Interviewer(s): D. Austin. Morgan City, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I met Judy Wilson when I was at her house to interview her husband, Bill. After I had talked with Bill, Judy and I talked a bit and I learned that she had been raised by an uncle who worked for Texaco, that Bill had worked for Texaco, and that her daughters had worked for oil companies. I told her I was interested in getting the perspectives of women, and she agreed to be interviewed. I called her on my next trip to Morgan City and met her at her house.

Judy was born in northern Louisiana near the Arkansas border. Because of circumstances at home, she lived most of the time with her aunt and uncle and visited her mother and brother on holidays and summer vacations. Her uncle had worked in the oilfields in Texas, northern Louisiana, and elsewhere prior to moving to southern Louisiana with the Texas Company. Jewell finished high school in New Iberia and returned to northern Louisiana after graduation. There she and Bill Wilson (see DA085) married and remained until they returned to New Iberia where he took a job with Texaco. Jewell worked for insurance companies when she first got out of high school and then again after her third child started school.