Celeste and the Cistern

Here is another photo that I got from the AJ Collection.  It is from around the late 1920s and was taken in Lake Charles.  That is my dad’s paternal grandmother. (Van’s dad is Bob, Bob’s dad is Rob, Rob’s mom is this woman.)  Her name was Marie Celeste Leveque Landry and she lived her whole life in Louisiana.  Let me give you some background facts about her.

Celeste was born in 1847 in Brusly, Louisiana.  Her parents were Joseph Auguste Leveque and Marie Basalite Landry Leveque.  She was the 2nd of 9 children by her father’s second wife.  Since the first wife was her mother’s sister, the children from that union were Celeste’s half siblings and half cousins – 3/4 siblings.

When she was born, the family owned a plantation in the Brusly area where they had 60 individuals enslaved and forced to work for them.  Since she was born in 1847, her whole childhood would have been in that environment.  And when the Civil War came along, many of her siblings and cousins fought for the Confederacy.  Would she have considered her childhood happy?  I wonder.

She married one of those cousins that fought in the Civil War.  She married Simon Alcide Joseph Landry on November 24, 1868, in West Baton Rouge Parish.  They had ten children together including my grandfather Robert Joseph Landry who was born in 1893.  That means that Celeste was 47 years old when she gave birth to him!  That’s pretty old.

But it’s not as old as she was when this photo was taken.  She was around 80 years old at the time of this photo.  Yet she still has a little vanity left.  Why do I say this?  Because you can see that she has taken her glasses off for the photo and is holding them in her hand.  Trying to look her best for the photo.  I can just imagine a conversation with her about this photo:

Grandma Celeste asks me, “Why are you putting that old photo on the Facebook?  I look so old in it.  You could at least remove that bump on my neck with all your fancy gadgetry.”

I tell her, “I already removed a possible bump on your cheek.  I want it to look as good as it can, but I also want it to reflect what you actually looked like then without too many changes.  I posted a photo that showed you when you were young and pretty.  Now I’m showing one of when you were older and more dignified.”

“Hmmph!” she snorts, “Old and decrepit is more like it.  At least I’m not wearing my bed clothes like you’ve done to other family members!  I wouldn’t mind if you fixed my blouse to make it straight across the bottom.”

“Like I said,” I patiently explain to her, “I like to keep it as real as possible.”

“You and your ‘really real’ shenanigans,” she says with exasperation, “If only you would treat your ancestors as well as that darned sock monkey of yours!  Now I’m making an edit of the photo myself.  There.”

“Hey,” I say as I notice her smile is gone from the photo,  “You put a scowl on your face!”

She just scowls at me and disappears with a shake of her head.