A Choyce Interview.

A Choyce Interview March, 1991. Working on the Plantation.

Liz (L) and Leonard (C) Choyce: M is interviewer, Monty or Marsha.

Leonard Choyce was born on May 22nd, 1911. In a couple of months he would be 80 years old.

Our first question to Leonard Choyce was, "where were you born?" and the answer was immediately controversial. He said, "Jonesville," and Liz contradicted him. "Wascom," she said.

"Well, it was Jonesville then," he said. Jonesville, Wascom — it's a community on the Texas side of the line, east of Shreveport.
Since we're trying to dig out some information about Leadbelly's early life, we asked if and when Leonard's parents moved the family on to the Jeter Plantation? (The Jeter Plantation was Huddie Ledbetter's birthplace, and his home until the age of five when he moved with his parents to East Texas.)

The Choyce family, when they left Jonesville, moved to the Jeter place, and that's where Leonard lived, basically, until he moved down to his current location in Mooringsport.

M:  Did you farm on the Jeter place?

Choyce:  Farmed all my life while I was there. 

M: You moved on to the Jeter plantation about 1920, then?

Choyce: Somewhere like that, yes. About 1920.

M: And your parents farmed there?

Choyce: Yes, my mother did. She wasn't married when she move there. She married afterwards. Married a Lacey. She didn't marry my dad. They wasn't together.

M:  How many brothers and sisters do you have?

Choyce: I had two then. But those are dead.

M: What sort of crops did you raise?

Choyce:  Cotton and corn.

M: Tell me about the raising of cotton . . . how do you start the year?

Choyce: We would start in January when the weather was favorable. We'd start breaking up the crop. We'd get the whole thing planted somewhere in May. Corn and cotton.

Liz:  Old people like to plant that corn and cotton in March.

M:  Where did you get the seed?

Liz: The man you were working for bought the seed.

Choyce: That's where we got feed for the mule. Furnished us food, too. Furnished the whole plantation food. Frank Jeter.  F.F. Jeter.

M: Frank Jeter furnished you the food and the seed, and in return for that,  

you raised the cotton? 

Liz: We worked for him for half. You'd raise the cotton — you'd get half of the cotton and he'd get half. And the corn, too.

Choyce: That was what you call "working for half." When you pull the corn, you carry a load to his barn, carry a load to your barn. Then when the cotton crop come off, he got half of it, and you got half of it.

M: Did he have a gin there?

Choyce: No, we hauled it to the gin in Leigh, Texas.

M:  Who owned the gin over there?

Choyce:  Taylor and Howe. [T.J. Taylor, Lady Bird Johnson’s father]   

M: T.J. Taylor owned a whole lot of Texas, didn't he?

Choyce: He sure did. (smiles) Most of it. (laughs) So that's the way it was . . . but we got along alright.

M: You've got the cotton planted. What do you do next?

Choyce: Like when we ain't planting? Worked around there on the farm. Clean up the farm, clean up the ditches; kept the water draining . . . you know, drained the water off the farm. Kept something to do all the time.

M: Did you have animals?

Choyce: I had cows.Two milk cows.

Liz: Mr. Jeter had horses and cows. Mules and horses.

M: So you got up in the morning and milked the cows?

Choyce: Sometimes my wife milked.

Liz: He didn't get up milking cows. He got up going to the field. See, he'd get up early going to the field, then I'd be getting up doing everything, you see. Cause I'd even fix breakfast and take him his breakfast in the field after I got at the house. I was the one did the milking.

M: Did you use the milk for other things; like cheese?

Liz: No. Didn't use it for no cheese. Just used it for drinking and cooking with. Then butter and stuff, never did make any cheese. When the milk turned, you'd churn it and made plenty of butter. Good old home made butter. That's the best kind.

M: You had your own churn for butter making?

Liz: That's right. Sure did. Had my own churn and had all my milk stuff. Like when you milk you strain the milk up and put it up til it turns, get ready for churning.

M: Okay. Back to the cotton: when the cotton starts to grow, you have to chop?

Choyce: Chop cotton. Plow it. Pick it, too.

Liz: Had to hoe it;  had to do all that. Chop it, hoe it. I'd be hoeing and chopping while he plowed and he had some hands that'd help. Mr. Jeter did. But, you had to do all that before the picking come around. Then you laid by. You're through with it til you go back to pick it.

M: Different people had different parts of Jeter's land?

Choyce: Yes. Different people had different parts. So many acres, each one worked. It was a big-sized place. Was a lot of people on the place. I can't tell you exactly how many, but it was a big place. Plantation. That's what it was.

Liz: He was already on there before we got married (in 1929.) He practically finished growing up there. He was there a long time before I went over there. I can tell what happened while I was there.

M: Where did you come from?

Liz: I come from over Mr. Tilly Kerr's place (?) Not too far from off the Jeter place. Over across the road. Tilly Kerr. He had a big plantation. I was living with my grandparents — Sarah Thomas and Joe Thomas. That's where I got married. My mother was named Willie — Willie Thomas.

M: They came from a plantation, too, then? Were they farming for halves as well?

Liz: Yes. Sure were. Back in them days, that's the way everybody worked.

Working for half. He had a lot of people on his plantation, too.

M: What's the difference between that and "sharecropping?"

Liz:  I don't know about the sharecropping. A lot of people owned it. They had their own land. They're not working for half, you see, that's their own. See, they do what they want and like they want with it. That's the difference. But if you're on somebody else's and working for them, well, they get the half and you get the half. 

M: What did you think about it at the time? Did you like it alright?

Liz: I didn't have no other choice. I didn't like it, but I went on like I liked it. Matter of fact, they started me out at eight years old. And I used to cut bushes, replant cotton, corn...they'd plant it and it'd be cold, wasn't coming up to suit 'em, they'd have us with them pockets on, replanting cotton, corn; if not that, cutting bushes out of the field. And then we had to cut wood, pack it up, us children, us grandchildren. It was rough. We didn't have no easy time. So, no sir, I didn't like it, but I didn't have no other choice.

M: Did you get much time to go to school?

Liz: No sir, not in them times. They robbed us out. They didn't go to school longer than three months. Some of them could go three months, if they were children with their mother and father, they'd send them to school, but you with your grandparents . . . they'd keep you out. Most of the time. It wasn't but three months. I come up the hard way. Ain't seen no easy time,  but I didn't have no other choice.

M: You (to Leonard) didn't go to school much either, then? 

Choyce: No. I didn't. It was just like she said. You had three months. Schooling. And I went to school, had 30 days, and all them wasn't school days out of the month. So I guess I made it to school a little better than half of the time. Had to get out there and cut sprouts. Clean up sprouts out of the way. . . I guess you know what that is?

M: No, you'll have to tell me that. 

Choyce: (Laughs) That's the same thing. Sprouts grow up over the field, instead of me going to school, I had to stop and cut sprouts out of the way. 

Liz: You had to do that to get the land ready, get those bushes out. Then the next thing, they started me out plowing. I wasn't no higher . . . at eight years old I had to hold up on the handle like that (gestures) and that  (?) cross that handle of that plow would touch me and I had to push up on the handle like that. And they had me dragging off and the planter behind be planting. 

M: And the plow was pulled by mules?

Liz:  Yes sir. Horses and mules. It's the way it was.

Liz moved to the Jeter plantation at seventeen years of age. That's when she got married to the seventeen-year-old Leonard. They were married on the 22nd of January, 1929.

It was almost their anniversary.

Liz: Yes. Be 62 years, been married that long.

Choyce: 63, won't it?

Liz: No. You counted too fast.

M: That's right, it's 62. 1929 to '91.

Liz: 62 years.

Choyce: Yes.

M: You're jumping ahead.

Liz: He counted too fast. (Laughter)

Choyce: I know it's been a long time.

Liz: But I keep up with it, you see, it was 61 last past one. It'd be 62. That's after the third Sunday. He's got a doctor's appointment that day. Anniversary Day. (Laughs)