Interviewer(S): Diane Austin; Jamie Christy. Morgan City, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona, University of Houston/History International

I was referred to Bill Wilson by Harry LeBoeuf. Bill and Harry are among the few supervisors and managers employed by Texaco's Morgan City office who have remained in the community. When I called Bill, he said that he had talked with Andrew and agreed to do an interview but never heard again and therefore thought he had missed his opportunity. He was very pleased to have me come over. His wife, Jewell, answered the door; Bill was outside finishing up with the serviceman who had come to repair his windshield. Bill and I sat in his den, which he has decorated almost completely with LSU memorabilia. I did not see Jewell again until I stopped in the dining room to tell her goodbye. As we stood there talking, she told me that her uncle, who raised her, had worked for Texaco and that both her daughters had worked for oil companies. I told her that we were looking for women's perspectives, and she agreed to be interviewed on my next trip out.

Bill was born into an oilfield family in north Louisiana; his father migrated from east Texas to Magnolia, Arkansas and worked for the Interstate Oil Pipeline Company. After spending a couple of years in college, Bill joined the Air Force. He spent four years in Korea. He returned to Shreveport after the war and went back to school at Centenary College in Shreveport for a business degree. His first job out of the service was branch manager for Bozier Bank and Trust. He got married and decided to get into the service station business. That venture was short-lived but taught him many important lessons and left him in debt. He was fortunate to get a job with Texaco in 1957, despite the recession at the time, and spent two years doing whatever jobs were needed until he landed a permanent position as a roughneck. He advanced through several positions and then ended up as yard foreman for the company's Morgan City shore base of its new offshore district. He continued to advance through the position of District Materials Manager and finally into the company's New Orleans Division Office, working in a position generally reserved for people with advanced college degrees. He occupied that position during the company's downsizing and retired as purchasing manager in 1992, after which he continued to do consulting for a small company in Morgan City.