Landry Household June 25, 1900

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about today.  I knew that it was time for a Landry post, but nothing really stood out for me.  Then I came across an old photo of Marie Celeste Leveque Landry that I had dated to around 1900.  I cleaned up the photo a bit and then wondered just what life was like for Grandma Celeste back then.  Of course she wasn’t a grandma just yet.  Or was she?  I guess it was time to explore a little.

1900 Census of the Landry family in Westlake, Louisiana.  The next household is Samuel and Zoe (Marson) Leveque.  Samuel was Celeste’s half brother.  Zoe was a 2nd cousin to both Celeste and Samuel.

So I looked at the 1900 Census, which is where the first photo comes from.  It gives lots of basic information like name, age, sex, relationship to head of household, and marital status.  This year was good because it asked for the month and date of birth in addition to the standard age category.  You just have to assume that the Census taker got it right when he asked all of the questions.  Most of the time they get it right.

But sometimes it is wrong.  So how can you ever be sure?  It’s not always obvious.  There is an obvious discrepancy in this one.  According to the information that I have collected, Celeste and her husband Alcide (my great grandfather Simon Alcide Joseph Landry) were married in November of 1868.  That would mean that they were married for 31 years as of June of 1900.  On their anniversary that year, it would be 32 years.  The information on the Census shows Alcide as being married for 34 years, while Celeste had only been married for 30 years.

How can that be?  I suppose you could say the average of the two is pretty accurate, but that’s not the way it’s supposed to work.  Maybe there were two years in there that were really rough and it seemed like four years to him, while she would rather not think of them!

Speaking of bad years, there must have been a few of them.  The census shows that Celeste gave birth to ten children and only six of them are still living.  Those were tough times for families, particularly for the mothers.  I have the names of the four children that died, starting with their firstborn child Marie Marguerite Carmelite “Lily” (named after her two grandmothers).  She was born in 1870 in Brusly, Louisiana, and died in 1889 in Westlake.  I’m not exactly sure when the family moved from Brusly to Westlake.  They were in Brusly at least until 1880 because they showed up in the 1880 Census there.  They were in western Louisiana at least by 1889, because Lily was buried in Lake Charles.

The next one born was Joseph E(lie) in Jan. 1872.  He shows up in the 1900 Census, but would only live until 1913.  He would be another child mourned by Celeste.  Then came Sebastien J. who was born in Oct. 1874.  I’ll tell you more about him later.  The next name I have is Joseph A(lcide) who was born in Feb. 1877.  Dad knew him as Uncle Joe.

Next is Louis (Joseph) who was born in Jan. 1879.  If you look at the Census, there is a ten year gap before the next child Mary is listed.  There were three children that were born and died during that period.  A son named Sam was born at the same time as Louis, but he did not survive long.  They gave birth to another son three years later and also named him Sam.  There was also a son named Alcide.  I’m not sure about Sam and Alcide, but they must have died before 1900.  They are not on the list of names, but they do account for the rest of the children that did not survive.  It’s a shame that most of the 1890 Census was destroyed, because it could possibly have provided some more information about their lives.

You would think that they would give up trying at that point.  But fortunately for me, they didn’t.  They had Mary in Feb. 1889 and finally they had Robert J(oseph) in Jan. 1893.  He would later come to be known as my Pee Paw.  And Celeste was 45 years old when she gave birth to him.  That is what you would call a strong constitution!  She needed it to get through all of those births and deaths.  Mary would die in 1909, so only four of her ten children were living when she passed away.

Marie Celeste Leveque Landry circa 1900.

So in 1900, this is what Celeste looked like.  In 1900 she would be caring for her six children who were from age 7 to 28.  She also had her 79 year old mother living in the household.  Besides being “Mrs. Joseph A. Leveque”, she was born Marguerite Baselite Landry.  Another interesting point is that Alcide and his mother-in-law Basalite were half first cousins.  They had the same paternal grandfather Joseph Ignatius Landry.  How cool is that?

And who else was in the house?  If you read the Census, you will see that it was a niece (of Alcide) named Manette.  Which would mean that she was a 23-year-old girl cousin to all of those 20something year old Landry boys.  I’m sure you can guess where all of this led!

Of course some of you knew this from the start, because you descend from Manette and her Landry cousin of choice Sebastien.  Manette and Sebastien would be married later that year.  They had a daughter named Manette in 1904.  Sadly, Manette the mother died a few days later.  So Celeste pretty much took over the role of mother for little Manette, and Manette was like a younger sister to my grandfather.

Since Pee Paw was the youngest of all of his siblings and he died before I was born, I never met any of them.  But I do remember Manette.  “Little” Manette was an older woman celebrating her 50 year wedding anniversary with Bibb Bouquet in 1974.  A link to that long ago household of 1900.

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