*soft jazz music plays* *soft jazz music fades*
Lester Simon: I was born on this Westwego plantation and from there you know,
I spent most of my life right there. When I left Wego, we came here, that was in ’43.
From that we lived here about three years, because after WWII, the lady that bought this place,
Miss Gray, she didn’t want nobody back there. So, we had to move back from
where we had came from. But the people that
was working the land, we continue working for them and I work here for quite a while until
about 1950 and I was drafted into the army in ’51. I left here in June 1951; I came back in May
1953. Because when I went in the army, I was in an all-black outfit, the 450 Antiaircraft Battalion.
That’s when Eisenhower changed everything. You couldn’t have a black outfit or just a
white outfit, you have to mix it, everybody have to be together. It was different, yeah,
because when I came back here, they had a little grocery, and I wanted a beer. I had to go to the
back window and get it. But I told them, “I ain’t going to no window and pick up nothing,
nothing,” I’d rather do without it. I say, “you can keep it.” That’s the way some of us was at
the time. They didn’t want to sell it to you, you had to go to the back and get it out the window.
At the time, I couldn’t look at you too hard. Look at a white girl? Oh no, cause
I know a lot of guys got in trouble just by looking at them. When I was in Alaska,
things was different. You didn’t see too many because most of the time you was on the base.
When I was here, they had about six families living back here. You know them houses,
it used to be nice back here, under these trees you know, nice in the summer breeze you know,
under the trees. But in the winter, *laughs* it be cold under them trees. When I was here,
they had people, not everyone, but they had, most everyone they had, somebody living there.
They got a long house somewhere along there. Katy Morals Shannon: They do have a long house,
it’s going to be right in the middle, there are two of them.
L. Simon: Okay. K. Morals Shannon: Do you
know what they were used for? L. Simon: They called that the boarding house.
K. Morals Shannon: Uh huh. L. Simon: That’s where they used to
cook and serve the people the food. K. Morals Shannon: Okay.
L. Simon: Right there, them people was living here,
and they were working here. And that’s why they used to get their breakfast in the morning…
K. Morals Shannon: Yeah. L. Simon: Before they go to work.
That’s that long house over there. K. Morals Shannon: That’s right.
L. Simon: My brother-in-law was living in one of these two houses right here. It was across from
that house there. I used to live here sometimes with him.
K. Morals Shannon: Right. L. Simon: I done played on this porch here,
one of them house there many days. They had something they called pig. You have a long stick,
and you sharpen it on the end and see which one could knock the other one down.
And we used to play marbles. My uncle used to always talk about the place and my granddaddy
you know. How it used to be when they was coming up here but we never had really
talked about it too much because we was living it you know.
When I was living back here, they had a guy living here. We used to call him Boy Idell.
The furthest you would come was to the back door, no farther. The big house over there,
only pass around, I never look in it or nothing. I remember when the lady that bought this place, we
used to walk around for a little while but after, that’s the most you can do. I know they tell me
it’s a nice place, but I never been in it. K. Morals Shannon: Well, you tell us where
you want to go and what you want to do. We’ll make it happen.
L. Simon: I done see what I wanted to see, now that’s it.
K. Morals Shannon: Okay. I could take you in the big house if you want to.
L. Simon: No, no. K. Morals Shannon:
I like it out here better. L. Simon: It’s nice and cool right here.
K. Morals Shannon: So beautiful, with the trees. L. Simon: While I was back there I was workin’.
They used to make rice back here. Further in the back are the railroad tracks. They had
the rice farming back there. They had a pumping station setting up by the river and they used
to run the water through pipe back to the rice because you got to have water to make rice.
We used to have some nice times because we’d pump it over the levee right in the canal.
When the pump stopped, whatever fish be coming in they be right where the water come out the pipe,
and we used to go back out there with a net and catch them, sometimes catch them by hand
and we used to have some good times. During the grinding time…
K. Morals Shannon: Yeah. L. Simon: …somebody had a supper
on a Saturday night someway. K. Morals Shannon: Um...hum.
L. Simon: We used to go from house to house and have a good time, you know.
K. Morals Shannon: Grinding time was long. L. Simon: Oh, yeah. They start in October, and
they got October, November, and December. All depend how the weather is. The sugar cane field
where it’s at now, I done have some good days and bad days back here cutting sugar cane. We
used to call that money. If you come out made twenty dollars a week or twenty-five dollars
a week, you call that money at that time. They had a church here. It was an old church
in the 1800’s. It had to have been there to go back in the land back here, we had to pass by
the church. Where we came across, that church was setting somewhere in that area right there. And
we used to come across and go back in there. If I could remember that church was somewhere
over here, where the grass is bushy over there, that church was somewhere right there,
because we had to pass the church when we was coming to go back there.
It was sitting back up about maybe ten foot or so.
But I don’t know if they tore it down or they move it away or something, but they had a church there.
When I came up here, church was still there. It was something like the church that they have on
Whitney Plantation. It was simular to that. One of my brothers-in-law, his daddy was a preacher,
he used to pastor that church there. But my brother-in-law name was Samuel
Taylor Wright. Now he used to live back here, he and my sister. That’s why I spent a lot of time
back here with them. Before we moved here, I used to come up here and stay with them, you know.
They had a little cemetery somewhere way across. Where you going in over there,
that cemetery was somewhere back up in there, between Evergreen and Johnson that cemetery
was right down there somewhere. It had to have been there in the 1800’s. We used to
pass there because we used to walk in the back over here. They had a grocery store on Johnson,
right by the railroad track. So, we used to walk across because we never had a store here.
They had a school right where you go in that gate over there, Evergreen School. The white
children used to go to the school over there. Now listen to this good now. We black people,
we didn’t go to the school there. Listen to this good now,
they had a hall, where that 66 Station there, they had a hall right down that lane there. That
was our school. So, we have to walk from here, go to the hall and go to our school.
During that time, they had the school in Edgard that was the same thing in Edgard. But
then they close this one down and move all the white ones to the school on in Edgard.
That was our school then. K. Morals Shannon: Okay,
so then you went to school here in Evergreen? L. Simon: Yeah. When Miss Gray bought this place,
they closed the school down and tore it down. I went to school up to sixth grade. Most of the
things I learned when I was in the Army. *soft jazz music begins to build*
Yeah, I haven’t been under the little trees there for years. By Miss Gray, I think that was planted
in 1939. But these here, when I came here, they was there. Boy, they some old trees. I haven’t
been in this section for, it’s been years. *soft jazz music fades*