Edited interview with Lyman Frugia Jr (LF), son of Lyman Frugia. Interview conducted by Joe Manning (JM) on September 8, 2008.

JM: What did you think of the photographs of your father?

LF: I was thrilled to get them. I don't have any pictures of him when he was young.

JM: Did the boy look like your father?

LF: Yes, pretty much.

JM: Did you know that he was working as a so-called river boy when he was that young?

LF: Yes. He told me about it. He had worked for a lumber company when he was a young boy.

JM: What did he say about it?

LF: He said he needed the money. His parents died when he was about 12. He and his sister Goldie were living with some kinfolk. I don't know which ones, but he was living in Beaumont. He first started selling newspapers, and then he went to work with the lumber company.

JM: In the caption for the photo, Lewis Hine writes, ‘It is not only hard work, but he's exposed to all kinds of weather and it's dangerous, too.'

LF: It was dangerous work. He was telling me about how they used to work the logs on the river and all when he was a young boy. In later years, he worked on a tow boat that towed logs down the river. I don't know how long he worked for the lumber company.

JM: What did he do when he grew up?

LF: When he grew up, he worked some tank building jobs, and then later, he worked on some construction jobs. Then he worked on the city docks in Beaumont and eventually became a foreman. His workers were loading ships. And that's where he retired from. During WWII, when they weren't shipping out of the port here, he worked for Consolidated Steel, which was building ships in Orange (Texas).

JM: When were you born?

LF: October 28, 1923.

JM: Did you grow up in Beaumont?

LF: We moved to Vidor when I was about five years old. I graduated from Vidor High School in 1941.

JM: What kind of a house did your parents have?

LF: First, he built one in front of the school, but he sold it because there was some flooding around there and he didn't like the water coming up. So he bought a house over on the south side of Vidor. Then he sold it and moved to Beaumont.

JM: How many children did your parents have?

LF: I have one sister, Lillian. That's all.

JM: In the 1930 census, your family is listed as living in Precinct Four, in Orange.

LF: That's in the Vidor area. That was when we were living in front of the school.

JM: Is your sister still living?

LF: Yes, in Beaumont. I made a copy of the pictures for her and she was happy to get them.

JM: How big was your father?

LF: He was about 5' 11", I guess, and about 160 pounds.

JM: He must have been pretty strong, with the kind of work he was doing.

LF: Oh, he was. He was still real strong when he retired. I worked down at the city docks with him a short while. That was after I came back from the service in '46. I was waiting around to go to Lamar College. I took a two-year machinist course there and graduated from it. And then I went to work at a machine shop in Beaumont, and worked there about 18 months. Then I worked 36 years for the Pure Oil Company, which later sold out to Union 76. I retired from there at age 62. I do woodturning now. I don't go into any furniture building and anything like that. I do strictly woodturning.

JM: How did you acquire that skill?

LF: Well, I went to some seminars and some instruction here and there, and just kept working at it.