Gus’s Story by Gus Williams

I was born in the South in Louisiana. My mother’s name is Rosie Anderson, and my father’s name is Gustave Williams. They had ten children: seven girls and three boys. I am the oldest son. I have seven older sisters.
     My dad and mother both worked in the fields cutting sugar cane. My father and I cut rice and corn. Dad plowed the fields and cut down trains in the woods. They had no welfare at the time, so they also had to plant their own food to eat. They had horses, cows and chickens. I would have to get out and milk the cows and feed the horses and chickens. We lived in a small house. We had to catch the rain in buckets because the roof leaked every time it rained and it rained a lot in Louisiana. We had to bring in water from the well for drinking.
     I worked in the field starting at thirteen years old for $1.50 a day, sun up to sun down. I cut sugar cane. Working in the rice field only paid 50 cents a day. Sometimes it as so cold and rainy it was very hard to work. The water man would bring around a bucket of water and we would all drink from the same tin cup.
     We had to cook in the fireplace because we didn’t have a stove. We had to bathe in a tub with water heated in a pot on the fireplace. My younger brother washed first and I was the last because I was the oldest. We used a lye soap and shared the same water.
     We planted beans and corn, ate some fresh and dried the rest. We made cornmeal for cornbread and planted sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins, tomatoes, string beans and lima beans.
     My mother couldn’t read at all, my daddy only a little. He didn’t have the time to teach us because he worked all the time. We walked three miles each way to school–rain or shine–on a gravel road. It was so cold we would make fires along the way to warm ourselves. The school bus would pick up the white children from the various plantations. As they passed us on the road, they would spit and yell out the windows on the way to their school. At our school, all grades were in the same classroom. We got the used books.
     It was bad and good. But even with the animosity I still have love in my heart. I don’t hate them. A lot of people do things out of ignorance. If people would learn to love and treat people how they want to be treated, this would be a better place for everyone.