Fred Bucklin Circa 1928

This is a nice old photo of my maternal grandfather Fred Bucklin.  I’m thinking he was around 21 years old in this photo, so the estimated date in 1928.  I’m not sure of why this photo was taken.  It was with a group of other photos from the same time.  Some of them were of him and his identical twin brother Clarence and others were of the land where their family lived.  I posted one of them a few weeks ago that looked like the beginnings of his nursery.

The other thing that I noticed about the photos is that both Fred and Clarence had a boutonniere or something with a ribbon streaming down from it.  They were both dressed up as well.  Their father Louis Bucklin died in November of 1927, but I’ve seen a photo of that and nobody was wearing anything like what is seen in this photo.

I also wondered if maybe it was some prize ribbon that they got at some fair or something.  This is probably the time that they started gaining interest in plants and nursery work.  They graduated from high school in 1926 and I know they had a business together at least by 1930.

This was also when Fred was still a single young man.  He was married to Myrtle Phenice March 12, 1930, in Raymond, Louisiana.  I would assume that the wedding took place at the Raymond Methodist Church.  I’ve never seen a photo from their wedding, but I don’t doubt that it happened!  In the 1930 Census, the record shows that Fred and Myrtle Bucklin were married at age 22 and they both were still 22.  So they were newlyweds.  He was listed as a laborer in the farm industry.  He probably worked on the Bucklin farm for his mother Addie Hine Bucklin.  Myrtle was not working at that time.

As I said, he was in business with his brother at least by 1930.  I have this copy of the price list from the 1931 growing season and my cousin Joseph has posted the one from the previous year.  As you can see from the photo, the name of the business was Bucklin Bros. Nursery.  The sheet says Elton, LA, but it was really in Hathaway.  Elton was just the closest “big town” around there.  I wonder if the name of the business was an homage to their uncles?  Their dad’s brothers Joe and Edd had a mercantile business in downtown Jennings in the early 1900s (approx. 1899-1914).  It was called Bucklin Bros. and was  a successful business for a time.

The Bucklin Bros. Nursery later changed names because there was a falling out between the two brothers.  I don’t know the particulars of the why and when of this, I just know that they ended up both having nurseries down the road from each other.   My grandfather stayed in the business for a long time.  I remember him puttering around the greenhouse in front of their property when I was a kid.

And though he retired and later died, there are still plants and cuttings of plants that he rooted and sold all of those years ago.

I enjoy coming across them from time to time.