The Man in Black

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.

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.

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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: