They would treat Colored people. But it's like, when I was coming up, maybe God taking care of the people, I didn't see nobody out on crutches and things. | 5:18 |
Rosalind Miller | My mom said they didn't go to the doctor very often either. | 5:47 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh no, because they had the money to go. | 5:53 |
Felix Armfield | So, obviously you dealt with a whole lot of home remedies. | 5:56 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. Yeah, them old people used to— | 5:59 |
Felix Armfield | What kind of things did you do for a common cold? | 6:02 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, when I'd have a common cold, my mother used to take some salt and warm water and make me gargle my throat. | 6:07 |
Rosalind Miller | We still do that. My mom still make me do that. | 6:14 |
Prosper A. Bijou | She still do that? | 6:14 |
Rosalind Miller | [indistinct 00:06:32] gargle. | 6:14 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, like you'd stick a nail in your foot, you know? | 6:36 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 6:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | They'd take a piece of towel and a hot knife and they'd kind of open it and put that cold towel right on you where you stuck that nail and it feel nice and cool. But when they put that hot knife on that towel and it hit that spot where you stuck that nail.. Boy. The next day you could put a shoe on though. People didn't went and got not shot sticking no nail or nothing. Yeah. | 6:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | A hog hoof, them old people used to take that and make a tea with it for people that had pneumonia. I seen that. They didn't die, neither. They got better. | 7:21 |
Rosalind Miller | Really? | 7:35 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh yeah. | 7:35 |
Felix Armfield | They used to take what, Mr.— | 7:35 |
Rosalind Miller | A hog hoof. The hoof of a hog. | 7:35 |
Felix Armfield | The hoof of a hog— | 7:35 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 7:40 |
Felix Armfield | —and do what with it? | 7:41 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Make a tea. | 7:41 |
Rosalind Miller | Tea. | 7:42 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Boil it. | 7:44 |
Felix Armfield | Shut your mouth. | 7:44 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Boil it. | 7:44 |
Rosalind Miller | For pneumonia. | 7:44 |
Prosper A. Bijou | People was going in the [indistinct 00:07:51]— | 7:49 |
Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:07:51] talking about boiling hog's foot. | 7:50 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Them old people here had some good remedy, you know? | 7:55 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 7:57 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Like you have about 104 fever, them people don't believe that, but China Ball tree, you ever seen a China Ball? | 8:01 |
Rosalind Miller | Yes. | 8:15 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 8:15 |
Prosper A. Bijou | You take the leaves, you got a fever about 104, 105, and you take them, you put them up there and put a rag and when you look again, it looks like you part some peanut then draw all that fever out your head. People don't do that no more. | 8:15 |
Felix Armfield | The leaves of the China Ball? | 8:28 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Indeed. Oh, yeah. | 8:34 |
Felix Armfield | So it sounds like you all had some life sustaining kinds of remedies. | 8:35 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yep. | 8:43 |
Felix Armfield | Obviously they worked. | 8:50 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah? | 8:52 |
Felix Armfield | Obviously they worked. They did work. That one just kind of— | 8:52 |
Rosalind Miller | With the nails. | 8:53 |
Felix Armfield | —gives you the goose pimples about the nails. Sticking that rag and that knife in [indistinct 00:09:06]. | 9:02 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I done seen a lot of people pull they children tooth with a cord string. | 9:08 |
Felix Armfield | With a what? | 9:14 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Cord string. Tie it on the tooth, you know? | 9:15 |
Rosalind Miller | And pull it. | 9:18 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Take it off. | 9:18 |
Rosalind Miller | Or they tie the string to the door, slam the door, pull your tooth out. They did that to me. | 9:22 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, yeah. | 9:24 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm, no. | 9:24 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 9:24 |
Felix Armfield | Come on, now. | 9:24 |
Rosalind Miller | If your tooth was loose and it didn't fall out, tie the string to my tooth, tie the string to the door, close the door, pull the tooth out. | 9:31 |
Felix Armfield | Did you know she was gon' slam the door? | 9:35 |
Rosalind Miller | Uh-huh. Yeah, they used to pull my teeth with a string if it was hanging but that little last piece would not come out, tie it to this door, slam the door, take it out. | 9:35 |
Felix Armfield | No. | 9:48 |
Rosalind Miller | [indistinct 00:09:54] did it to me. | 9:48 |
Prosper A. Bijou | [indistinct 00:09:57] a lot of good remedy keep you from going to the doctor. They didn't have no money, so I guess God must've shown them what to do. | 9:57 |
Felix Armfield | Now, before we get too far away from that subject I need to just wrap it up and bring some closure to that '43 incident. Now, you were never troubled by that incident that occurred? | 10:10 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, uh-uh. Nobody else knew. | 10:29 |
Felix Armfield | Were you ever concerned with the mere fact that they knew that you knew that they were the ones who beat this man? | 10:31 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. Sure. At the time I thought maybe they might try to hurt me or something. | 10:38 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 10:42 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. But because they quieted down right away, I guess after they found out they beat them two fellas and they were sick from that beating. | 10:50 |
Rosalind Miller | So after they beat those two Black men, the Blacks kind of quieted down? | 11:10 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 11:11 |
Rosalind Miller | Yeah. Probably was scared. | 11:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I mean, ain't nobody to protect you. | 11:11 |
Felix Armfield | So, where did you do some of your best carpentry work here in town? | 11:24 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Across the bayou. | 11:26 |
Felix Armfield | Did you work with Mr. Miller? | 11:32 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, I worked—Her grandfather. | 11:32 |
Felix Armfield | Mr. Taylor Miller, yeah. | 11:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 11:44 |
Rosalind Miller | You working with the grandpa or you working for her daddy? | 11:47 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Romeo. Yeah, your grandpa daddy. He used to build pillars for us to build houses. Her grandfather. | 11:49 |
Felix Armfield | Her grandfather's father. | 11:51 |
Rosalind Miller | Father, my great-grand. | 11:51 |
Felix Armfield | And you worked with him? | 12:00 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 12:09 |
Felix Armfield | Great-grandfather. | 12:09 |
Rosalind Miller | You worked with Mr. Romeo? | 12:09 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, that's— | 12:09 |
Rosalind Miller | That's my great-grandpa. | 12:09 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, that's your great-grandpa. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We worked a lot of times. Yeah. That child is—I've been here since 1900, you know? | 12:10 |
Felix Armfield | And don't look like you're going anywhere anytime soon. | 12:10 |
Prosper A. Bijou | If I do, I hope it be a good place. | 12:10 |
Rosalind Miller | All right. | 12:10 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, hope it be a good place. | 12:10 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. But we're going to concern ourselves with taking care of you and seeing to it that we enjoy your while you're here. | 12:40 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 12:41 |
Felix Armfield | And that's our concern. What happened in the 1940s and '50s with the war closing, coming to an end, World War II had come to an end and all of these soldiers are returning home after the war. Are people finding jobs? | 12:47 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 13:02 |
Felix Armfield | People losing jobs? | 13:02 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, they found jobs. Some of them was working for different companies and they came back, they went back to work for the same company. Some of them that went to the army never did work and they didn't work when they come back from the army. So that's— | 13:07 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. How were Black people faring during this time. How are their lives going to be? Are they still going to remain in the fields or what. What's going on? | 13:21 |
Prosper A. Bijou | In the field? | 13:31 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 13:32 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, no. That's getting to be the thing of the past. The field, you see, when I was coming up, they had maybe about 25 people working on a plantation. Today, you don't see nobody working on no plantation. | 13:32 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah, but I'm speaking during the '40s and '50s after the war closed. | 13:47 |
Rosalind Miller | What kind of jobs Black people have? | 13:50 |
Felix Armfield | Were they still working in the fields then? | 13:50 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they was living on plantation in that time in the '40s. Yeah, just living on them big plantation. | 13:54 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 13:56 |
Rosalind Miller | Which ones? Like Weeks and all of them? | 13:56 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 13:56 |
Rosalind Miller | Which plantations? | 13:56 |
Felix Armfield | What were some of the big plantations they were still working on in this area? | 14:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, them people are all dead now, but that Darby's, they had a big farm. LaSalle. I can't think of what the rest of them. | 14:21 |
Rosalind Miller | So in the '50s they had people just working in the fields or did people get factory jobs or anything like that? Or working in stores and stuff? Are were in the fields and the stores were for the White people? | 14:55 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, they might have had a few working in the store. Not too many, but mostly Colored people—When I was a young man coming up, young people would be working for White people in they house, cooking and cleaning up and things like that, you know? | 15:09 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 15:26 |
Prosper A. Bijou | When I was a young man coming up they didn't have people working [indistinct 00:15:34] like they had a bank. They didn't have that in my day. | 15:29 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. Those opportunities just were not available. | 15:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. Yep. Most of them had to work where they could get a job, you know? In the field or wherever it was. They couldn't go get no job in the bank, they couldn't go get no job in the clothing store or nothing, grocery store or nothing. | 15:44 |
Felix Armfield | Where did the family do its grocery shopping in the area? Where did you go to pick up groceries or did you not have to pick up groceries because you had your gardens out back and had all that stuff. | 16:12 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. See, you had to buy groceries too. You wouldn't have to buy much, you buy maybe—Course when there three of four in the family, in them days, they could live good off of $3. I mean, you'd have plenty food to eat. You pay $1.35 for a loaf of bread today, and we used to get six loaves for a quarter. | 16:29 |
Felix Armfield | What was Hopkins street like during this time, the early days? | 17:10 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, about the same of what it is. | 17:13 |
Felix Armfield | Was it the Black business district in New Iberia? | 17:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. Same thing. Bike. Yeah, same thing. | 17:19 |
Felix Armfield | So, they were having Black businesses up and down Hopkins Street? So, there were Black restaurants, beauty parlors, barber shops, those were— | 17:22 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. Well, that was all Black during then. | 17:23 |
Felix Armfield | So, Hopkins Street was known as the Black main street. | 17:36 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's all. It's been Hopkins Street like it is ever since I've been knowing. It might be getting a little worse, I don't know. I don't know. | 17:39 |
Felix Armfield | But it has always been known as the Black main street? | 17:49 |
Prosper A. Bijou | A Colored lady was working for a White lady somewhere up North, and she was taking a trip down to New Iberia and she wanted to know where Hopkins Street at. She was in New Iberia but she had come from up north. Say, "I heard so much talk about Hopkins Street, I don't want to pass on Hopkins Street." So, the fella showed her how to get to Hopkins Street and she pay him. But I don't know what all she heard about Hopkins Street. Yeah, Hopkins Street. Woman from up North, too. I don't see nothing so fancy about Hopkins Street. | 17:55 |
Rosalind Miller | They been trying to build it back up, they have a Hopkins Street District Association, Bill Russell and them trying to revitalize that area. They had a lot of Black businesses down there. | 18:47 |
Felix Armfield | What happened, Mr. Bijou, when did you meet your wife? You talked to us about all that kind of stuff but you haven't told us when you met Mrs. Bijou. | 19:04 |
Prosper A. Bijou | 1930. | 19:11 |
Felix Armfield | You met her in 1930. | 19:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Uh-huh. | 19:11 |
Felix Armfield | And what was the occasion for meeting Mrs. Bijou? Where were you? What was going on? | 19:15 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I believe I met her at a train station. | 19:25 |
Felix Armfield | You met her at the train station. | 19:26 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 19:27 |
Felix Armfield | You had never seen her before? | 19:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I don't think. | 19:27 |
Felix Armfield | Ooh. So, how did you approach this strange, good-looking woman to let her know of your interest? | 19:33 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, I don't know. | 19:40 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah, you do. | 19:44 |
Prosper A. Bijou | It been so long. | 19:44 |
Felix Armfield | You want Roz to leave so you can tell me? | 19:47 |
Prosper A. Bijou | It been so long. | 19:52 |
Rosalind Miller | [indistinct 00:19:53]. | 19:52 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 19:52 |
Felix Armfield | You're going to tell me or I'm going to ask her, now. You want to give me your version? Did you talk sweet nothings to her at first or were you the perfect gentleman? | 19:54 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I was a gentleman, all right. | 20:05 |
Felix Armfield | All right. | 20:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I think she invited me to come to her house. | 20:09 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, really. So, you all were— | 20:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I went over there and then from then on, well, we started going out. | 20:11 |
Felix Armfield | Uh-huh. | 20:19 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I used to like to go to the moving picture but she didn't like moving pictures. I used to love them. I used to love them. | 20:21 |
Felix Armfield | And when did you marry? | 20:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | '31. | 20:40 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, so you— | 20:40 |
Prosper A. Bijou | '31. | 20:40 |
Felix Armfield | —you courted for one year. | 20:42 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 20:43 |
Rosalind Miller | And they've been married 63 years. | 20:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Hm? | 20:43 |
Rosalind Miller | You've been married 63 years. | 20:43 |
Felix Armfield | And where did you move your new family when you got married in 1931? | 20:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | We used to live on Jefferson Street right around on— | 21:03 |
Felix Armfield | Just right over on Jefferson Street. And how many children did you have from that union? | 21:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | This one. | 21:08 |
Felix Armfield | Had one daughter. Okay. And you all lived happily ever after? | 21:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 21:15 |
Felix Armfield | All right. That's the only way to do it. | 21:16 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Sometimes we have a little argument but— | 21:19 |
Felix Armfield | But who doesn't? | 21:19 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Don't let you worry you. | 21:25 |
Felix Armfield | Hm? | 21:26 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Don't let that worry you. | 21:27 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, no. Oh, no. Mr. Bijou, what was the momentum like here in New Iberia during the '50s and '60s when integration is on the brink. No, no, no. When segregation is on the brink, meaning that the walls of Jim Crow is about to crumble and that you're going to—Public school systems are going to be made to integrate such that Black and White children will be in attending school together, your public restaurants and facilities are going to be forced to accommodate Black people on the outside and not the back side entrance. Public transportation is going to be transformed, it's going to be restructured. Black people are no longer going to have to go in the back of the bus. What kinds of things— | 21:29 |
Prosper A. Bijou | It went so easy till—People didn't hardly have any trouble at all in this town. It went easy. | 22:28 |
Felix Armfield | There were no riots or— | 22:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, no, no. No disturbance [indistinct 00:22:40] riding the school bus and the children going with the White kids to school and things. They might have had a little thing happen, but nothing too much to talk about it. | 22:39 |
Rosalind Miller | Not like the big race riots they had at other places. | 22:54 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, no. We ain't had that at all. | 22:57 |
Rosalind Miller | You had some fights— | 23:02 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 23:03 |
Rosalind Miller | Wasn't some of the people like about 30 years old, talk to them, 38, 39, some of my cousins. They were saying they had fights but nothing— | 23:09 |
Felix Armfield | But from what I understand, integration was late in coming. It didn't come maybe until the '70s on a full scale, that is. | 23:12 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 23:22 |
Felix Armfield | When so many other parts of the country were thrust into it in the '50s and '60s, this area pretty much sort of walked the slow pace and it wouldn't be until the 1970s— | 23:24 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I guess that's why we didn't have too much trouble and stuff, you know. I don't know, I guess the people know that it was coming so they just accept it, that's all. | 23:36 |
Felix Armfield | Now, did you have children in school at that time? Was your daughter in school at that time or had she already finished school? | 23:57 |
Prosper A. Bijou | When? | 24:00 |
Felix Armfield | By the time of integration. | 24:01 |
Rosalind Miller | She was finished. | 24:07 |
Felix Armfield | She was finished. | 24:07 |
Prosper A. Bijou | She had done finished college. | 24:08 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, okay, okay. I see. Well, I'm sure she would appreciate my asking that question today. Mr. Bijou, is there anything else that you'd like to tell us that we haven't asked. Anything you'd like to talk about, about segregation, about Jim Crow, about integration? Anything else of substance that you'd like to mention to us, or if it ain't of substance. | 24:09 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, see I didn't have too much worry about integration and segregation because I don't know, I've always got along with everybody, not just only the White people, the Colored people too. And I never had no trouble. | 25:04 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. Let me ask you another personal question. Did your complexion ever become a problem for you in growing up? Because you look like you were probably were fairly light skinned— | 25:20 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, sometime. | 25:20 |
Felix Armfield | —in those days. | 25:20 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, sometime. | 25:20 |
Felix Armfield | What kind of problems did you run into? | 25:20 |
Prosper A. Bijou | With Colored people, you know? I had two or three people, I had White people that would ask me, "You White or you Colored?" | 25:24 |
Felix Armfield | So, they did ask you. | 25:31 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I used to be white, you know. I work in that sun till I was about 85 years old and burned me up. But I used to have a little trouble if one of them want to find out. | 25:32 |
Felix Armfield | People would ask you, "What are you? Black or White?" | 25:53 |
Prosper A. Bijou | So I'd say, "What you think?" | 25:53 |
Felix Armfield | And you would say to them, "What you think?" | 25:56 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. I says to them, then I'd just walk away from them. | 25:57 |
Felix Armfield | Really? And leave it to them. | 26:01 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's all. | 26:02 |
Felix Armfield | Then now, did you ever use it to your advantage? To say hey, "I'm going to go sit in this movie and I'm gon' sit where I want to." Or I'm going to—You know, just try something just for the hell of it. | 26:05 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No way. | 26:17 |
Felix Armfield | No way you would have done that? | 26:18 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Right now I'm 94 years old, can't nobody go into a White restaurant so I'm going across the street. | 26:20 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. So you always— | 26:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I like my Black people, see? I like Black people. I like to be around them. I don't like to be around White people. | 26:29 |
Felix Armfield | You were always clear on who you were, you knew you were a Black man, you knew where you came from— | 26:41 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's right. | 26:43 |
Felix Armfield | —knew your roots. | 26:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's right. | 26:43 |
Felix Armfield | And you weren't trying to straddle the fence— | 26:49 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, no. | 26:52 |
Felix Armfield | And regardless of what other people thought, you knew who you were. | 26:52 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's right. | 26:54 |
Felix Armfield | All right, man. All right. All right. | 26:54 |
Prosper A. Bijou | My life was better than any White woman. | 27:04 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 27:10 |
Rosalind Miller | Alright. | 27:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | My life, I ain't talking about the other. But I'm talking about mine. Ain't no White woman life better than mine. | 27:13 |
Felix Armfield | Say that. Say that. | 27:21 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I know if they kept on doing something, I know they don't kill many of them people, [indistinct 00:27:28], for what? | 27:27 |
Rosalind Miller | Ooh, some of the young brothers need to hear you talking. | 27:29 |
Felix Armfield | They need to hear you talk [indistinct 00:27:42]. | 27:42 |
Rosalind Miller | They need to hear you talk [indistinct 00:27:42]. | 27:42 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Your grandpa can tell you, I'd raise up with your grandpa and your grandma, we used to all go our together and everything. Of course I'm older than them, but we never did get in no trouble. Your grandma we had to give [indistinct 00:27:59] I believe, that's where your grandmother got her leg broken. She ever tell you about it? | 27:44 |
Rosalind Miller | Yes. | 28:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Where she told you she got that leg broken. She ever told you? | 28:06 |
Rosalind Miller | Yes. In an accident. | 28:19 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Was it because we had a party? | 28:19 |
Rosalind Miller | She told me she had a crutch [indistinct 00:28:20]. | 28:19 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, we used to have parties in the house, you know? Have picnics. And we enjoyed ourself. | 28:20 |
Rosalind Miller | So, y'all really didn't—Like y'all even saw a need or really wished to be with the White people because it seemed like the Black people had everything they needed within the Black community. | 28:30 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 28:39 |
Rosalind Miller | They all right. | 28:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, everything we needed. | 28:42 |
Rosalind Miller | So, you think, to the Blacks, in terms of segregation and stuff, it really wasn't all that bad because it seems like y'all depended on each other and y'all had a good time. And y'all didn't feel like y'all had to be with White people. | 28:50 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, that's right. | 29:08 |
Rosalind Miller | And that's why it took so long. | 29:08 |
Felix Armfield | Yep. Well, Mr. Bijou, unless there's something else in particular that you wanted to say, what I want to do at this time is get some quick paperwork done with you. I wanted to ask you a few questions about your family history and then we'll be done here unless Roz has something that she'd like to ask. | 29:12 |
Rosalind Miller | I ain't gon' pick on him anymore. | 29:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Hm? | 29:27 |
Felix Armfield | Well, if we just want to get— | 29:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | We through with this? | 29:36 |
Felix Armfield | No, no, no. Keep that on. | 29:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Well, I want to go to the restroom. | 29:38 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, well you can go to the restroom. Hold on. Bijou. Spell your last name for me. | 29:41 |
Prosper A. Bijou | B I J O U. | 29:41 |
Felix Armfield | B I J O U. | 29:46 |
Prosper A. Bijou | J O U. | 29:49 |
Felix Armfield | That's about as French as it gets. | 29:51 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Very few people can spell it. | 29:51 |
Felix Armfield | I wouldn't have never spelled it like that. | 29:51 |
Rosalind Miller | Really? | 29:51 |
Felix Armfield | Bijou. | 29:51 |
Prosper A. Bijou | And they can't pronounce it. | 29:51 |
Felix Armfield | And it's Prosper. | 29:51 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 29:51 |
Felix Armfield | P R O S P E R. | 29:51 |
Prosper A. Bijou | O S P E R. | 29:51 |
Felix Armfield | Just like it sounds. Prosper Albert Bijou is your name. What's the address here? | 30:03 |
Prosper A. Bijou | 318 West Pershing. | 30:14 |
Felix Armfield | West Pershing? | 30:15 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, West. | 30:15 |
Felix Armfield | And this is Pershing Street? | 30:23 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, mm-hmm. | 30:24 |
Felix Armfield | And this is New Iberia. | 30:26 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 30:27 |
Felix Armfield | And is it 70560? | 30:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 30:27 |
Felix Armfield | And your birthdate? | 30:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Eleventh day of June. | 30:39 |
Felix Armfield | June the 11th, 1900. | 30:40 |
Prosper A. Bijou | 1900. 1900. | 30:44 |
Felix Armfield | Man, I hope it can make it there. | 30:48 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I hope so too. | 30:50 |
Felix Armfield | Now, you were born here in New Iberia. | 30:56 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Oh, yeah. | 30:57 |
Felix Armfield | And this is Iberia Parish, right? | 31:00 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 31:01 |
Felix Armfield | And you were a carpenter. | 31:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yep. That's all I ever did. | 31:12 |
Felix Armfield | All right. And myself and once again, Ms. Roslyn Miller was assisting me with the interview. | 31:12 |
Rosalind Miller | I might have to make him give me another snowball. | 31:12 |
Felix Armfield | She's just looking for anything to get snowballs. They told me to be careful about these women when I got down here. | 31:31 |
Rosalind Miller | Oh, no. | 31:31 |
Felix Armfield | They told me that they—Who was it that made that song, about the Louisiana gals? Who was it that made that song? | 31:32 |
Rosalind Miller | [indistinct 00:31:40]. | 31:32 |
Felix Armfield | And they told me, "Be careful when you get down there to Louisiana. Them Louisiana girls will put a hex on you." | 31:40 |
Rosalind Miller | No, would we do that? You already drank something at my house, huh? | 31:59 |
Felix Armfield | Ooh. I think I better make something—Like go get me—My grandmother will hook me up [indistinct 00:32:14] she knows how to reverse it all. | 32:08 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Are you from Louisiana? | 32:13 |
Felix Armfield | No, sir. | 32:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh. | 32:13 |
Felix Armfield | No, I'm from North Carolina. | 32:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, Carolina. | 32:25 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. Now, what's the phone number here? | 32:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | 369-3900. | 32:34 |
Felix Armfield | 369-3900. Okay, for the official record that all your material that will be housed at Duke University for the official labeling, you want your name to appear as Prosper, P R O S P E R. And do you have a middle name? | 32:37 |
Rosalind Miller | Albert. | 32:56 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Albert. | 32:56 |
Felix Armfield | Do you want Prosper A. Bijou or Prosper Albert Bijou. | 32:57 |
Prosper A. Bijou | A. | 32:59 |
Felix Armfield | Prosper A. Bijou. | 32:59 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I use P.A. Bijou. | 33:02 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. That's how you're going to appear in the records, Prosper A. Bijou. Not that no one probably—Many people won't know how to pronounce that last name, but— | 33:08 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, some of them say Bijou. | 33:18 |
Rosalind Miller | Bijou. | 33:19 |
Felix Armfield | Bijou. | 33:19 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, yeah. | 33:19 |
Felix Armfield | And it's Bijou. | 33:19 |
Rosalind Miller | Bijou. | 33:19 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Mm-hmm. | 33:19 |
Felix Armfield | And you're married. What's your wife's first name? | 33:30 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Hattie. | 33:36 |
Felix Armfield | Hattie. | 33:37 |
Rosalind Miller | H A T T I E. | 33:38 |
Felix Armfield | Does Ms. Hattie have a middle name? | 33:42 |
Prosper A. Bijou | [indistinct 00:33:43] T. | 33:47 |
Felix Armfield | What is it? | 33:48 |
Prosper A. Bijou | T. | 33:48 |
Felix Armfield | T? | 33:48 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 33:49 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. What's Ms. Hattie's birthdate? | 33:49 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yesterday was her birthday. | 33:55 |
Felix Armfield | That was August the 8th? | 33:57 |
Rosalind Miller | August 8th. | 33:57 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, she born eight. | 33:57 |
Felix Armfield | What year? | 34:01 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Three eights. She born three eights is her birthday. Can you figure that out? | 34:02 |
Felix Armfield | August 8th, 1908? | 34:09 |
Rosalind Miller | Mm-hmm. | 34:14 |
Felix Armfield | Because August is the eighth month, the eighth day and she's born 1908. | 34:14 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Three eights. | 34:19 |
Felix Armfield | All right. Eight eight O eight. | 34:23 |
Rosalind Miller | Eight. | 34:27 |
Felix Armfield | Ooh. | 34:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | August is the eighth month. | 34:31 |
Rosalind Miller | Yeah, eighth day. | 34:31 |
Felix Armfield | There's something about us August babies. | 34:31 |
Rosalind Miller | Oh. | 34:31 |
Felix Armfield | We're usually beautiful people. Now where was Ms. Bijou born? | 34:31 |
Prosper A. Bijou | [indistinct 00:34:42] you better go back there and ask her. | 34:42 |
Felix Armfield | But that's Louisiana, right? | 34:45 |
Prosper A. Bijou | [indistinct 00:34:49]. | 34:46 |
Felix Armfield | In Metit Anse? | 34:46 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Petite Anse. | 34:46 |
Rosalind Miller | P E T I T and then capital A, capital A N S E. | 34:46 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That says Petite Anse right out there? | 35:01 |
Rosalind Miller | Yeah, in [indistinct 00:35:03]. | 35:01 |
Felix Armfield | And that's Iberia Parish? | 35:03 |
Rosalind Miller | Uh-huh. | 35:03 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. | 35:03 |
Felix Armfield | That's what they call Avery Island, Petite Anse? | 35:04 |
Rosalind Miller | No. | 35:09 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's before you get there. Way before you— | 35:09 |
Rosalind Miller | Before you get there, yeah. | 35:09 |
Prosper A. Bijou | It's a different route. | 35:14 |
Felix Armfield | And what did Ms. Bijou do for a living? | 35:16 |
Rosalind Miller | Housewife? Or did she work? | 35:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | My wife? | 35:17 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 35:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I think she used to work out before I met her but she didn't do anything after we got married. | 35:25 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. What was your mother's first name? | 35:36 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Ida. | 35:37 |
Felix Armfield | Did she have a middle name? | 35:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | J. Ida Jones. | 35:43 |
Felix Armfield | She was Ida J. Bijou? | 35:47 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Jones. | 35:48 |
Felix Armfield | And Jones was her maiden name? | 35:50 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 35:51 |
Felix Armfield | Can you remember your mother's birthdate? | 35:51 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Fourteen of September. But now the year is—My mother was 72 when she died. | 36:02 |
Felix Armfield | When did she die? | 36:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Let me see, now. She was 72. | 36:13 |
Felix Armfield | What year did she die? | 36:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | '48. | 36:13 |
Felix Armfield | Died in '48. | 36:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, she died in June of '48. She was— | 36:13 |
Rosalind Miller | 1876? | 36:13 |
Felix Armfield | She was born in 1876. | 36:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 36:13 |
Felix Armfield | And she died in June of 1948? | 36:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Died the 26th of June. | 36:13 |
Felix Armfield | You have a sharp memory, Mr. Bijou. | 36:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I'll always remember that, I guess. But I never remember nothing else. | 36:13 |
Felix Armfield | Dates certainly transform our lives. Where was your mother born? In New Iberia? | 37:36 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Mississippi. | 37:36 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, she was a Mississippi girl. Now, Mississippi is MS? | 37:36 |
Rosalind Miller | MS. | 37:36 |
Felix Armfield | You know what city she was born in then? | 37:36 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I think in—It'll come to me. Bolton, I believe. Bolton, Mississippi. | 37:37 |
Rosalind Miller | Bolton. | 37:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Mm-hmm. | 37:37 |
Rosalind Miller | B O L T E N. | 37:37 |
Felix Armfield | B O L T E N? | 37:37 |
Rosalind Miller | I would assume. | 37:37 |
Felix Armfield | We don't know of the county, but we can find it out. Your mother was a housewife? | 37:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 37:37 |
Felix Armfield | She worked at the house, right? | 37:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | She didn't work for nobody. | 37:37 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. What as your father's first name, Mr. Bijou? | 37:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Same as mine. | 37:37 |
Felix Armfield | Prosper? | 37:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Same as mine. | 37:37 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 37:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Senior and junior. | 37:37 |
Felix Armfield | Are you? So you were a junior, huh? | 37:37 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Mm-hmm. | 37:37 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, Prosper Albert? | 37:55 |
Rosalind Miller | Albert. | 37:56 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Same thing. | 37:57 |
Felix Armfield | Were you the oldest son? | 38:02 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 38:05 |
Felix Armfield | Do you remember your father's birthdate? | 38:09 |
Prosper A. Bijou | 26th of June. | 38:21 |
Felix Armfield | Remember the year? How old was he when he died? | 38:21 |
Prosper A. Bijou | 86. | 38:21 |
Felix Armfield | And what year did he die? | 38:21 |
Prosper A. Bijou | '52. | 38:24 |
Felix Armfield | We can always dig it up. | 38:25 |
Rosalind Miller | There you go. 1866. | 38:32 |
Felix Armfield | Ooh, [indistinct 00:38:40]. And he died in 1956? What month? | 38:42 |
Rosalind Miller | '52. | 38:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | '52. He died in '52. | 38:44 |
Felix Armfield | Do you remember what month? | 38:44 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, in September. My mother died in his birth month and she died in his. | 38:49 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, really? [indistinct 00:38:58]. | 38:57 |
Prosper A. Bijou | My mother died in June, that was his birth month. | 38:57 |
Felix Armfield | The same day? On his birthday? | 39:01 |
Prosper A. Bijou | He died in September, that was my mother's birth— | 39:04 |
Felix Armfield | Do you remember the day? | 39:08 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 39:09 |
Felix Armfield | Do you remember the day in September? | 39:09 |
Prosper A. Bijou | The 7th of September. Oh, yeah. | 39:12 |
Felix Armfield | You have a very sharp memory. I've got people who aren't even as old as he is— | 39:12 |
Rosalind Miller | That don't remember. | 39:18 |
Felix Armfield | —and can't remember this stuff. Where was your father born? | 39:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 39:28 |
Felix Armfield | Where was your father born? | 39:30 |
Rosalind Miller | Where was he born? | 39:31 |
Prosper A. Bijou | He was born in Algiers. That's by New Orleans. | 39:33 |
Rosalind Miller | Algiers. | 39:33 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Algiers. | 39:33 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 39:33 |
Rosalind Miller | A L— | 39:33 |
Felix Armfield | G I E R S. And that's in Orleans Parish? | 39:33 |
Rosalind Miller | Orleans Parish. | 39:33 |
Felix Armfield | That's not Jefferson. | 39:33 |
Rosalind Miller | I don't think so. | 39:33 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 39:33 |
Rosalind Miller | You could check, I think that's Orleans. | 39:33 |
Felix Armfield | I think that's Orleans Parish. | 39:33 |
Rosalind Miller | I think it's Orleans. | 39:33 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That must be in Orleans Parish. | 39:44 |
Felix Armfield | Because they said that was where a lot of free Blacks lived, up in the Algiers area. And he was born in 1866 there? | 39:57 |
Rosalind Miller | It's got to be Orleans Parish. | 39:58 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. And your father was a carpenter? | 39:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. Oh, yeah. | 39:58 |
Felix Armfield | Now, how many brothers and sisters did you have? | 39:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Five sisters and two brothers. | 39:58 |
Felix Armfield | Can you give me all of their names from the oldest to the youngest? | 39:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Irma. | 39:58 |
Felix Armfield | Who? | 39:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Irma. | 39:58 |
Rosalind Miller | Irma. | 39:58 |
Felix Armfield | Irma. And that's an I, right? I R M. Or E R M? | 39:58 |
Rosalind Miller | E. | 39:58 |
Felix Armfield | I R M A? | 39:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | R M A. I R M A. | 39:58 |
Rosalind Miller | R, is it I? | 39:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 39:58 |
Felix Armfield | I R M A, I thought. | 39:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 39:58 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. And that's Irma Bijou? | 39:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 39:58 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, who's next. | 39:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Marjorie Bijou. | 39:58 |
Felix Armfield | Marjorie? | 39:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Marjorie, yeah. | 39:58 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 39:58 |
Prosper A. Bijou | And Mildred Bijou. | 41:04 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 41:04 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Juliet Bijou. | 41:04 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 41:04 |
Prosper A. Bijou | And Edith Bijou. | 41:14 |
Felix Armfield | All the girls were the oldest? | 41:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No. My sister Irma was the oldest, I'm next. | 41:19 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. And then there was Marjorie. | 41:24 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, Marjorie was after me. | 41:29 |
Felix Armfield | Then Mildred. | 41:32 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Then Mildred. | 41:32 |
Felix Armfield | Then Juliet. | 41:32 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Then Juliet. You got Juliet? | 41:35 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 41:36 |
Prosper A. Bijou | And then Edith. | 41:37 |
Felix Armfield | Edith. | 41:38 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's the baby one. Edith. | 41:38 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. And where— | 41:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Now, my brother Robert Bijou, he was after me. | 41:42 |
Felix Armfield | He was after you? | 41:47 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. After me. No, but I mean, the brothers. | 41:48 |
Felix Armfield | But he was younger than Edith? | 41:52 |
Prosper A. Bijou | We was three brothers. | 41:54 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, and who was after Robert? | 41:56 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Alfred. We was three brothers, we're all seven years apart. | 41:58 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Let me see this now. Let me tell you the order that I'm hearing. I heard you saying Irma was the oldest child. | 42:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's right. | 42:15 |
Felix Armfield | Then there was you. | 42:16 |
Prosper A. Bijou | There was me. | 42:30 |
Felix Armfield | Then there was Marjorie. | 42:30 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's right. | 42:30 |
Felix Armfield | Mildred. | 42:30 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That's right. | 42:30 |
Felix Armfield | Juliet. | 42:30 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. And Edith. | 42:30 |
Felix Armfield | Edith? | 42:30 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Baby. She was the baby of the family. | 42:31 |
Rosalind Miller | Baby girl. | 42:31 |
Felix Armfield | Is she the baby girl? | 42:31 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, she's the baby of the family, she's the— | 42:31 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, well where does Robert and Alfred fit in? | 42:32 |
Prosper A. Bijou | They came— | 42:37 |
Felix Armfield | Because I wanted them in the order that everybody was born. | 42:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Hold on. I'll give it to you again to see how—My sister Irma, then me, my brother Robert, and my sister Marjorie, and my sister Juliet, and my brother Alfred. Did I get my brother Robert? | 42:41 |
Felix Armfield | Thought you said Robert was after you? | 43:17 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, that's first. Yeah, Robert. I mean Alfred. He's the baby boy. But he's not the baby in the family, but he's the baby boy. | 43:19 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. [indistinct 00:43:28] Mildred and Edith. | 43:27 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 43:27 |
Rosalind Miller | Edith is the youngest. | 43:27 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, so Edith is the youngest. | 43:32 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, Edith's the baby of the family. | 43:33 |
Felix Armfield | And Mildred was the seventh child. | 43:33 |
Prosper A. Bijou | She was the baby of the family. | 43:33 |
Felix Armfield | So, I got it like this. | 43:33 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Huh? | 43:33 |
Rosalind Miller | [indistinct 00:43:42] you sister. | 43:33 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. | 43:42 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 43:46 |
Prosper A. Bijou | You met her? | 43:47 |
Rosalind Miller | No, they don't want to talk to— | 43:48 |
Felix Armfield | I think one of us has— | 43:49 |
Rosalind Miller | Somebody must've talked to Edith. | 43:50 |
Felix Armfield | I think we have spoken. What we have here is, Irma, you— | 43:52 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Robert. | 43:59 |
Felix Armfield | —Robert, Marjorie, Juliet, Alfred, Mildred and Edith. | 44:00 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Edith. Edith's the baby of the family. | 44:10 |
Felix Armfield | Okay, that's the order. | 44:11 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 44:13 |
Felix Armfield | Do you remember their birth dates? | 44:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Edith on the 5th of August I know. Juliet is on the 20th of September. | 44:18 |
Felix Armfield | But you don't remember the— | 44:28 |
Prosper A. Bijou | I forgot. | 44:28 |
Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:44:42]. | 44:28 |
Prosper A. Bijou | My brother was in November. | 44:28 |
Felix Armfield | Which brother? | 44:28 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Alfred. And no, my brother Robert was in November. My brother Alfred was in May. | 44:46 |
Felix Armfield | All right. And that's about all you can remember, right? | 45:02 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, right on through [indistinct 00:45:05]. | 45:04 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. You don't remember any of the years that any of them were born? | 45:06 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, I done forgot. | 45:12 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Now, are all of them living? | 45:12 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, just Edith living and Juliet living. | 45:19 |
Felix Armfield | Edith and Juliet. | 45:20 |
Prosper A. Bijou | My oldest sister, she got killed with my granddaughter and her husband killed those two and he kill himself. | 45:22 |
Felix Armfield | Hm. Now, who did that? | 45:39 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Smuddle. Clarence Smuddle. | 45:41 |
Felix Armfield | Really? | 45:41 |
Prosper A. Bijou | That was my granddaughter's husband. | 45:41 |
Felix Armfield | Oh. | 45:43 |
Prosper A. Bijou | He killed my granddaughter and my oldest sister and kill himself about 18 years ago. | 45:45 |
Felix Armfield | I'm sorry to hear that. Now, so you don't remember birth dates and the death dates of any of those that are dead, right? | 46:02 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 46:09 |
Felix Armfield | So the only ones who are living are Juliet and Edith and yourself and— | 46:09 |
Prosper A. Bijou | No, no, no. My brother Alfred living. | 46:13 |
Felix Armfield | Alfred is living. | 46:13 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah. | 46:22 |
Felix Armfield | Marjorie's dead. | 46:24 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Yeah, Marjorie. Mildred. Irma. | 46:25 |
Felix Armfield | And Robert is dead. | 46:31 |
Prosper A. Bijou | Robert is— | 46:32 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. Okay. | 0:01 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. You have one child? | 0:07 |
Prosper Bijou | Yes. | 0:08 |
Felix Armfield | What's her name? | 0:09 |
Prosper Bijou | Shirley. | 0:10 |
Felix Armfield | Shirley? | 0:14 |
Prosper Bijou | Bijou. | 0:16 |
Felix Armfield | Bijou. All right. What's her birthday? | 0:25 |
Prosper Bijou | Her birthday? | 0:25 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 0:25 |
Prosper Bijou | November. | 0:25 |
Felix Armfield | November? | 0:32 |
Prosper Bijou | 19th. November. | 0:33 |
Felix Armfield | November 19th, what year? | 0:33 |
Prosper Bijou | '92, I think, she born. '92. | 0:38 |
Felix Armfield | Not 1992. | 0:41 |
Rosalind Miller | '32. | 0:42 |
Felix Armfield | I want to know what you doing. | 0:44 |
Prosper Bijou | '32. | 0:45 |
Felix Armfield | What you taking if that was it. | 0:45 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. '32. Yeah, '32. | 0:45 |
Felix Armfield | I want to find out those secrets. 1932. And she was born here in New Iberia? | 0:45 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. | 0:45 |
Felix Armfield | I'd start looking [indistinct 00:01:06] and she was like, "What?" | 0:45 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. I'm getting kind of puzzled right along two years. A little bit too long for me. | 1:07 |
Felix Armfield | How many— | 1:12 |
Prosper Bijou | Huh? | 1:13 |
Felix Armfield | Do you have grandchildren? | 1:13 |
Prosper Bijou | How many grandchildren? | 1:15 |
Felix Armfield | Do you have grandchildren? | 1:16 |
Prosper Bijou | Oh, yeah, I got plenty grandchildren. | 1:18 |
Felix Armfield | How many you have? | 1:19 |
Prosper Bijou | I got about 19, I guess. And about 15 great-grandchildren. | 1:26 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, I'm not ask all them. And you lived here in New Iberia all your life? | 1:28 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. Some I worked out town, you know? | 1:40 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. | 1:41 |
Prosper Bijou | But, I mean, I live there. | 1:41 |
Felix Armfield | But this is your permanent residence? | 1:41 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah, I live here. | 1:41 |
Felix Armfield | And you went to, what was the name of the school? | 1:45 |
Rosalind Miller | A.B. Simon. | 1:48 |
Prosper Bijou | A.B. Simon. | 1:53 |
Felix Armfield | And that was in New Iberia? | 1:54 |
Prosper Bijou | Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. | 1:55 |
Felix Armfield | And you completed the eighth grade? | 1:58 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. | 1:59 |
Felix Armfield | Can you remember about when was it that you were at A.B. Simon, the years? | 2:00 |
Rosalind Miller | How old were you? | 2:04 |
Prosper Bijou | I don't know. I can't remember that. | 2:09 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 2:14 |
Prosper Bijou | I would want to say it's one year and it's another year, you know? | 2:16 |
Felix Armfield | You were a carpenter, so therefore, you did contract work, right? | 2:22 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. Mm-hmm. Worked for myself. | 2:23 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah. And basically, you worked in New Iberia and wherever? When did you stop working, Mr. Bijou? | 2:29 |
Prosper Bijou | When I started work? | 2:32 |
Felix Armfield | When did you stop? | 2:32 |
Rosalind Miller | Stopped, retire. | 2:32 |
Prosper Bijou | Oh, about '85. | 2:32 |
Rosalind Miller | 1985. | 2:32 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. And when did you first start doing carpentry work? | 2:32 |
Prosper Bijou | About 1915. | 2:35 |
Felix Armfield | 1915. So, we're going to say you worked from 1915 to 1985. | 2:50 |
Prosper Bijou | That's right. | 2:50 |
Felix Armfield | Is that fair enough? | 2:53 |
Prosper Bijou | Oh, yeah. I worked 50 cents a day, 1915. | 2:54 |
Felix Armfield | 50 cents a day? | 3:05 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. | 3:05 |
Felix Armfield | In 1915? | 3:05 |
Prosper Bijou | I wasn't no carpenter. I just had started working carpentry work. | 3:07 |
Felix Armfield | Have you ever received any awards or honorees that you want to mention at this time? | 3:21 |
Prosper Bijou | No, I don't think. | 3:23 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. And you are Catholic, right? | 3:28 |
Prosper Bijou | Huh? | 3:32 |
Felix Armfield | You're Catholic, right? | 3:33 |
Prosper Bijou | Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. | 3:34 |
Felix Armfield | And your church is St. Edward's? | 3:35 |
Prosper Bijou | St. Edward. | 3:36 |
Felix Armfield | Seems like you're proud of St. Edward's. | 3:37 |
Prosper Bijou | Huh? | 3:40 |
Felix Armfield | You seem like you're proud of St. Edward's. | 3:40 |
Prosper Bijou | Oh, yeah. Yep, indeed, I love St. Edward. Your grandmother loved St. Edward, too. | 3:42 |
Rosalind Miller | Oh, Lord. | 3:48 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, your mom loved St—You never served in the military, right? | 3:53 |
Prosper Bijou | Did what? | 3:55 |
Felix Armfield | You didn't serve in the military? | 3:55 |
Prosper Bijou | No, no, uh-huh. | 3:57 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Now what do you like doing? What do you love doing just for relaxation and for fun? | 3:58 |
Prosper Bijou | Right now? | 4:04 |
Felix Armfield | Mm-hmm. | 4:04 |
Prosper Bijou | Well, saying my prayer, that's one thing. | 4:06 |
Rosalind Miller | All right. | 4:12 |
Prosper Bijou | And I say the rosary every day, sometime twice a day. | 4:14 |
Rosalind Miller | You do. | 4:18 |
Prosper Bijou | I got other prayers I read. And I like to look at ballgame. | 4:18 |
Rosalind Miller | All right, [indistinct 00:04:27]. | 4:25 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. | 4:30 |
Rosalind Miller | It's all [indistinct 00:04:31]. | 4:30 |
Prosper Bijou | He like them? | 4:31 |
Rosalind Miller | Mm-hmm. [indistinct 00:04:36]. | 4:35 |
Prosper Bijou | I like ballgame. Yeah, I like. | 4:35 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. All right. Now the only thing I need from you is your signature saying that it's okay for us to have these tapes and the information that you gave us. | 4:43 |
Prosper Bijou | Okay. | 4:50 |
Felix Armfield | And you can sign on this line here. Right there. Give me your signature and I'll fill the rest of it out, and a date. And we're all done. | 4:52 |
Felix Armfield | You can get there in time for your meeting. | 5:03 |
Rosalind Miller | I get to eat, too. | 5:03 |
Felix Armfield | What're you going to eat? | 5:03 |
Rosalind Miller | Just at my house. | 5:10 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, what are y'all having for dinner? | 5:11 |
Rosalind Miller | We should have some pizza. | 5:19 |
Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:05:20] invited me to go. | 5:19 |
Rosalind Miller | Oh, Lord, listen now. | 5:19 |
Prosper Bijou | This one time, one place? | 5:19 |
Felix Armfield | Right here. Right here, on this line. | 5:22 |
Prosper Bijou | And then? | 5:24 |
Felix Armfield | Yeah, and sign right there on that line. | 5:25 |
Prosper Bijou | Okay. | 5:27 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Thank you, Mr. Bijou. | 5:42 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah, okay. | 5:43 |
Felix Armfield | Is there anything else you'd like to say, just for the record while we have the tape on? | 5:44 |
Rosalind Miller | Mr. Prosper, what is this? | 5:47 |
Prosper Bijou | Huh? | 5:53 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. | 5:53 |
Rosalind Miller | Award of distinction to Prosper Bijou. | 5:53 |
Prosper Bijou | Oh, yeah. | 5:55 |
Felix Armfield | [indistinct 00:05:57] your name [indistinct 00:05:57]. | 5:56 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah, that's from the Governor. | 5:58 |
Rosalind Miller | Yeah. | 5:58 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. It's [indistinct 00:06:00]. | 5:58 |
Rosalind Miller | He was born in 1900, so he made 93 in the year of '93. | 6:03 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. | 6:04 |
Rosalind Miller | And it's signed by Governor Edwin Edwards. | 6:06 |
Prosper Bijou | I forgot about that. | 6:07 |
Felix Armfield | Look at that, uh-huh. | 6:07 |
Prosper Bijou | Really, I forgot about it. | 6:11 |
Felix Armfield | Oh, so there's the [indistinct 00:06:12] thing. | 6:12 |
Rosalind Miller | You have to copy that down. | 6:12 |
Prosper Bijou | Huh? | 6:12 |
Rosalind Miller | He's going to copy that down. | 6:14 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. | 6:16 |
Rosalind Miller | Right here, award or distinctions. | 6:16 |
Felix Armfield | Awards or distinctions. | 6:17 |
Rosalind Miller | Because, see, it was signed by Edward Edwards—Edwin Edwards, because he reached 93 in— | 6:19 |
Prosper Bijou | I forgot about that. | 6:26 |
Rosalind Miller | Well, I was— | 6:26 |
Felix Armfield | Award or distinction— | 6:26 |
Prosper Bijou | I'll be honest, that the only one I ever got. | 6:26 |
Felix Armfield | —age of 93 in the year of '93. | 6:33 |
Rosalind Miller | You never got nothing at church? | 6:37 |
Felix Armfield | And that's what— | 6:38 |
Prosper Bijou | No, uh-huh. | 6:39 |
Felix Armfield | —signed by Governor? | 6:42 |
Rosalind Miller | Edwin Edwards, talking about the Governor of Louisiana. I could tell you one thing, he's well-respected. I mean, I don't know if you would call that an award, but— | 6:42 |
Felix Armfield | No, because I heard that. | 6:53 |
Rosalind Miller | —everybody knows how Mr. Prosper is. | 6:54 |
Felix Armfield | I've heard that from everybody, people— | 6:56 |
Rosalind Miller | They had him in the newspapers. Was it last year they put you in the newspaper? | 6:59 |
Felix Armfield | People that I've talked to all over New Iberia, everybody just said, "You need to talk to Prosper Bijou. If you're here and you want to get research, you need to talk to Prosper Bijou." | 7:03 |
Rosalind Miller | I told you. When you first came to me, I asked him if he had talked to you. | 7:15 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. | 7:18 |
Rosalind Miller | Okay. So, that's the thing, everybody respects Mr. Prosper. | 7:18 |
Felix Armfield | And guess what? | 7:18 |
Prosper Bijou | After you get old, you can think, but it don't come like when you're young. | 7:26 |
Rosalind Miller | Sometime it don't come when you're young. (laughs) | 7:33 |
Prosper Bijou | Yeah. It should. | 7:35 |
Felix Armfield | Okay. Is there anything else that you'd like to say, Mr. Bijou? | 7:35 |
Prosper Bijou | No. | 7:35 |
Felix Armfield | Thank you so much for your time. | 7:35 |
Rosalind Miller | Thank you, [indistinct 00:07:47]. | 7:35 |
Prosper Bijou | I'm kind of tired right this one. | 7:35 |
Felix Armfield | I'll [indistinct 00:07:49]. Thank you. | 7:35 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund