Interviewer(s): D. Austin. Morgan City, LA.

Affiliation: University of Arizona

Rosalie Blum was referred to me by Steve Shirley. She is a lifelong resident of Morgan City, and Steve suggested she would be able to talk about the oil and gas industry and its impacts on the community. Rosalie was hesitant as she felt that she did not know much about the oil and gas industry, but after we talked for a while she agreed to be interviewed. As a native of Morgan City, Rosalie offers a valuable look at Morgan City before the oil and gas industry arrived and then talks about life in the community.

Rosalie Blum was born and raised in Morgan City. She and her four sisters and two brothers grew up on Railroad Avenue with her grandfather, Pieto Guarisco, her grandmother, parents, uncles, and one unmarried aunt. Her family was one of several Italian families that, along with black families, lived "across the tracks." Rosalie's father worked on the farm and in the family bakery and later bought a bar and pool room and an ice cream store. Her uncle, Victor, had a crab factory and a bulk plant and later built Twenty Grand, a boat company that serviced the offshore oil and gas industry. Rosalie's husband, Milford, worked at the bulk plant and other jobs around town. He died when their fifth child was only a year old, and in 1961 Rosalie began working as a schoolteacher, a job she held until she retired.