Teacher! Teacher! Miss Patureau! Miss Patureau!

Miss Patureau’s class from 1920 at Southside Elementary in Lafayette, Louisiana

A few weeks weeks ago I posted a photo of my maternal grandmother with a class photo from 1945.  This week I’m going back further to around 1920 to my paternal grandmother.  We all know her as Mee Maw, but back then she was just young Erie Patureau from Plaquemine.  But to her students, I’m sure she was known as Miss Patureau.

Erie was born Germaine Erie Patureau in 1895 in Crescent, Louisiana, which is in the Plaquemine area along the Bayou Plaquemine.  Her mother died when Erie was just 14 years old.  She finished high school some time around 1912 and then went to Lafayette to study at Southwest Louisiana Institute, which is the same place that my other grandmother received her education.

She graduated from SLI in 1915 and I assume she studied education, because she began teaching after that.  She wasn’t the only one that was a teacher, though.  Like I said, it runs in the family.  Some of her sisters were teachers in Lafayette as well.

Another Miss Patureau teaching in Lafayette in the 1920s. This time it is Zita Patureau.

This is a photo of another Miss Patureau that was teaching at about the same time.  As you can see, the photo was taken in 1922 at the Lafayette School.  I got this photo from a cousin a while back and she said that it was Mee Maw.  My dad agreed that it was his mom Erie.  But someone else told me different.  Sis and Syl (my dad’s first cousins) assure me that it was their mom Zita in this photo.  After seeing many other photos of Erie and Zita from this time, I have to agree with them.  It’s still a very nice photo to have.

1787 marriage record of Leobon Patureau and Jeanne Lanson. Leobon is identified as a schoolmaster.

While we are talking about Patureau kin in education, I thought I would mention the earliest record I have found in this regard.  I know there have been many educators in the Patureau family in Southern Louisiana in the past 100 years (some were the students’ favorites, others not so much), but I’m talking about those records I found a few weeks ago that are from France.  In the marriage record of 1787, Leobon Patureau is identified as a maître d’école.  In English this translates to schoolmaster.  He was only 20 years old, so I would think that would mean he was a teacher.  About the same age that Erie was when she was a teacher some 133 years later.

I’m sure there must have been others in between.  The abundance of them now makes it seem very likely.

And I’m sure there will be more.