Grandpa Phenice on the Porch

This is a photo of my great grandfather Harry Clifton Phenice.  It was taken some time around 1949 in Hathaway, Louisiana.  It doesn’t look like the house that my mom lived in when she was growing up, so I guess it was her Phenice grandparents’ home nearby.

Figuring out where they lived at the time can be tricky.  It seems that they moved often.  In the family history book by Edith Keys Segraves, my Grandma Myrtle wrote about H. C. and Daisy’s (her parents) life.  She listed eleven different places they lived.  Mostly they were in Jefferson Davis Parish in southern Louisiana.  

Before they were married, H. C. and Daisy started out far apart.  He was born in Pennsylvania, where his parents and  grandparents were born and lived.  His family moved to Tennessee at one point, but ended up homesteading in Nebraska for most of H. C.’s growing up years.  Daisy Keys, on the other hand, was born in England and lived there until she moved with her mom and her siblings to Southern Louisiana in 1887 at the age of 11.

H. C. did not make it to Louisiana until 1898.  It must not have taken long for them to meet and become enamored with each other.  They were married Dec. 27, 1900, in Lake Charles.  Their first home together was half a mile west of the J. Anderson place.  This is where Sylvan and Grace were born.  I have no idea where the J. Anderson place is.  That was another piece of information that Grandma wrote about.  She left out the next place they lived – Colorado.  I have photographic evidence that H. C. was in a gold mine in Cripple Creek.  And there is a story about the local women being a little too loose for the likes of the young couple trying to rear their children in an upright manner.  So they moved back to Louisiana in time for Grandma to be born at the McGuire place.  I have no clue where that is either!  I do know that it was in 1906. 

Another tidbit of information from Grandma includes the fact that the family bought their first car in 1920.  I suppose they took a train for their cross country moves, but for local travel they used a horse and wagon.  When the family lived close enough to a church, the children were encouraged to go.   They would either walk, ride a horse, or take the buggy.  I wonder if the whole family fit in that first car they got.  At that time all seven of their children we born and they were from 2 to 18 years old.  I don’t think they had station wagons like we had when I was a kid!  It didn’t have a radio, either.  They got their first radio in 1924 and it wasn’t in their car.

Let’s get back to the time of the featured photo.  After moving around for several years, H. C. and Daisy’s son Orville built a small house on his place for them in 1940.  “When they became ill” the house was moved to the property of my grandparents Fred and Myrtle Bucklin.  That was in 1950.  So the picture was probably taken on the porch of that small house before it was moved to my grandparents’ property.

But all of that information isn’t necessary to enjoy the photo.  It’s a charming photo on its own.  It pictures my mom’s grandfather in the way that she knew him.  He liked to walk around his yard barefoot and in his overalls (the only clothes that his wife didn’t make for him).  And sometimes he took time to pose for a photo for his teen-aged granddaughter Betty Lou.  She would then post it on her blog to share with the cousins.

Oh, wait!  No, that’s me that does that.  Enjoy.