Shrimp and ‘The Silver Dime’

In the year 1929, Leeville produced the first oil well and Golden Meadow produced the first me, Leroy. One event was a boon to the economy, while the other was problematic. Guess which was which.

Until the oil boom, South Louisiana Cajuns had three ways to make a living— fishing, trapping or farming: trawling for shrimp, dragging reefs for oysters, hooking or netting any of the multitudes of editable species of fish that inhabit our bayous and oceans or laying traps for mink and muskrats. Nutrias came later but were more of a nuisance than a profitable source of income.

Southeast Louisiana Acadian decedents were called “Bayou Cajuns” while their counterparts in Southwest Louisiana were the “Prairie Cajuns.” In my South Lafourche area and South Terrebonne farming was not a major factor and because of the water table you had to go a little ways up the bayous to farm Louisiana’s major crop, sugar cane. The natives raised some vegetables but it was more of an extended garden than a farm. The Prairie Cajuns used their water resources to plant rice, which was viable because their land was higher. (I got this information from South Lafourche Levee General Manager Wendell Curole, who knows a thing or two about water tables.) They also used the rice fields to raise crayfish. In the South Lafourche/Terrebonne area any land beyond 600 feet was wet and whatever dry land existed was used by us kids to play cowboys and Indians. Any further back would have been Cowboys and Alligators. As cowboys we always won but I doubt that would have been the same outcome with alligators.

Therefore canning shrimp factories proliferated in Coastal Louisiana. In Golden Meadow alone there were five of them, Max Phillips, Dunbar-Dukate, Bertule Cheramie, Picciola and Falgout. Before deep freezing was possible the shrimp was peeled mostly by ladies and a few children on boxes (before child labor laws). I couldn’t peel but I could break heads which I did many summers later.

Here was the scenario:

The shrimp boats unloaded their catch at the factory and passenger trucks would travel the shell highway yelling “big shrimp at Max Fee-Lip”. “Big” was emphasized to entice more ladies to jump aboard. Here’s why. They were paid a “silver dime” when a bucket was filled with peeled shrimp hulls. Because of this “Silver Dimes”, were coins of the realm when I was growing up, but are rare today. They were rolled in packs of $ 5 or $10 and supplemented the main bread winner’s wages. (This was depression time and my Mom would hide them around the house for emergencies, which came often, so not many packs of “silver dimes” were laying around.)

When a peeler thought enough peels could fill the bucket, they laid them in as carefully as you lay eggs in a basket and fluff them up filling the bucket faster. The peeler then went to the cashier who viewed it, dumped the bucket and handed the peeler a “Silver Dime”. I doubt there was any silver in them but that’s what they were called, never just “a dime” or $.10 cents (Years later when my Mom and I broke shrimp heads together, she could fill three buckets to my one. She was also a “Saint” to us and we got to keep her until she was 91.

Let’s continue. With their bucket filled, they walked to the cashier. They were careful not to trip or stumble or shake the bucket which would settle the peels and lower the level. If that happened they would go back to their table, dump the peelings and softly replace and fluff them again. Lord help someone who bumped them. These good, mostly Catholic women knew a few cuss words, learned no doubt from their husbands, who as trawlers were ipso facto also sailors. (“Cuss like a”…. Oh! You know.)

When freezing became the mode, canning was phased out and the peelers became headers, which is breaking the heads and putting the body of the shrimp into a flowing trough and the heads into the bucket. I don’t remember if the bucket size was changed but when I was breaking heads, the pay was twenty five cents or a “quarter”.

It was never called a “Silver Quarter”. BYE NOW!

Leroy MartinLeroy Martin