Interviewer(s): T. McGuire. Larose, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

Cullen Curole, an attorney with the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program's Foundation, had been organizing a focus group of Texaco retirees. Cullen himself had once been a Texaco employee, before he crashed a boat into the Texaco dock in Leeville. Pershing Lefort agreed to participate, but wanted to be interviewed at his home in Larose. His wife Ophelia participated in much of the interview. The interview covered Pershing's jobs with Texaco, some observations on the company's financial troubles in the 1980s, and the retirement process. There are also observations on the coming of the industry to Golden Meadow. Pershing's father had to move house and family up to Galliano after a well blew out in the late 1930s.

Born in Golden Meadow in 1924, Pershing J. Lefort was a lifelong Texas Company man, working in production at several of the company's fields run the Harvey and Houma districts. He served in the Army in the Pacific during World War II, took advantage of the GI Bill to get a degree from Lafayette, then after additional service in the Air Force and several years working on drilling rigs, got on with Texaco. His last job was to develop an experimental tertiary recovery process using CO2 at the Paradis field. His wife Ophelia is an accomplished artist, painting local scenes on materials such as oyster shells and muskrat-drying boards.