Interviewer(s): D. DiTucci and S. Wiltz. New Iberia, LA

Affiliation: University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Rufus Marin was born in New Iberia, Louisiana, in 1921. His father worked as a ticket agent for the railroad before owning a grocery store and working as a salesman. His first job in the oil industry was in the Red Fox Machine and Supply Company office, where he worked for about a year; his sister also went to work there and was the assistant to the boss for 44 years. In 1955, he went to work for his cousin at Laperouse Abstract Company, where he learned how to abstract land titles. They worked together for four or five years in Vermillion Parish; for the next 30 years he stayed with the company, working all over south Louisiana. When work slowed down in 1991, he was laid off and went to work on his own. He retired in about 1999, but has continued to do some contract work during the summer. During the interview he provides detailed explanations and descriptions of the abstracting process and the way that land ownership, royalties, and minerals rights work in Louisiana.