Interviewer(s): D. Austin. Bush, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

Rusty Guidry has been a friend of Walt Daspit since they were in school together in Lafayette in the middle 1940s. When I was at Walt's house on July 10, he suggested I should try to get in touch with some of the rig builders and their wives because there are few of them left. Many of them came in from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas and built the rigs in the swamps, marshes and lakes. When things moved offshore they built the rigs there as well until the jack-up rigs eliminated the need for them. Walt called Rusty and arranged for us to meet her at Carmine's restaurant in Bush. She was at the restaurant when we arrived, and we joined her in a back room. We were the only ones in the room so we were able to talk. She did not mind the tape recorder, so we did the interview before and during lunch. Walt was quiet for much of the interview but commented here and there. Rusty was married four times; her second husband was a rig builder and third one a diver. She met them in bars and has the language and toughness of a woman who bragged that she could take care of herself among the men. Rusty is candid about living among the rig builders, which she describes as "never dull." What comes through as she relates the stories is the persistent cycle of work, alcohol, and fighting that defined the existence of many rig builders, divers, and other oilfield workers.

Rusty was born and raised in Lafayette. She was born in 1930, and the oilfield she and Walt Daspit knew during their childhood was the one at Lonesome Butte. At that time, Lafayette was a railroad town. Rusty married her first husband at age 16 and was divorced a few years afterward. She met her second husband, "Pie," in 1950 when he came to Lafayette as a rig builder. The rig builders were a rough group, and most of them had served time in the penitentiary. There were six men to a crew, and five of the six in Pie's crew had been in prison. Pie served time in Huntsville, Texas for breaking a man's neck during a fight. Being strong, fighting and drinking were defining characteristics of the rig builders. After she divorced Pie, Rusty married an oilfield diver. That marriage eventually ended because of drinking.