FLORIDA’S FORGOTTON COAST: LIFE ON THE APALACHICOLA BAY
WORKING THE BAY
Melaine Cooper Covell
James Hicks
Monette Hicks
Monica Lemieux
Carl McCaplan
James & Betty McNeill
Charles & Rex Pennycuff
A. L. Quick
Henry Tindell

TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Wes Birdsong
Corky Richards
Bobby Shiver
Charles Thompson
Genaro “Jiggs” Zingarelli

PROCESSING THE CATCH
Terry Dean
Grady Leavins
Lynn Martina
Fred Millender
Janice Richards
Anthony Taranto
Tommy Ward

THE SWEET SIDE
Donald Smiley
George Watkins

VINTAGE APALACH
Seafood & Honey

WHERE TO EAT
Apalach Eateries

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Interviews & photographs by Amy Evans

This project sponsored by the St. Joe Company.

Janice Richards was born in Eastpoint in 1945 and has been shucking oysters since 1960. Her mother taught her the trade when she was a girl. Early on she learned to take her time to shuck a clean oyster. Janice married at the age of fourteen. Her husband, Johnny Richards, is an oysterman. They’ve worked at a handful of seafood houses over the years. Today they work together at Tommy Ward’s oyster house, 13 Mile. Johnny gets the oysters, and Janice shucks his catch. But these years of shucking have taken their toll. Janice’s legs are weak from the years of standing at the stalls. And the whirring blade on the shucking machine is a danger she faces every day. She loves it, though. Janice says she’ll be shucking until she dies.

Listen to this 2-minute audio clip of Janice Richards talking about how she learned to shuck a good oyster and her early days on the job.
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What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Subject: Janice Richards – shucker, 13 Mile Oyster House
Date: March 23, 2006
Location: Tommy Ward’s office, 13 Mile Oyster House
Interviewer: Amy Evans

Amy Evans:  This is Amy Evans for the Southern Foodways Alliance on Thursday, March 23rd, 2006. And I'm out at Thirteen Mile Oyster House west of Apalachicola, Florida. And I'm with Janice Richards, who's a shucker here at Thirteen Mile. Mrs. Richards, would you say your name and your birth date for the record, please?

Janice Richards:  Janice Richards and September the 18th, 1945.

And where were you born in this area?

Eastpoint [Florida].

How far back does your family go in Eastpoint?

They go pretty ways back. Let's see, they used to live in Overstreet [Florida]. They was all coming from Georgia down to Overstreet. And then they went to Eastpoint, worked, and eventually we ended up in White City, and that's where I went to school. I went to school in St. Joe and then I had—Mama had to move to Apalach[icola] after my daddy died because there was five of us children still living. She had fifteen children. And then there was five of us left still at home after daddy died, and so she went to Two Mile and shucked oysters for a living to help finish raising us kids, until I was married. And then in 1959, when me and Johnny [Richards] married, I started out shucking oysters then. And we've been married forty-six years. That's how long I've been shucking, forty-six years. And I enjoy it. I mean, I really do enjoy shucking. It's like your own pace and your own time, you know. You ain't got nobody over you, you know. You can be your own boss. You can stay home and have somebody shuck for you.

Did you go to school in Port St. Joe?

Uh-hmm, yeah, until the seventh grade. And then I came down and finished up the year down here in Apalach before I married. I married at fourteen [years old]. [Laughs]…But I don't have no regrets, and he says he don't. But we had two children: Denise is forty-two, and my baby boy [John] is thirty-two…But [shucking], I'm getting tired, though, now lately of everything.

I imagine it takes its toll physically, standing up like that.

Uh-hmm, it does. You're old. You get old in a hurry. All of my youthful years I've—I've had it like that [snaps her fingers], you know, flashed, and I said, “Oh, my God,” you know. “Lord, it’s done gone!”

You said your foot has been bothering you…Is that just from standing or—?

Yeah. Yeah, my leg hurts. My leg, I got some kind of ulcer. They call it this big name. And I have to take my water pill every day for that leg. And they told me to sit down, and I have to elevate it every now and then. But I want to get through and go home and elevate it in the recliner. [Laughs] That's the best way.

So you say your mother was shucking out at Two Mile. What did your father do?

Mama shucked in Eastpoint when I was little, but then whenever—before I married my husband, yes, she moved—she shucked oysters at Two Mile at Eddie Amison's. Eddie Amison was running the place, and they had what they called shotgun houses, and we moved in one of them old sheds and houses, and that's where we lived. She put an old woodstove in there, and she'd go to work every morning and shuck oysters.

Was she shucking the oysters that your father would go out and get?

No, Daddy died when I was just about eleven or twelve or something when he died…See, that's when she had to go to Apalach at Two Mile and go to work because all of us kids was left. And she done all right, you know. You know, I don't know if you younger kids understand, when there's a house full of kids and their kid got around fourteen or fifteen years old, if it was a girl, she ended up helping mama take care of kids. Or when one got married that was one less mouth to feed, you know. [Laughs] Y’all don't understand that or what—but there wasn't many girls in the family, just mostly boys, a lot of them.

Did your brothers to help your mama? Did they work the bay?

Yeah, mostly all the boys was oystermen or seafood workers until they got up older. And one of my brothers, he was working at the paper mill, and then mostly pretty well worked on the water. And Edward caught the oysters that Mama shucked. And then I got married, and he got married later, so then she just go in to shuck for the house or help or whatever and—'til mama's health got bad, you know.

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So before you got married to your husband, Johnny, what did you learn from your mama about shucking?

Just to be sure to cut them out good and not tear them and not get in such a big hurry. Of course, Mama taught me how to shuck but there was a lot—a lot of—it took me a year or more to really get the hang of it. I don't know why I was slow in learning. Let's see Amor Wilson it used to be and let's see, what was the—Anita Newell—all showed me how to pick it up and get a fast move on it. And I [learned to keep a rhythm with a] rocking situation [that they taught me]. Hit it with a hammer and then when you hit one, two [leaning in the whole time], throw that back in [the bucket of shucked oysters] on the three, hit—and that's what they taught me. So when I learned, that's the way I used to shuck. When I'm in a real fast mood, I'm pretty much sometimes moving, but they really is the ones that showed me how to pick up the speed.
And I can remember Johnny going out oystering all day long with a wheelbarrow when things was so bad, and we didn't know nothing about no hard times. We didn't pay any attention because we was young, you know.
But his mama said when she shucked down here years ago it was like seventy-five cents a gallon. When I started shucking at Two Mile for Eddie Amison, it was a dollar thirty-five a gallon and one [dollar and] fifty [cents] for select [oysters]. And we'd have had like a bucket. It was real tall and round. And then you had your regular bucket. All day you would take—flip the bigger oysters in there, and they had to go like thirty-two-count for—I believe that's how it goes—for a select, and it had to be a real big oyster to pass as a select.
We had to select the oysters, like pick the big ones out from the little ones. Thank God we don't have to do that no more. And they just ship them straight now, but we had to pick them [out back then]. And you got a dollar thirty-five for your standard oysters and then fifty-cents more on the gallon—if it was select—whatever gallon of selects you carried. Sometimes like you carried more selects at times than you would standards, and then sometimes you would have more standards than you would selects. So we had to do it a lot like—it was a little aggravating, but now we don't have to do that.

It takes time?

Uh-hmm, it does. It takes a lot of time.

When did you start working out here at Thirteen Mile?

Well, off and on I think it—I'm going to just say ten to fifteen years, because off and on we've been down here. One time we worked here and we worked aboutthree years, and we left, and then I worked for Donnie Wilson for a long time. But I worked for—when we married, we worked for Eddie Amison for years, and we lived in what they call the shotgun houses. There was no rent. All you had [was] your light bill and a little bit of water—the pump water back in the house or you had to tote the water. But then we left Eddie's and we worked for Oliver Nash. And God, we worked for him for years and then we moved—kind of down Thirteen Mile because sometimes Johnny would bag [oysters]. I didn't have to shuck all that much and he shrimped a lot…In summer seasons you had the summer off to have a little rest, and I had my two kids at home. And then I had time with them. But any time I went down to that shucking house, I could get in the stall—anywhere in it. If there was a stall empty, I could get it. But you can't do that no more. If you don't work regularly, you kind of lose your stall. And that's kind of where I'm afraid of now, if I take out, am I going to have my stall when I come back, you know? Because they can't stand there and wait on you to come back when they're needing somebody to shuck, and that's understandable. But years ago you could pretty well just go back and do whatever you've got to do. Or I could say look, John didn't make anything shrimping that week. I'd go down there, and he'd call me on the radio or something, and I'd run up to the shucking house, and I'd work one or two days and make enough to buy us groceries and feed my children,, and that's what I did. I made sure they had plenty of food. Down here [at 13 Mile] is the best place to work. It is.

Why do you say that?

I don't know, it's just—one thing you just—you know, everybody you know and everybody seems to be good and family like, and my husband works better here because he is not able to go like the other boys to the other places and he's—works mostly in the Bayou. But he likes that better because it's easier on him.

Well can you explain to me a little bit how you were talking about you worked at so many different oyster houses. What makes a couple change them up? Are you following a price?

Prices, yeah. The price is different. And one will pay more for the gallons, and one will pay more for the bags. And, too, when you get to a place, you just hate shifting around…Everybody we've ever worked for we've been well pleased. But, you know, Johnny, thanks to the Lord, he was raised here, and this is—you know, Martha Pearl is his cousin—Miss Martha Pearl Ward [wife of Buddy Ward, who is father of Tommy Ward, who has 13 Mile]. And Mr. Dewey Miller [owner when 13 Mile was Miller’s Fish & Oyster Company] is his uncle. And so it's home. He was raised down here. Him and James [Hicks] used to run up and down these roads, and so it's home to Johnny, see. It's nothing new, and he knows this place pretty good.

Well, so tell me about a day of shucking and when you get here and what you do and what a day is like.

Like coming in early in the morning, I'm here sometimes—Oddys [Hicks. Wife of James Hicks] is here earlier than I am. She's got—always got a gallon before I get here, and I got here this morning a little after four [a.m.]. I may have gotten started around four-thirty [a.m.], and I got eight gallons up already. And because I was wanting to get through on count of the weather. I don't like bad weather. But we like to come early and get through early, so we can go home early. And that way, we can have the evening to do what we got to do at home, you know. And as far as staying down here [until] around four or five o'clock anymore, I cannot do it no more. Like these young people, they come in around seven and eight [in the morning], and then they can stay a little longer. I like to come early and get through, you know, and go home. And it's not bad.

So what time do you usually go home, and how many gallons do you have by the end of the workday?

Well, if I go home around—let's see, I've got another bag or two bags on the floor [today]. I should be going home at least by one today, if not before. And I should have, let's see, probably ten or eleven gallons when I go home. Oddys gets a better turnout than I do. [Laughs] I don't know what she does, but she gets a better turnout. And I said, “Johnny, I just don't know what in the world.” I said, “But that girl can get a better turnout than me.” I said, “We’re putting the same amount of oysters in a bucket,” and I said, “well, I just don't get the turnout that she does.” But she will not miss no little piddly bit. She and I tried that all morning, and I said, “I'm going to try to do that.” So I said. “The heck with it, I'm going to shuck just like I've always done.” I get my oysters and go out. I don't cut them up that bad. I said, “I'm going with it. I'm getting out of here.” And that’s all I think about: I want to get out of here today. [Laughs] Now, you have your good days and bad days. You don't feel like working and [you’re] ready to go home—don't even want to come down here. I have called in, you know, when I didn't have any [oysters to shuck]. I'm not going to come in. I'm not shucking tomorrow because I haven't got any of my own, so I'm thinking I don't have to shuck anyway. I hope Mr. Tommy don't need me. [Laughs]

Can you explain how that works too? How you're shucking your husband's oysters but then like Oddys’ [husband] James works uptown [at Papa Joe’s Oyster Bar & Grill], so she's not shucking his oysters because he's not bringing any in.

Well, no, she's shucking for Mr. Hoyt Thompson, and Hoyt and my husband works together. And so she's really Hoyt’s shucker, and I'm my husband's shucker. Now that's—that's the way it is, I reckon. And James used to oyster and she used to work with him.

So what is that relationship?

Well, I've always shucked for my husband. That's always been the number one. I've always worked, you know, shucking his oysters—brought them in and I—when I get through with his oysters, I shuck for the house and not there—you know, not all the time because usually I'm pretty late getting mine out at times. But Oddys will. When she gets through she will shuck more for the house than I will. When I get through, I'm going home. [Laughs] But she's a worker, though.

And y’all over here use the opening machines. How has that changed the industry?

Much better. You don't—I mean, we don't get as muddy. And I have a sister-in-law that still uses the machine—I mean, a knife and a hammer and a block. And the reason she went back to that is—well, she used to use the machine. She got her thumb [caught] in it, so she's afraid of them now. And if you look at the blades, you'll see why. They're blades like saw blades. It will and have took women's fingers off. And but you can't do a lot of talking and it—when I'm talking to somebody, like you if they're on this [my left] side, because I'm hard of hearing in this ear anyway. I have to stop and look, and I'm going to take my hands and put it down to talk because, if you're not careful and do this you go and you can stick it [your hand] in there. You have to really be careful when you're talking.
But the knife and hammer is cheaper. You don't have the expense of the. Because you have to put out—I just spent over, let's see, two hundred and sixty-some dollars on a new machine I had just bought because they had the last motors come in. And I grabbed that motor because it's like the one I got. And them little old bitty like Black and Decker motors, they just don't hold up, and they're just not built for shucking. And you can put bearings in it. Sometimes twice the—every two weeks or something like that. It takes that many bearings.

So the shuckers buy their own machines?

Uh-hmm, I have my own machine. And Oddys is using that—some that Tommy bought but she keeps the—keeps the motor up and the blades and stuff like that and she—but you have to buy your own machine. It's really expensive, especially when you go to take them and have them sharpened, and the blades built up. And sharpened is—I think it's thirty dollars now to have the blades sharpened and then forty to build them up.  Sometimes it may run a little bit more, you know. And it's kind of expensive. Just like that man with them oyster tongs. Johnny just spent two hundred-some [dollars] on oyster tongs—getting them tongs, you know, and keeping his rig, you know, up to date and all.

Are there other things as a shucker that you have to provide like the aprons or the—?

Yeah, you have to buy your own aprons, your gloves, and that's about it, I think, you have to pay for and just keep your machines up. And really, we're supposed to keep our own machines up where they won't make so much racket. But they're doing it today. That's why I have to wear them [ear] plugs. My head rings, you know, from it. I can't—sometimes there's just so much racket in there from hearing the blades clang, you know, and they didn't use to do that.

Have you always tried to wear earplugs, or is it just kind of as you've gotten older?

I started using earplugs when I was working for Donnie Wilson. Because a lot of the people wouldn't fix the machines that had bearings, and my hearing was started out ringing, and so I've been wearing the earplugs now for a while. Not every day. It's just according to how many [shuckers] is in there. But you got one on the end her and her blades is dull. Miss Oddys’ is dull, and mine wants to make a [makes loud grinding noise] and this one here—the lady—she's not here today, hers wants to and it just—it really—Tammy said she had a headache yesterday from the racket of the machines, and she's a young girl.

Are there many younger people that you know of that are shucking?

Tammy is the youngest one in there, and they're not many young people doing it now. And once us older ones are out, it's going to be bad for the oystermen. I mean, for the dealers unless they—like Mexicans comes in and do it and a lot of—I think that's what Grady [Leavins] has done. But now, I want to tell you now, the quality of the oysters is not good when you cut them up. And I've watched them shuck them, and they are just mocked up. I wouldn't buy that gallon of oysters. And I wouldn't pay you sixty-bucks for something that's made to look like chewed up. And I've just been always taught that you shuck an oyster. And Tommy sells good oysters here because he's got good shuckers. Most of them are really good shuckers. And if you come in and bought a gallon, you will really want to ask for one—Oddys or mine. Let me see, who else. Let’s see, Tina’s, I know.

So people come in and they ask for a gallon of oysters from a particular shucker?

Yeah, they have—they have come in and asked for Oddys’ oysters. Not so much about mine, but they have always requested Oddys’ oysters, yes, ma'am.

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So who shucks the oysters that are brought in from the cultivator that Tommy has out here?

All the shuckers. All his shuckers and yeah, they shuck them, and pretty much every one in there has shucked the oysters there. And they do pretty good shucking—catching, you know.

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So when you stay here, you know, a good six, eight hours early in the day, do y’all stop to take a meal or you just work straight through?

Yeah, I do. I sometimes stop quite a bit, you know, like snacking or when you eat so early in the morning, just eat something light and then come on down here. And then you go have a piece of toast or some coffee, and then you carry your—or a banana. I’m supposed to eat a banana a day, so I eat my banana along with that and go on back to work. And work 'til eleven o'clock [in the morning], my dinner break—my lunch break—and then I'll eat and pretty much—I'm pretty well getting through. And when I get done, I just go home and then I won't worry about lunch. Or if I see I'm about through, I'll just wait until I go home and eat my lunch. But yeah, we break. I do the most breaking, though. [Laughs]

Do you like to eat oysters?

Fried. Yeah, bay oysters fried. And I like the little—I like to take me a little pint or a little cup and pick out the little bitty ones for myself. And now, my husband don't like—he'll eat—the bigger they are, the better they are for him. But I like the little spats, and I like to cook them up first, fry them first, and eat them while they're still crunchy. I'll eat me about six, seven right then, and the rest of them are his. [Laughs] The oyster stew or fry them or whatever.

I just have a couple more questions about the shucking stalls and the tools that you use. Because I didn't know that the shuckers bought their own machines. So you obviously, then, shuck at the same stall every day?

Uh-hmm, the same one. Pretty much that same stall.

Was there a reason you picked that certain stall or how—just what's available?

Well, it's just where we started out at. And if somebody that's come in and something or another—we just don't move. You know, they just give them a stall, and that's where they'll stay at until they get ready to quit or whatever. It's just—I don't know. Not particularly that we all got to stay there, but it's just where we started out. And sometimes you just [get] used to shucking, and your stand gets to that stall. It’s just right, see. And if you move, sometimes you'll have a time adjusting your stand, and you may have to get a pad and put on it or something or other to make it just right again or get one of them bigger, higher stands. But those are original stalls [at 13 Mile].

Yeah, they're that pretty plaster.

Uh-hmm, yeah, those are back the way they used to be. Now, when I worked down Donnie's, he had some in there like that too, but he has what we call stainless steel stalls, and they were easy to clean. But the only thing is you stand on a stainless steel stand, you're shucking in a stainless steel stall—lightning is going to come, you're really ready to get electrocuted, now. I don't want to—they're easy clean but now he took—Mr. Donnie did, he took and put some kind of stuff in the stall like that's in there in the washroom, where they wash the oysters. It's blue; it's on the floor. I don't know—anyway, that stuff was put in the stalls, and I don't know how they did it, but they did it, and it was a lot easier to clean. It didn't break up like this cement is [here at 13 Mile].

Well then how about the height of the stalls?

That's just always been high like that so the people can get up off the floor while they're—because they have to wash the floor so much during the day. And if you'll notice that, they will take the water hose and wash all this, or they'll sweep and the water will go up on [the floor] and so you're not standing in the water. And to stand in that water that will make you sick.

Have the oyster houses always had these chutes that take the oysters outside?

Yeah, uh-hmm. They always use a tractor to move them, yeah. It's always done this way that I can recall. And then they used to take the shells and replant them. And which, Mr. Tommy probably will take a barge, and he'll take that and put it up in the bayou and replant the bayou, you know, with the shells here.

So you say you like shucking because it gives you some freedom, and you're kind of your own boss. Did you think you'd be shucking all these years?

Until I die. Until I have to retire or something or other. Because I just don't see anything else I know to do. See, I don't have much education. I didn't get all that much. I'm—I can read and write, and I can do my math. Now I'm not that dumb. But I'm just saying, I didn't go long enough in school. I didn't go to the seventh [grade]. And what I learned I learned a lot from my children, too.

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And you were telling me when I visited with you a couple months ago when I was here about women crocheting cast nets and that kind of thing.

Uh-hmm. Yeah, they used to do that, and they have done it. Helped put them together and even helped do that. I've heard of it being done. As far as seeing that now, I didn't, but I forgot who told me that made them one time. That's about all I know. [Laughs]

Well is there anything that I haven't asked you that you think would be good for me to know or something that I've left out?

I know that there's a lot of history in this, and if the people come in and take it like the way it's happening in town, what is going to happen to the people here? Because there are a lot of people that's on this bay a-working, and it employs a lot of people. And if they come in and shove us away like they did the Indians well, they're just shipping us out. And there's still a lot of people—young people that, you know, works on this bay that loves it that has college degrees and that. And they may could find another job, but their heart won't never be in it because my son was brought up—I made him get his education and [my daughter] Denise did hers. I mean, it's just she chooses the work she does because her husband is an oysterman. My son is an oysterman, but I made him—I told him, I said, “Whatever you do, I want you to go further and get something that you can rely on because there is no insurance in this bay.” You cannot like—like if I get hurt or get sick, I've got to lay up and let him work or something like that. We just don't have the benefits that you would in another job. I love my job. It's all good work, and I love it. And if you want to learn how I shuck, I'll teach you how.

To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.