Interviewer(s): D. Austin. New Orleans, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

Joe Sanford referred me to Roy Smith. Roy's wife, Natalie, was out at the mailbox when I pulled up to the house, and she told me to go on in through the kitchen door. Roy was sitting at the kitchen table, so we decided to do the interview there. Before we started, Natalie took me into the hallway to the bedrooms and showed me the photos she has hanging there. She has copied and laminated hundreds of photos, blown up to 8.5 x 11, and created a collage on the walls. An entire section is devoted to Roy's diving. Natalie had errands to run and was gone during most of the interview, but she did come back a couple of times during the day to get out photographs and then to join in the discussion. During the interview, I stopped the tape at several points where Roy wanted to tell me about problems that he felt were caused by companies or individuals but did not want to have that information recorded. After the interview, Roy and I selected and scanned a number of his photographs, and we did the photo interview later in the afternoon.

Roy is from New Orleans. He served in the U.S. Coast Guard during WWII and returned home to work with his father in New Orleans as a construction contractor. He began working for the offshore oil and gas industry in the early 1950's when Humble Oil built its first platform offshore. At the time, construction work in New Orleans was slow, so Roy and a friend went down to Grand Isle to work for Humble Oil. He soon got his operator's license and began driving a boat for Humble and then suggested to them that they could use his services as a diver. He dove for a contract company until Humble opened its marine division and then remained with Humble until 1952 when a diving accident left him paralyzed and unable to dive again.