I Was a Little Bit Thin

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?

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.