H. C. and Daisy With the Kids

Here’s an interesting photo of the Phenice family in the mid 1930s.  At least that’s my estimate of the date that it was taken.  The photo is not the best photo as far as clarity and balance is concerned, but it is almost ninety years old.  The person whose face is the hardest to make out is my grandmother’s, who you can see second from the right in this photo.

When my grandmother was born in 1906, her parents H. C. and Daisy gave her the name Myrtle Sylvia.  In 1930 she married her sweetheart Fred and acquired the last name Bucklin.  If this photo was taken when I estimated, she and Fred would be parents already.  Their first daughter Sylvia Daisy was born in 1931, and in 1933 their second daughter Betty Lou, my mom, was born.  (They would later have Alma, Loris, and Austin.) Now that you know how I connect to this photo, let’s see who everyone else is.

In front and center are my great grandparents Daisy Keys and Harry Clifton Phenice.  Daisy was born in 1876 in Hackney, London, Middlesex, England.  She came to Louisiana with her mom and siblings in 1887.  Harry was born in Butler County in Pennsylvania in 1874.  By the time he was six, his family had moved to Nebraska to homestead.  So Harry grew up on a farm in Nebraska.  When he reached the age of 24, he struck out on his own and arrived in Louisiana in 1898.  He married Daisy in 1900 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and started a farm and family of his own.

Sylvan Austin was their first child and he was born 11 months after they were married.  You can see him on the far left in the photo.  He  married Mary Bucklin in 1926.  They never had any children.  The next child born to HC and Daisy was Grace Leona, who was born in 1903.  She can be seen standing next to her father.  She had married Ray Sowder in 1929 and they did not have any children at the time of this photo.  They would later have two daughters by the names of Patricia and Flora.

The next child of HC and Daisy was my grandmother Myrtle, who we have already discussed.  My good old Grandma!  After Myrtle came Henry Charles, who was born in 1909.  He was the middle child and he can be seen standing next to his mother.  He was married to Irma Hetzel in November 1934.  They later were the parents of Wayne, Charles, and Diane.  After Henry Charles came Bernard Orville, who was born in 1911.  Orville can be seen second from the left in the photo.  He got married to Elta Whitman in the same year that Henry and Irma were married, but they were married in January of 1934.  They had five children together: Marilyn, Kathleen, Linda, Paul, and Carol.

That leaves two more children of HC and Daisy.  Their youngest son was named Warren Algernon and he was born in 1916.  He is the son in the middle of the photo standing between his parents.  He would get married to Wilma Hylton in 1939 and they had four children.  Their two sons were named Terrell and Kevin, while their daughters were named Julie and Lisa.  The last child of HC and Daisy was Martha Marguerite, who was born in 1918.  She can be seen on the far right.  She was a just a single young adult at the time of this photo.  She would marry Thomas Hill in 1943.  Their children’s names are Shelly, Darla, and Warren.

As I was writing this, I realized that I have a lot of memories of my grandmother’s siblings. I remember seeing Uncle Sylvan, Uncle Henry, Uncle Warren, and Uncle Orville from time to time.  I remember lots of laughs at Grandma’s house when Aunt Grace and Aunt Marguerite would come around.  But I don’t have many memories of Grandpa’s siblings.  I remember hearing about them occasionally, but we didn’t see them much.  My dad’s parents were about a decade older than Grandma and Grandpa, and that made a big difference.  Pee Paw and all of his siblings died before I was even born.  Mee Maw and a few of her siblings were alive when I was a kid.  I have just one memory of any of them.

So I think of the children in this photo as my extra aunts and uncles.  That’s what we called them.  There was no “Great Aunt Marguerite” or “Grand Uncle Orville” when we saw them.  Even though we already had 22 ‘real’ aunts and uncles, I appreciated those extra ones.  I appreciate them even more now that they’re gone.