Double View of Grandma Sue

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October 3, 1926, in Elton, Louisiana. The George Henry and Susan Stanbrough Hine family at Grandma Sue’s 75 birthday celebration.

I’ve shared several pictures from this event back in 1926.  The photos are just so good because they have so many of my family members in them.  Though it says that it is a double view of Grandma Sue in the title, it’s not a double exposure from the event.  I shared that one two years ago.  That was the last time that I shared a photo from that event, so I thought it was time to look at that event again.  I was looking very thoroughly through those photos a few weeks ago to look for something specific, but I can’t remember what it was.  I didn’t have any new revelations about the photos either, but I still want to share these photos from 98 years ago.  

And it was exactly 98 years ago today.  My great great grandmother Susan G. Stanbrough was born on October 3, 1851, in Westfield, Indiana.  That was 173 years ago.  She married George Henry Hine in 1873.  Their first child was my great grandmother Addie Mae Hine and she was born in 1876 in Noblesville, Indiana.  They went on to have five more children – all of them boys.  In 1894 the family moved south to Louisiana and settled in Hathway, Louisiana, in Jefferson Davis Parish.  Addie got married in 1898 to Louis Charles Bucklin, who had moved down to Louisiana from Iowa with his family in 1884.  Their seventh and eighth children were Fred and Clarence Bucklin, who were born on October 2, 1907.  Fred is my grandfather, because he was the father of my mom Betty Lou Bucklin Landry.

View no 2 – same family, same place, same time

Let’s go back to the year before my grandfather was born.  In 1906 Grandma Sue and her friend Jennie Welton Havenar decided to have a joint birthday celebration.  You see, Jennie also had a birthday on October 3, though she was a few years younger than Sue.  According to the newspaper, the first birthday celebration must have happened around the beginning of December in 1906.  It was reported to be a great turnout with over seventy of their friends and family in attendance.  The reporter wrote about “hearty wishes given to the two ladies for many more such happy occasions in their lives.” 

Sue and Jennie must have taken that to heart, because that’s exactly what they did.  They had a joint celebration for their birthday for the next twenty years at least.   And it seems that the number of family and guests grew along the way.  We know that the following year at least two new family members appeared – Fred and Clarence.  And their birthday is just a day before Sue and Jennie’s.  I wonder if that was a good thing for the boys.  For at least the first twenty years of their lives, there was a big birthday celebration that everyone showed up for – and it was for their grandmother and her friend!  I’m sure that at least a time or two it actually fell on their birthday.  Hopefully people remembered to wish them a happy birthday as well.

The photos I’m sharing today were from the 20th Anniversary of the Double Birthday Celebration.  The two photos look like they were taken at almost the exact same time by two different photographers.  Very interesting.  According to the newspaper it was held on October 3, 1926, in Elton, Louisiana, at the home of Mrs. W. E. Havenar – that would be our Jennie.  They both had one daughter and four sons alive at the time, as well as many more grandchildren and extended families.  These photos were taken of Grandma Sue’s family.  Uncle Rowe died in 1916, and Grandpa George died in 1919, so they were not there.  Addie is standing just behind Grandma Sue, a habit she had in family photos taken through the years.  Fred Bucklin (Addie’s son – my grandfather) is the nice looking 19-year-old young man on the back row toward the middle of the photo.  He seems to be happy to be celebrating his grandmother’s birthday.  Maybe they had a birthday cake for him, too!

The 1926 newspaper article called this event the climax of these double birthday celebrations.  Did he know something that he didn’t mention?  Maybe Sue and Jennie had decided that this would be their last one and they decided to have a big send-off for the event.  If not, at most they could only have had three more joint celebrations, because Jennie passed away in March of 1930.  She was only 63 years old, younger than I am now.  Three years later Grandma Sue died at the age of 81.  

Here’s to Sue and Jennie.  Let’s celebrate their births all those years ago.  Hear, hear!

Another Photo of Alcide

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That title really deserves an exclamation point at the end of it.  It’s not like I have several photos of my great grandfather Alcide Landry.  With some of my other ancestors, I have several photos of them and I don’t get as excited about finding new photos of them.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m always glad to find another photo of my ancestors.  That is especially true when the photo is over 100 years old.  That’s true about this photo, plus there is only one other photo of Alcide that I know of.  So to find a second one after all this time is very exciting.  It is exclamation point worthy!

Alcide Landry with railroad coworkers circa 1900

This is another photo from Box 301.  It was a box in my Aunt Wana’s attic that was recently rediscovered and shared with me.  I wasn’t really that excited when I got this photo, because it wasn’t labeled with any names or dates.  I didn’t look at it closely, because we were rushing through the photos so I could decide which ones I could take home with me to scan.  

I found this photo interesting because one of the reasons my Landry family moved from West Baton Rouge Parish to Calcasieu Parish around 1889 was for the railroad industry.  Those definitely look like railroad wheels in the photo.  My great grandfather Simon Alcide Joseph Landry moved their family to Westlake and began work at the railyards.  Some of his sons also worked in the industry.

Great grandpa Alcide was born in Brusly, Louisiana, on August 16, 1845.  Once he reached the age of 18, he joined the Confederate Army to fight in the Civil War.  A few years after the war ended, he married Marie Celeste Leveque.  I’ve written much more about her because she lived longer, and I have more photos of her.  My dad and his siblings had a few memories of her and spoke fondly of our Grandma Celeste.  Their first eight children were born in Brusly, and the last two were born in Westlake.  My grandfather Robert Joseph Landry was their last child born in 1893.

When I first started examining this photo to see if I recognized anyone, my focus was on the younger men.  I was wondering if my grandfather or one of his brothers was in the photo.  I have several photos of my grandfather and his brothers when they were young men, and they definitely had a look to them.  None of the young men in this photo had that look.  That’s when I looked closer at the older man in the dark overalls and the dark moustache.  There was something about him that looked familiar.

Alcide Landry circa 1890

Alcide went to work in Westlake at the age of 44, so he wasn’t exactly a young man.  When I compared the man in the photo to the only photo that I have of Alcide, I was surprised.  The hat in the group photo threw me off and I didn’t see the resemblance as much.  But it’s got to be him.  I think his nose looks somewhat wider in the individual photo of him, but that could be from the lighting.  The narrower bridge of the nose is a trait that all of his sons had.  The moustache looks the same in both photos.  I estimate the photo to be from around 1900.

You also have to consider where the photo came from.  It was in a box of old photos from my grandmother, but it had more photos of my grandfather’s younger days than any other collection.  So the photo is likely from my grandfather’s family.  Given that it is a photo of people at a railyard, that makes it even more likely that it is from his family.  It looks just like great grandpa Alcide, so who else would it be?

So I say yes, it is another photo of Alcide.  Behold!

Thunderbird Beach in 1961

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The Landry Family arriving at Thunderbird Beach in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 22, 1961.

I’ve been thinking about posting about Thunderbird Beach for a while.  I finally got around to cleaning up the photos from the time that our family visited “The Baton Rouge Riviera.”  These are some photos from early in my life.  This was way before our family was the entertainment at Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  It was before I got my first pair of contact lenses.  In fact, it was before I even wore glasses.  It was several years before our visits to Six Flags Over Texas and Astroworld.  We hadn’t yet visited NASA after the first moon landing.  It was even before we had our baby sister Jamie.  That’s a long time ago!

I have some vague memories from way back then.  I remember sitting in the back of that Volkswagen van when it was in the driveway of the house we lived in back then at 1317 Clover Drive in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  I don’t remember the curtains that are in the back that you can see in this photo.  My brother Rob said that my mom made them and put them up back there so we could change clothes after swimming and such. 

The Landry family entering Thunderbird Beach. The rides! The train! The slide!

These photos were taken on July 22, 1961.  I don’t know where that date comes from, but I don’t think I made it up.  My mom and dad were pretty good about putting that kind of information on photos from back then, but I can’t find the source of that date right now.  But it looks right from the ages of us kids in the first photo.  I was the little boy in the arms of my mom.  My name is Van, and my mom was Betty Lou Bucklin Landry.  I would have been nine months old at the time.  My older siblings from left to right are Karen, Rob, Al, and Jodie.  The family lived in Lake Charles at the time, so it would have been quite a trek to go to Baton Rouge back then.  It was before Interstate 10 was completed.

When we went to Baton Rouge then, we took the ferry across the Mississippi River.  There isn’t a photo of that from this trip, but there are some from other trips.  My dad had gone to LSU and got his Master’s degree from there in 1960, so he was familiar with the area.  If it had been up to my mother to go there, it wouldn’t have happened.  She wasn’t keen on driving in unfamiliar places.  She didn’t even get her driver’s license until around 1969.  But she knew how to accessorize a van to make it multifunctional!

The Landry family on the train at Thunderbird Beach in 1961.

When I asked Rob what he remembered about Thunderbird Beach, he mentioned the carousel.  I didn’t think I had a photo of that, but it’s in the second photo right behind his head.  I always tend to focus on Rob and Jodie with their rafts, Al standing out by the road looking back at the camera, and Karen helping Mama to push me in the stroller.  And then I would look at the sign identifying the place as Thunderbird Beach – Swimming – Dancing – Concessions!  There was something for everyone.

This third photo is my favorite.  It’s such a good photo of everyone and you can see our faces better because we’re not as far away from the camera.  Karen looks like something has caught her attention and she looks very interested in what she sees.  I wonder if it was the large slide at the park.  If it was, it’s because she hadn’t learned yet that she and slides do not get along.  I can still remember seeing her roll out the end of the big slide at Six Flags.  She was not too happy.  

I remember this little train that went around the park.  For some reason it made a lasting pleasant memory for me.  It wasn’t very big and it didn’t go very fast, so it couldn’t have been that exciting.  But for a little boy just learning about the world, I guess it was interesting enough.  Jodie looked pleased to be sitting and holding on to me so I wouldn’t fly out of the train.  She was always helping Mama to watch out for us.  That’s how she ended up being called “Little Mama” by the younger kids.

It wasn’t long after this that we got in a wreck and the Volkswagen was replaced by a Ford van.  I think we returned to Thunderbird Beach a time or two more.  I can’t imagine that I remember that train from just one trip when I was nine months old.  I did find another photo of the carousel from a year later.  But there weren’t all the great family photos like there were for this trip on July 22, 1961.  What treasures.

Almost at Their Best

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Vincent Maximilian Patureau and Marie Therese Patureau circa 1888.

I suppose this is a strange title for this really beautiful photo of my great grandparents.  But there is a reason for it.  Eight years ago I posted their wedding photo from 1888.  In the accompanying newspaper article, it talked about the bride and groom looking at their best.  So that post was titled “At Their Best.”  Since those people knew them personally, I’ll take their word for it that they were at their best.

But this photo shows them off pretty good, too.  Wouldn’t you agree with that?  I was so excited to find this photo in a group of photos that my Duffy cousins were showing to a few of us other cousins after a family funeral.  I’m certain that the photos come from my paternal grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau Landry.  The couple in the photo are her parents Vincent Maximilian “Max” Patureau and Marie Therese Landry.  We knew our grandmother as Mee Maw, and she was the mother of my dad Bob Landry.  Daddy’s sister was Wana Landry Duffy and she was the one who had these photos after Mee Maw died in 1973.  They were sitting up in Box 301 in her attic for many years waiting to be discovered.

So we were exploring the contents of Box 301.  When I first saw the photo, I was thinking it was another copy of their wedding photo.  But then I realized that they were not wearing the same thing as from that other photo.  The photo was taken at the same studio with the same background, so I’m thinking it was taken the same day.  I’ve seen more than one copy of the one of them in their wedding attire, but this is the first time I’ve seen this version.  They were married on October 10, 1888, in Brusly, Louisiana, so I’m thinking this was taken a short time previous to that.

Max was 23 years old at the time.  He had been born in Matamoras, Mexico, but grew up in Plaquemine, Louisiana.  When he was growing up, his French immigrant father Ferdinand had a sawmill.  Max was just 11 years old when Ferdinand died as a result of an accident at that sawmill.  He helped his mother Emma Landry Patureau and older brother Leobon out with the sawmill as he got older.  According to one newspaper article, he cut his leg while shaving barrel hoops in 1885.  He set up a business of selling and delivering groceries in 1887.  So he was known as an enterprising young man in 1888.

Therese, meanwhile, turned 20 years old just a month before their wedding.  She had been born in Brusly, Louisiana, which is where she grew up.  Her father was Trasimond Landry.  He had was a Veteran of the Civil War from the south.  He worked as a farmer and was also a clerk of court.  He died when Therese was only 10 years old.  Her mother, Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol Landry remarried shortly afterward to Magloire Babin.  Therese went to school at St. Joseph’s Academy, which was in downtown Baton Rouge at the time.  She was a devout Catholic and sang in the church choir.

Custom has it that the wedding take place in the bride’s hometown.  That’s what happened with Max and Therese.  They were married at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Brusly.  I’m sure there were lots of family members that showed up for the exchange of nuptials.  Since Max’s mom was Landry, he was related to Therese.  They were second cousins, in fact.  So some family members might have had a hard time deciding what side of the church to sit on! 

Even though both of their father’s died when they were young, both of their mothers were probably in attendance at the wedding.  Emma Landry Patureau would likely be there for her son.  Belite Bujol Landry Babin was surely there to see her daughter as the bride and her younger daughter Kate Landry as a bridesmaid. Besides being with her husband Mack Babin, she probably was sitting with her mother who was still alive at the time. Her mother was yet another Landry family member – Anna Adele Landry Bujol.  Adele was living with Belite and her family during the 1880 Census, so she would have been close to her granddaughter Therese.

I’m so glad we have this other image of the young couple from the time of their marriage.  I’d be tempted to say that they look to be at their best.  And I might be right!

Bucklin Family Circa 1975

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Bucklin Family circa 1975

This is not the best quality photo by any means.  I worked on it for a while to get rid of spots and scratches, but some of them were just too big to get rid of.  But the story behind the photo is what I wanted to talk about.  The picture includes my mom and her family.  My mom’s name was Betty Lou Bucklin Landry.  She was born and grew up in Hathaway, Louisiana.  Her parents were Fred D. Bucklin and Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin.  We were their grandkids, and we called them Grandma and Grandpa.

Mama wasn’t the only child of Grandma and Grandpa.  There were five children in total – four girls and their younger brother.  All of them show up in this photo, in addition to some spouses and children.  These are a lot of the Bucklin cousins that I grew up with.  Our family would go there once a month or so because we lived about 12 miles away.  They were in Hathaway, while we were in Jennings.  Jennings is much bigger, of course, and it is the parish seat of Jefferson Davis Parish.

Sometimes when we’d go, some of the other cousins would be there as well.  But for the big holidays of the year – Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas – all of the cousins would be there.  It was always a fun time going out to the country.  They lived on a large property that was actually within other family land that was used for farming.  When it was blackberry season, we’d walk down the side road (Bucklin Rd.) and pick fruit along the dirt road.  We’d usually make it down to the Myrie.  At least that’s what we’d call it.  It’s actually called the Grand Marais and it provides drainage for that area when it rains.  It’s really just a big ditch.  We never knew there was an official name for it but called it Myrie.  It would rhyme with fiery.

Once we got to the small wooden bridge over the Myrie, we’d stop and throw rocks in the water.  It was a great place to pop fireworks, too.  We wouldn’t usually go much further than that.  Why would we?  There wasn’t much of anything past that exciting little drainage ditch.  Ha!  So we’d head back to Grandma and Grandpa’s to play in the bamboo stand or eat some of the satsumas or kumquats.  We’d finally make it back to the house, but I don’t know if we ever had many blackberries to give them.  

In the evenings after dinner we’d find other things to do.  I forgot to say that when I was really young, the first thing that I’d do was go look for the sock monkey in the big toy chest in their house.  I’ve always been a big fan of sock monkeys, in case you don’t know that already.  You know, they really are quite charming.  Sometimes the grandkids would sneak outside and go out on the property and play with fire.  I always enjoyed playing with fire, but for some reason I always missed out on those excursions!  Maybe I was distracted by the charms of the sock monkey!  Not once did I join in the cousin fire fun.

But this picture is one of the last times that the cousins got together at Grandma and Grandpa’s out at Hathaway.  We were getting older and starting to venture off to do our own things.  But Grandma and Grandpa were even older.  They were moving into their 70s and were starting to have health issues.  They couldn’t take care of the big property, and they needed to be closer to medical help.  So they were moving into the city of Jennings.  I know that some of the family went to Hathaway to help them get things packed and moved.  I remember doing that, but I don’t know if that’s what this photo is from.

Let me identify everyone. Grandpa is the older man in the overalls in the middle of the photo.  To the right of him is Grandma.  Their oldest daughter Sylvia is the right of her.  The only other member of her family groups is Kevin Pilcher.  He is the second one from the left in the middle row in a blue shirt.  My mom is the next oldest daughter, and she is in the pink outfit to the right.  Five of her six Landry children are present. To the right of her is Al, and to the right of him is me.  In front of us is my sister Karen.  Rob is the second from the left on the back row in the diamond print shirt.  Jamie is sitting in the front row, and it looks like the sunlight is hitting her white shirt.  Alma is the next oldest daughter, and she is the one in the blue jumpsuit in the middle row.  Her daughters are sitting on either side of Jamie.  Charla Seal is the left with short hair and Rhonda Seal is to the right with longer hair.  Alma’s second husband Ernie (or Hoss) Waldorf is the first one on the left in the back row.  Aunt Loris is in the back row in the horizontal multi-colored striped top. Her son Keith is in front to the right of her in the Budweiser hat and yellow shirt.  Glen is directly behind Rhonda.  Directly behind Glen is Uncle Ernest Woolley, Aunt Loris’s husband.  And that leaves us with the Austin Bucklin family.  Uncle Austin is on the left in the middle row in a red shirt.  His three children (at the time.  Mary would be born later.) are in front of him.  From left to right is John, Dale, and Anita.  

So the picture shows the end of an era.  No more visits to the country to Grandma and Grandpa’s.  We had some of the Christmas get togethers at our house in Jennings at 758 Lucy Street.  Grandma and Grandpa had their 50th wedding celebration at our house, also.  Those were some great times, but they were not the same as the visits to the country.  I guess I’m a bit nostalgic about those visits to the country when I was young.

But if you had visits like that when you were young, you’d be nostalgic too!  

Marie Celeste Circa 1880

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Marie Celeste Leveque Landry circa 1880 in Brusly, Louisiana.

This is a photo of my great grandmother Marie Celeste Leveque Landry.  Her husband was Simon Alcide Landry.  She was the mother of my paternal grandfather Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.  She was the grandmother of my dad Bob Landry, and she was called Grandma Celeste by him and his siblings.  Even though she lived to be 86 years old, she died when my dad was only five years old.  That’s because Daddy was the fifth child and Pee Paw was 36 when he was born.  Pee Paw was Grandma Celeste’s last child, and she had him at the age of 45.  

Yet even though she died when my dad and his siblings were quite young, they always talked fondly of her.  Their Bouquet cousins talk fondly of her, too.  They descend from Pee Paw’s older brother Sebastien.  He was married to his first cousin Marie Manette Landry (daughter of Trasimond Landry – brother of Alcide).  They had a daughter named Marie Manette Landry.  The older Marie Manette died shortly after the younger was born, and Sebastien went to live with his parents.  So Marie Celeste was like a mother to granddaughter Marie Manette.  Manette grew up and married Bibb Bouquet and they had a large family that was very close to my dad’s family.

This photo came from cousin Jeanne Landry, who descended from another of Pee Paw’s older brothers – Louis.  That was the Landry family that lived in Lafayette.  The photo was identified as Marie Celeste, but it didn’t have a date.  I originally estimated a date of 1905, but last week when I thought of posting this photo, I realized that it was not quite right.  That dress looked older to me.  How much older, I didn’t know.

But a friend was coming over to visit on Friday and he is more knowledgeable about the fashion trends from that time period.  So I put off posting this photo until after I talked to him.  I also thought that the dress looked rather fancy to me.  I was told that the dress was definitely earlier than the 1905 date.  It is more likely from around 1880.  In addition, the dress is not as valuable as I thought.  That would make sense, because she was a young mother with six young children to care for.  In the 1880 Census the family was living in Brusly, Louisiana.  Celeste is identified as a 33-year-old wife and Alcide was a 35-year-old store clerk.

It was soon after this that the family would move west to Westlake, Louisiana.  I think the motivation was work availability with the railroads in that area.  I guess it would be more lucrative than working in someone else’s store.  But I suppose they made enough to have a photo portrait made of Celeste.  I wonder why they didn’t do a family portrait. Whatever the reason, it is a nice photo of her.  I like having this image of Grandma Celeste.  It’s a keeper.

 

The Landry Family in July 1969

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Last night we watched the movie “First Man.”  It is about the events leading up to the first moon landing in the summer of 1969.  Since I was living way back then, I had memories of those long-ago events.  I also have photos to remind me of some of the things that we did back then.  And somehow, I have another reminder of some of those events.

The Landry family – Jamie, Jodie, Al, Rob, Van, mom (Betty Lou Bucklin), and Karen in Houston, Texas, a few days after the first moon landing in July of 1969.

Five years ago I posted a photo from the same event.  That was in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.  Just recently we passed the 55th anniversary of that time.  I had planned on posting this photo soon after that other one.  Mainly because it is a better photo of all of us, though this one is with our mom.  The other one was with our dad while we were standing in front of the Lunar Landing Module.  (or a replica of one).

This photo has us standing in front of the splashdown capsule from one of the space missions.  It wasn’t from Apollo 11, because that one had just splashed down with Armstrong and crew a day earlier.  Yes, the Landry family was at NASA on July 25, the day after the first visitors to the moon landed back on Earth.  We even saw some commotion with some official-looking cars and such.  We just knew that it was either the astronauts being brought into quarantine or some of the moon rocks being brought in for examination.  What an exciting visit!

I always find it surprising that the first “Star Trek” series was before the first moon landing and it actually ended the month before.  You would think that all of this excitement of traveling in space would have created an audience for the show so that it wouldn’t have been cancelled.  I was definitely a big fan.  Sure, my mom’s first cousin Mel Keys built the model of the U. S. S. Enterprise that they used to film those shows, but I didn’t know that back then.  I just loved the stories about space.  So I was definitely excited to go to NASA that summer.

Notecards written by Karen in July 1969

But that wasn’t all that was happening in July of 1969.  I’ve been planning on writing about a few events from the beginning of that month for a while.  That’s because somehow, I have notecards that Karen wrote on about some of those events.  I’m glad I do, because they give a glimpse into how things were back then.  

The day was July 6, 1969.  We left Jennings and went to Lake Charles to drop Jodie off at band camp.  Karen seemed excited that she got to go in and help Jodie get situated.  Jodie was 15 at the time and Karen was 12.  Band Camp was held at McNeese and it lasted a week during the summer.  After leaving Jodie there, the family went looking to visit family.   

My dad was from Lake Charles, and he had six siblings that still lived there at the time.  The last of all of those eight siblings just recently passed away.  So it looks like we went to his sister Wana’s house first.  It was closest to McNeese.  But, as Karen said, “Nobody was there.”  We headed to the other side of McNeese to see what was going on at Uncle Johnny’s.  Cousin Mona was sick, so we didn’t stay there for more than a bit of a chat.  Then we went to his sister Frances’s house, and everyone was there playing cards.  It’s what they did.  I’m sure we joined in on the games.

We then went to Shakey’s Pizza Parlor for dinner.  We had pizza and balloons.  I’m thinking that we maybe got balloons because Jamie’s birthday was the day before.  It would be another seven years before our family became the entertainment at that Shakey’s location.  I can’t imagine the pizzas costing that much money back then.  Karen didn’t say how much it cost.  But she did talk about the price of dessert.  When we got back to Jennings, we stopped at the Bulldog Inn.  For some reason Al decided to treat everyone to ice cream.  He was rich back then!  Even with seven of us (Jodie was at B. C. in L.C.), the total price would come in under 40 cents.

Those were the days.

Phenice Cousins, Part 2

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Phenice cousins in Hathaway, Louisiana, circa 1939 or 1940

This is a continuation of a previous post from eight and a half years ago.  In January of 2016, I posted a photo from 1939 with three Phenice cousins.  When I say Phenice cousins, I mean cousins with a common Phenice ancestor.  It doesn’t mean that everyone has the same Phenice last name.  I do the same with my first cousins from my mom’s side of the family.  Since my mom’s maiden name was Bucklin, I call them all my Bucklin cousins even though most of them didn’t have Bucklin as a last name.  

My mom was Betty Lou Bucklin, and her parents were Fred Bucklin and Myrtle Phenice.  So when I say Phenice cousins, I mean my mom, her siblings, and their maternal first cousins.  And in her case, most of those cousins did have the Phenice last name.  When I posted that early Phenice Cousins post, I didn’t write nearly as much about the photos as I do now.  It’s up to you to determine if that’s a good or a bad thing!  I didn’t explain what I meant by Phenice cousins, but maybe you already knew what I meant, and I’ve just wasted two whole paragraphs explaining it.  Good thing vs bad thing.  You decide!

While that first photo had three cousins in it, this one has twice as many cousins with more than twice as many words.  And it costs the same amount!  Inflation hasn’t affected my posts.  I had hoped to get a better-quality version of this photo, so I waited on using it on a post.  But with the death of my mom’s first cousin Kathleen Phenice this week, I thought I’d post it now.  It’s a cute photo that she’s included in.  The children in the photo are from two Phenice families.  Four of them are daughters of Myrtle Phenice Bucklin, and the other two are daughters of her brother Orville Phenice.  Both families ended up with four daughters and one son.

Let me tell you who everyone is.  On the left, sitting on her sister’s lap, is Loris Bucklin.  She is the youngest of the four Bucklin sisters.  She lives in Houston, Texas, now.  The lap belonged to none other than my mother Betty Lou Bucklin.  She was born on May 20, 1933, and she died on January 19, 2017.  Most of her life was spent with Bob Landry (my dad) in Jennings, Louisiana.  You can barely see her face peeking around Loris’s little head.  The next little cutie is Alma Bucklin.  She was the third Bucklin daughter, born two and a half years after my mom.  I think they all were blond or tow-headed when they were young.  I think that comes from their dad’s Hine family line.  She passed away in 2014.  Sitting in the middle of the photo is the oldest Bucklin daughter Sylvia.  She was born in March of 1931 and died in 2002 in Phoenix, Arizona.  When we were growing up, Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Ronald (Pilcher) lived in Lafayette, Louisiana.

The next little girl is Kathleen Phenice.  She was born on May 8, 1937, and passed away two days ago (on August 13, 2024) in Denton, Texas.  I remember her as my mom’s cousin who would sing with us at family reunions and such.  I liked hearing her and her sisters sing, because their voices reminded me of Grandma.  The family was very musical.  They also did a bit of research on the Phenice family, which I have referred to from time to time. Kathleen was the second daughter of Orville and his wife Elta Whitman Phenice.  Their oldest daughter is Marilyn Phenice, the young girl on the right in the photo.  She still lives in Louisiana.

I’m posting this photo as is.  It’s not the best quality copy.  If anyone has a good copy of it, I would love to have an improved digital version of it.  And if anyone has a more exact date, I love to be corrected.  Actually, any comment is appreciated.

Let the comments commence!

Patureau Home in Lafayette

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Max Patureau home in Lafayette, Louisiana.

I’ve wondered about the Patureau Home in Lafayette for a while.  I know that my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian Patureau relocated to Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1912.  He was born in March of 1865 in Mexico when the family relocated there during the Civil War.  Later that year, the family returned to Louisiana and settled in Plaquemine, Louisiana.  He grew up in Plaquemine and spent most of his early life there.  But in 1911 he decided to set up his veterinary practice in Lafayette.

He had a variety of jobs once he became an adult.  He set up a business of delivering groceries to people in their homes when he was a young man.  He was also helping out the family sawmill business that his father Ferdinand Patureau had set up and run until his death in 1877.  His mother Emma Landry Patureau continued that business and Max helped out with that.  Max also set up a family store in 1904 or so with other family members.  I think that he must have started his veterinary business when this store was still in operation.

I don’t know if he started practicing veterinary services before or after the death of his wife Marie Therese Landry Patureau in 1909.  When she died, this left 44-year-old Max Patureau a single father with nine children between the ages of six and twenty.  This was a huge change for Max, and he decided to move his family to Lafayette just two years later.  The newspaper article about Marie Therese’s death tells us that her mother and two of her sisters were already living in Lafayette by 1909.  Her mother was Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol Landry Babin, sometimes just referred to as “Mrs. Pierre Magloire Babin.”  Magloire or Mack Babin had helped to set up the family store in Plaquemine.  There are many photos of family get togethers that include Max and Belite, and they seem to be pretty close.

So moving the family to Lafayette brought them close to other family members.  Family members who might help in caring for all of those children.  But another draw for Lafayette was SLI.  Southwest Louisiana Institute was a reputable school in its time, and Max Patureau was known to value education for his children.  I know that some of them, including my grandmother Erie, graduated from SLI.  My grandmother and some of her sisters also became schoolteachers and taught in Lafayette.

I know that other family members not living in Lafayette were invited to stay at the Patureau home if they wanted to attend SLI.  Max wanted to make sure he could help make it possible for them to get the education that he knew would make a change for their lives.  One of those was Tommy Landry (son of Marie Therese Landry Patureau’s brother Thomas Belisaire), who wrote a book about their grandfather Trasimond Landry (first husband of Belite and father of Marie Therese and Thomas Belisaire).  He spoke highly of his Uncle Max, and also said that he was the one who taught him how to drive.  I think Max helped some other family members, but I don’t know specifically who they were.

So I was interested in seeing that home that was in Lafayette and was close to where SLI was located.  It was on Lee Avenue.  I got the photo from my cousins recently. (Yes, another piece from the Box 301 Collection.)  The photo looks like it could be of two of the Patureau daughters back then.  It even looks like one of them might be holding some schoolbooks. I think the photo was taken around 1918 or so.  It’s a nice view of the home of my predecessors. 

Max Patureau at the home of Father Wynehoven in Lafayette, Louisiana.

I thought I would add this other photo that shows Grampa Max from around the same time period.  I think it was taken around 1925 in Lafayette.  That’s Max Patureau on the left.  He’s the one not wearing priest clothes!  I think the one on the left is a priest who was a family friend.  The name suggested for him was Father Wynehoven.  He was a priest that was well-loved by the family. 

One of Max’s granddaughters was named after him.  That would be my dad’s cousin that we called Tez.  Her given name was Therese Wynehoven Mouton.  The nickname Tez was derivative of her first name.  She was also known by Wynie (sounds like whiney) by some family.  There were other nicknames that she was known by, but I’ll not talk about them at this time.  

Bucklin Family Photos Circa 1950

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I thought I would share two of the photos that I’ve recently acquired from my aunt.  I had never seen these photos before and thought there was a lot of charm about them.  They are from around 1950 and just show scenes of my mom and her younger siblings out in the Hathaway countryside.  Of course they are in black and white.  That’s what most of the photos were back then.  It was a few years before color seeped into the world.   It was a simpler world back then.  There were no clashing colors!

Betty Lou and Austin Bucklin in Hathaway, Louisiana, circa 1950.

The first picture is a picture of my mom with her baby brother.  That would be Betty Lou and Austin Bucklin, the second and fifth children of Fred D. and Myrtle Phenice of Hathaway, Louisiana.  At least that’s the name that my mom used for where she grew up and went to school.  Occasionally she would refer to China, Louisiana, when talking about her family.  That one always caught my attention.  Her family lived in China?  She does have ancestors who are buried at the China Cemetery out there.

My grandparents lived “out in the country” on Bucklin Road.  North of there was the China Cemetery, though not as far as Elton.  South of their home was Raymond, Louisiana.  They attended church at Raymond Methodist Church.  Some of the family are buried at the Raymond Cemetery.  It is mostly members of the Bucklin family.  A mile or two east of the Raymond Methodist church is Hathaway High School.

So why did my mom call it Hathaway when Raymond and China were closer than Hathaway?  Maybe she just identified with it more because she went to school at Hathaway High School all twelve years of her schooling.  So I’ll always think of her family as being from Hathaway and it might be somewhat incorrect.  Why do they have so many names for places around there?

And when did they move there?  I know the Bucklin family originally came down from Iowa in 1884.  That was my mom’s Bucklin grandfather who came with his parents and siblings.  He died before she was born, but the family still owns that land out there.  Aunt Loris said that the family moved to the house that we knew on Bucklin Road in 1943 or so.  (If I’m remembering correctly.  I should make more notes!)  I’m not sure where the house was that they lived in before that.

I just remember the place that you see in the photo.  My mom always talked about how they used a scrub board to wash clothes and would hang them out to dry.  No fancy electrified contraptions were out there!  My grandfather had a nursery, so there were lots of places with growing plants around the property.  I’m not sure why Austin is looking at Betty Lou like he is in this photo.  It looks like a candid photo, which I like.  He seems perplexed by her behavior.

Austin, Loris, and Alma Bucklin in Hathaway, Louisiana, circa 1950

The second photo also has Austin in it.  He’s in the driver’s seat of the truck for the Fred Bucklin Nursery of Elton, LA.  At least that’s what the door signage looks like to me.  See?  He doesn’t use Hathaway, Raymond, or China on his truck.  He uses Elton, which is the closest “town” in that area.  It is also where he went to school when he was younger.  I’m pretty sure he grew up on the same Bucklin property that includes the Bucklin family homes in that area.

I don’t think that Austin was actually driving the truck.  I think he was just pretending for the photo.  In the back seat you can see two of his sisters.  You can see Loris pretty well.  She’s right in the middle of the photo and appears to be waving.  Or maybe she’s just resting her hand on the side of the truck.  Next to her is Alma.  You can’t really see her because the post is in the way.

Why would someone take the photo when she was behind the post?  Maybe Austin was really driving?!  The person might not have known that she was behind the post when they clicked the photo because the truck was moving.  Could that be right?  And maybe Loris was resting her arm against the truck so she wouldn’t fall over in the bumpy truck ride?  Or maybe they were all pretending to sell the idea of them riding in the countryside?  My sister and I would pretend all kinds of things when riding on the wide-open countryside to my grandparents’ house.

I guess we’ll never know.  Unless of course, Aunt Loris remembers some of those details and chooses to share them with us.  Until then, we can enjoy seeing some charming scenes from over seventy years ago in the countryside around Hathaway, Louisiana.  Or was it in China?

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