Month: August 2016

Jennie to Louis on his trip to Ada

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Jennie Bucklin sent this letter to her youngest brother Louis Charles Bucklin after he arrived at Ohio Normal University in Ada, Ohio.

I sign my name not for its beauty but if it should never reach you I want it back
Jennie

Jennings La Jan 19th 1893

Dear Brother

We all thanked you very much for your great promptness in keeping us posted along your Route & in letting us know of all the particulars of your arrival at Ada

Mother especially appreciated your thoughtfullness in your gift book and first letter being to her after arriving at your destination she says she will never part with the wrapping you so carefully sewed up with the kneedle & thread that she knows she gave you. By the way did you need to put so much postage on it?  And tell me did you see the places that are pictured in it they are lovely.

We are glad you are well pleased in your location.  And hope you will do well.  Do not ape the strut you wrote about.  And yet do not hold yourself too cheaply.  Joe made that mistake in Dubuque.

There is enough at your back in far off Louisiana both in Family & landed property to warant you to carry your self just as you see fit and give you the respect of all.  You must remember many of those long ones have just their clothes and are depending on what their schooling may bring to them here after.  So you can easily allow the students & Faculty to see you are sure of your ground with out bragging or letting them feel that you are afraid of them.

2nd
There is that not a free lecture for nothing; but I do not believe in people making them selves cheaper than they are. Other people will try to do that for us quickly enough

Well I suppose Clarence has told you that the lat sack of the rice is down here Clarence went up with Ben Friday and brought down a load with them saturday and returned with the cattle sunday By the way if any of them are curious as to your social standing just inform them that you never travel here with out four spare to your Vehicle

Mother & Joe came down here day before yesterday Ben & Joe drove down to Lake Arthur and have not returned yet. Mother is with me me yet and will be for a few days Tom Lilt has stopped work to attend school at Andersons’ schooll house taught by a miss Avery.

The carpenters are to go up to start our house next week if nothing happens.  Three of them, they will board with our folks and Martha Williams will go up at the same time to work for Mother.  I think she will like Martha very well.

Had McFarlain sold out his store stock to Viterbo Bros before you left?  I I suppose the K. girls are enjoying their rest greatly.

The pocket book of the Morse family only sufficed to carry Geroge to school I think.  At any rate George was send to L. Charles & Chas is pitching into work like a good fellow.  Well I am scribbling off this straggling letter late at night as all are in bed long ago, and I am getting in a few lines between the babys’ squalls so you must excuse Clarence was angry at me for because I kept his letter waiting these two or three day’s so I did it tonight.  Mother would have written but was not feeling so well as to write as long a letter as she wished to so she send her dear love in this and will write later.  I heard Clarence grumble that you’d be sure to direct your answer to Mama.  So be sure you send the answer in his name.

P. S. Mother sends in this letter a Postal note for ten dollars ($10.00 I suppose you will need Arties there. Keep your self warmly clothed and comfortable any way. All send love and lots of it
from Sister
Jennie Taylor

JennietoLouis1JennietoLouis2JennietoLouis3JennietoLouis4 JennietoLouis1_env

I Was a Little Bit Thin

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1921-07- Earnest Cropper, Clifford Clements, Germaine Erie Patureau, Zita Patureau, and H. L. Landry Clean

Summer 1921

Sometimes a photo just compels me.  That’s the situation this week.  I was feeling somewhat ornery and thought I’d do a really good and confusing one about some of the tangled relations on my dad’s side of the family.  I started looking at photos and this one grabbed my attention.  Not because of any intrigue or confusion, just because it is a sweet photo of my grandmother Erie Patureau Landry.

It was taken in the summer of 1921.  “How do you know that?” you ask?  Because that’s what it says on the back of the photo in my Mee Maw’s very own handwriting.  That’s how.  And not only that, she listed everyone in the photo.  Thanks again, Mee Maw!

Standing behind her is her sister Zita Patureau.  The guy standing behind the wooden handrail is their first cousin Earnest Cropper.  (Joseph Earnest Cropper, Sr. born in 1901)  His mother was a Patureau and the sister of Erie and Zita’s father.  The other guy’s name is  Clifford Clements.  No relation that I know of, but one of their other Patureau cousins married a Clements girl who could possibly be related to him.  May be her brother?

1921-07- Earnest Cropper, Clifford Clements, Germaine Erie Patureau, Zita Patureau, and H. L. Landry Back

Writing on the back of the photo

And that leaves us with just the boy’s name not revealed yet.  She has his name listed as H. L. Landry.  I would suppose that this was Henry Louis Landry who was born in 1911.  And that brings a slightly sinister grin to my face.  :9  You see, little H. L. is not only Erie and Zita’s half first cousin, he is also their first cousin once removed.  Because Erie’s maternal grandmother Belite is also H. L.’s maternal grandmother.  Where Erie came about from the union of Belite and Trasimond Landry, H. L. comes from Belite’s 2nd union with Magloire Babin.  That explains the half first cousin part.  In addition H. L. is the (at this point my grin is becoming a scowl – this is confusing me and I have it all clearly displayed on my computer!) grandson of Alcide Joseph Landry who is the brother of Erie’s grandfather Trasimond.  So I was wrong.  He is their half first cousin and their second cousin.  (I wonder if that adds up to a three quarters first cousin?)  Now it’s perfectly clear.  I think it’s clear.  Are we clear?  Similar to what it says on the back of the photo, my confidence in the outcome is “a little bit thin” right now.

1913 Was a Tough Year

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Bills were piling up for Louis Charles Bucklin. He mortgaged 160 acres of land in March. I am not sure how much of the farm he personally owned at the time, but in total the family homesteaded 850 acres. One of those bills that wasn’t getting paid was at the Tupper Store. Thankfully W. H. Tupper continued to let the Bucklins buy on credit for months with no payment. By August 1, he owed $271 at the store and had only $99 in the bank.

Bill Letter Tupper to Louis May 1, 1913 Bill Letter Tupper to Louis Aug 1, 1913 Mortgage Louis Bucklin 1913 inside B Louis Bank Balance July 2, 1913

A Sad Story

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I’m in the mood to tell a sad story.  It’s probably because I’ve been hearing so many this week with the Great Flood of 2016 happening all around me.  Like those stories, it is a true story.  And, alas, it is sad.

I’ve wanted to tell it for a while now.  As I looked through the information about the Bucklin family, little pieces of the story would show up from time to time.  My cousin Joseph Connors posted a prequel to this story a few weeks ago. (Jennie Has Been Very Sick)  He told a part of this tragic tale, but I thought that I’d tell a little more.

Joe Bucklin in 1909 in Jennings, Louisiana. (photo edited by Van Landry)

His name was Joseph Bucklin.  He was born around 1859 in Massachusetts to James Austin Bucklin of Palmer, Massachusetts, and Mary Ann McGrath Bucklin originally of Ireland.  The family must have moved to Iowa shortly after his birth, because his younger brother Edward was born there in 1864.  Then his youngest brother Louis Charles Bucklin (my great grandfather) was born in Iowa in 1873.  They lived in Coffins Grove, Iowa.  (Cue the ominous music here.)

In 1884 the family moved to southern Louisiana where he, his father, his brother Ed, and his sister Jennie set up homesteads in the Raymond area. (Louis was not old enough to set up his own at that time.)  I’m sure it was a busy time for the family working on developing the land, roads, and bridges in that area.  But still, as things will happen, Joseph got married to Agnes “Aggie” Ausman in 1892.  She was from Canada, had spent time in Iowa at some point, but I’m not sure how they got together.  Let’s hope it was a happy courtship and marriage, because tragedies soon followed.

In 1893, Joseph wrote to Louis in Ohio to tell him about their sister Jennie being sick.  Jennie died sometime after June of 1893.  Around the same time, Joe and Aggie had a little daughter named Leola.  Things were calm for a few years with the birth of Gladys in 1896 and Harold in July 1899.  Shortly after that came more tragedies.  A month after Harold was born, Aggie died.  Then in December Leola died.  Joe must have been having a hard time, because his mother Mary Ann came to stay with him in Jennings.  But to make matters worse, she caught a severe case of the flu and died on April 10, 1900.

I told you it was a sad story.  I feel a reluctance in telling you his story and letting you get to know him a bit, because his story is so sad.  But I wanted to tell it, and that’s what I’m doing.   I’m sorry to tell you this, but there are more tragedies to come for poor Joe.  But not just yet.  As luck would have it (I’m not so sure about that Irish luck at this point!), Aggie had a younger sister of marrying age and Joe did just that.  He married Ida Ausman in November of 1900.  He certainly didn’t waste any time!

1903 - Little Flower GoneHe and Ida had a daughter named Ida May in 1903.  I’m not sure of the details here, but Joe’s wife Ida died on Sept. 5, 1903.  It could have been from disease or complications from childbirth, but it was a tragedy nonetheless.  Following that, little Ida May died a few months later.  As an article in the Jennings Daily Times states, she had never been strong and died as a result of a severe cold.  The person writing the article must have known the situation, because they talk about “the grief stricken father whose cup of sorrow seems filled to over flowing.”  I agree with that evaluation.

Joe did marry again in 1913, but he didn’t have any more children.  His daughter Gladys died in 1917 in Iowa at the age of 21 while living with her Ausman grandparents.  (There could also be a sad story written about the Ausman family, but I’ll leave that up to someone else.)  Gladys did not have any children.  Then Joe himself died a year later of the flu in the great 1918 flu pandemic while living in Florida.

There are no descendants today of Joe.  His son Harold did get married, but he died at the age of 27 without any children in 1926. He was the last of that family.  I descend from his brother Louis and I have never even attempted to count the number of descendants that he has.  He and Addie had 11 children (including my grandfather Fred) and 19 grandchildren (including my mom Betty Lou).  There were several more great grandchildren (Fred himself added 20 to that count.) and countless great great grandchildren.  The difference is drastic.

And so ends the sad story of Joe.

June 11, 2017 Update

For more information about the connections between the Ausmans and Bucklins, read the later post The Bucklin/Keys/Ausman/MacVey Connections.

Nov. 14, 2019 Update

For newly discovered details about the life of the Ausmans and Joe Bucklin, read this post The Sad History Surrounding Joe Bucklin.

The Man in Black

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1912-12 Landry Group

Landry family photo from 1912

This photo is of a group of family members from my dad’s family.  The center of attention (and the photo) is that man in black.  My eye is always drawn to him.  That is my grandfather Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.  He was known by Rob or Bob and his grandchildren knew him as Pee Paw.  He was born in Westlake, Louisiana, in 1893 and died in Lake Charles in 1957, so I never knew him personally.

This photo was taken in Dec. 1912, so he would be 19 years old.  The girl on the far left is Estelle Myhand Alston.  I don’t know anything about her, but this photo comes from her scrapbook.  She wrote the date on the back of the photo and said something about it being taken on the road from Mrs. Landry’s.  She identifies herself, then Tom Bird next to her.  He is my grandfather’s first cousin.  Their mothers were Leveque half-sisters. (Actually 3/4 sisters because they had the same father and their mothers were sisters.) From what I’ve seen in censuses and graveyards, the Landry, Leveque, Myhand, and Bird families had members that moved from the Brusly area to the Lake Charles area around the same time.  There were a few marriages between the groups, but I don’t know all of  that history.

Next in line is Beulah.  Estelle doesn’t say any more than that because Beulah is probably her sister.  I have another copy of the photo that shows her as Beulah Myhand Koch.  Pee Paw is identified as Bob L.  Next to him is Manette Landry who would later marry Adnes “Bibb” Bouquet. She’s just an eight year old girl in this photo and the young niece (and cousin) of Bob L.  Next in line are Zim and Joe Landry.  Joe is Alcide Joseph Landry, Bob’s older brother.  The last one is their cousin named Emma Patureau.  She would marry Toby Mouton nine years later.  But her biggest claim to fame is that she was the mother of Tez.  This was the calm before the storm.

1912-12 Landry Group

Writing from the back of the photo

I’m also posting the back of the photo because it’s kind of interesting.  That’s where I got the title to the post.  She mentions something about singing “..the Man Dressed in Black.”  I guess I’ll have to look that up and find out what it’s all about.  You can do the same if you are interested.

That’s it for now.  See you next time.

Update for Jan. 24, 2021

 

I was experimenting with MyHeritage’s photo editing features earlier this week and tried out the colorizing feature on a few photos.  Some of them came out pretty good.  I think they’re improving the feature, because I’m starting to like the results more.  Maybe I’m just getting used to the idea.   But one photo colorization came out really good.  Of course I had to clean it up a bit more after the colorizing, and now I am really pleased with the edited version.  So behold The Man in Black in color:

An edited and colorized version of the December 1912 photo of my grandfather and various friends and family members in Westlake, Louisiana.

Harvest Time

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Since it is harvest time, I though this would be a good post even though the farmers in the family are probably too busy for Facebook right now. These are warehouse receipt tickets handwritten in pencil for Louis Bucklin’s farm from the July 1913 Rice Harvest. Apparently they were growing Japan Rice.

Rice Warehouse Tickets 2 Rice Warehouse Tickets

A Switch to Hymes from Hine

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George and Susan Hine Family circa 1900

George and Susan Hine Family circa 1900

My decision of what to post this week was motivated by two factors:  I made an exciting discovery regarding a last name and I finished working on this photo after working on it off and on for over a year.  Plus, this is a really, really nice family photo from over 100 years ago.  I think it’s from around 1900, which would mean it was taken in Louisiana.

The photo is of the George Henry Hine and Susan Stanbrough Hine family.  In the back row is James, Lonnie, Addie and Bert.  The front row is Rowe, Susan, George, and Ollie.  There are a lot of descendants of this family in southern Louisiana, as well as a few other places.  They were all born in Hamilton County in Indiana in the 1800s.  The family moved to Louisiana in 1894 and the daughter Addie married Louis Charles Bucklin in 1898.  One of their sons was Fred Bucklin, my maternal grandfather.  Now you know where I fit in.

Malina and John P. Hine headstone - courtesy of SunCacher at FindaGrave.com

Malina and John P. Hine headstone

But what you don’t know is the last name of George Henry Hine’s mother.  Some of you might not even know her first name!  So to help you out, I will let you know that his parents’ names were John Peter and Malina Hine.  (Like in the second photo that I’m posting.)  I have been looking for Malina’s last name for a while.

It was not in the census records that I had found from 1860-1900 or other records I could find online.  But then Ancestry added Indiana death certificates to their data sources available to its members.  I didn’t really think about looking for her name when that information first came out.  All I really thought was, “Oh, some more stuff available.”  I deleted the notification and moved on.  I came across her name a few days later and then thought I’d try to find her last name again.  Her death certificate is not included because she died in 1894 and the records start in 1899.  What?  You’ve got to be kidding me?

I was almost forlorn, but then I remembered that George Henry had several siblings that lived out the rest of their lives and died in Indiana.  I wasn’t even sure the siblings I had listed were accurate, but I tried anyway.  So I checked for William Hine and found death certificate that showed his mother’s maiden name!  Yippee!   Then I checked for Benjamin and Thomas and found the same 1917 William Hine death noticething.  They all three had the maiden name of Malina Hine as being Malina Cox.

 

I was still a little unsure because I wasn’t sure that they were all really the siblings of George Henry Hine.  So I was determined to find the 1850 Census that I had been unable to find before.  The children would have been young enough to all be at home still at that time.  They weren’t in the home in the later censuses.  I searched all day for that census!  I looked for the name spelled any way possible:  Hine, Hines, Heinz, Hinds.  But no luck.  I was giving up and decided to see if someone else might have the info on their tree.  I looked at a few trees on Ancestry and found a few with census records.

And that’s when I noticed something.  I already knew that census workers spelled people’s names however they thought was correct.  They did not have the spelling gene from Grandma Myrtle!  But another mistake that I saw was the name transcribed as Him.  In cursive Him and Hine look very similar.  So I went back and searched for John Peter Him.  I didn’t find Him, but I found him.  The family was listed as Hymes in the 1850 Census.  And all of the children were listed.  The ones who had death certificates giving the last name of Malina as Cox.  I am now satisfied that we have at least one line of Cox family in our history.  She was born in North Carolina and I believe that her family may have been Quakers.  Now I want to know more!  The search never ends.

1850 census lists John (Peter) Hymes (Hine), Malina, Benjamin, William, George H(enry), and Allen L(arkin).