Smiling at the Future and Thinking About the Past

Mr. Jason Thomas Bodden was born on September 19, 1940, in Coxen Hole. He is one of 13 children born to a popular Pentecostal preacher from Coxen Hole, Mr. Joe Bodden. He was born at seven months to Evelyn Dilbert from Politilly.

Crawfish Rock community grew almost everything they needed to eat.

When Mr. Jason was 12 his father passed away, and his mother moved the entire family to Crawfish Rock. The small village would become a place where Mr. Jason would come back to time and time again.

There were not many people living in Crawfish Rock in the 1950s and Mr. Jason remembers quite a few of them. There was Jesus Puerto, Uncle Lou, Bill Minzenh, and Cecil Bodden. On the hill above Crawfish Rock a retired American seaman, Jack Luzig, built a big house there, and started a family.

Back then the Crawfish Rock community grew almost everything they needed to eat. They had plenty of yucca and cocos, and the plentiful fish in the sea provided for a good diet. “Those times you used to live in a bush house made out of cohune leaves,” says Mr. Jason. While building a bush house wasn’t difficult, keeping it over one’s head in storms was another matter. Mr. Jason remembers hurricane Fifi, that in 1974 destroyed all but one house in Crawfish Rock.

While Mr. Jasons first and second wife passed away, he had six children from the first marriage. He began working on a shrimp boat as a cook. His first boat was the “Maru” that was based out of French Harbour. Thanks to his work he was able to see a bit of Honduras’ northern coast and other Bay Islands. He visited Utila, Guanaja and Puerto Castilla. After 17 years of working on fishing boats Mr. Jason had enough and settled back on dry land.

You used to live in a bush house made out of cohune leaves.

In the late 1990s an American doctor hired Mr. Jason to be a watchman for his house and property located just west of Crawfish Rock. Mr. Jason and his family took care of the property for 21 years until it sold. Now Mr. Jason is renting a space in a small house on the edge of Crawfish Village.

Mrs. Jessie Cooper on her porch of her Oak Ridge home.

Mrs. Jessie Cooper Preserves the Collective Memory of Oak Ridge

While families and friends helped each other out, the only Hondurans she ever encountered were the teachers at the Francisco Morazan School in Oak Ridge. “I didn’t want to learn Spanish and I still don’t,” says Mrs. Cooper. Oak Ridge had no roads, there was no police, no tax men, no Honduran military. “My father’s family wouldn’t allow Spaniards to land here until the 1950s,” recalls Ms. Cooper.

“Every Wednesday we would do embroidery and every Saturday there would be a dance. There was music everywhere,” recalls Mrs. Cooper.”Music is what I miss the most.” When she was 16, Mr. Hugh Parry, from England gave her a Brownie camera. The young girl put the camera to good use documenting happenings on the Cay.

She remembers an American seaplane that landed in Oak Ridge in 1942 investigating reports of islanders selling fuel to German U-boats. “They came in very low, skimmed and landed in the mangroves. People pulled them out,” remembers Mrs. Cooper, “the boat was so heavy and stuck in the mangroves so deep it had to drop a bomb in the 4-5 feet of water for it to be freed.” A PT boat, torpedo-armed fast attack craft, from an American Naval base at Puerto Castilla soon came to help. Mrs. Cooper remembers a serviceman who then agreed to fly on top of the wing in order balance the plane. “He fell in the water as the plane was launching. He got bruised up,” says Mrs. Cooper who documented the entire episode with her camera. After that came the occasional, but memorable visits by American officers stationed in Puerto Castilla.

While there was no rationing, food supplies were short. “We used to make war cake: no eggs and no butter,” Mrs. Cooper remembers. Coopers owned land from Jonesville to Diamond Rock and people would bring her vegetables, fruits. “It was a sharecropping system.” There was very little money circulating back in these days. One coin that was in use was a metal “Cooper coin” that the family had to be redeemed at their stores. The Cooper’s farm produced many fruits, vegetables and had cows, pigs, chickens and deer.

Life on the island, away from urban areas and many advantages of technology and medicine brought hardships as well. “I was eight months pregnant and had to go to La Ceiba,” remembers Ms. Cooper. Coming on the Edith-Mac boat from Coxen Hole to the coast was an all night affair. The boat transported cattle, cargo and people. “I had to lie down on dock on two Coca-Cola cases,” remembers the Mrs. Cooper, reflecting on the arduous passage.

Married for 21 years to Mr. James Cooper she had three children: Larry, Walton and Alana. Today Mrs. Jessie is a happy nonagenarian who loves spending time with her daughter Alana. She is energetic, fit and full optimism.

Mrs. Jessie Cooper with younger sister in 1930’s.