Bitsy: 50 Years Gone

This is a post that I’ve been thinking about writing for a while.  It’s about one of my earliest memories concerning death.   Only recently have I discovered that the subject of this post – David Hotard – was a distant cousin.

I was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on the Halloween of 1960.  I was the 5th of 6 children of Bob and Betty Landry.  It was not long after my younger sister was born in 1962 that we moved to Jennings, Louisiana.  The first two years in Jennings we were renting a two story house north of the interstate.  Then we moved into town to the yellow house on Lucy Street.  It was there that we met the Hotards.

Looking at those dates now, I realize that David must have been an infant when we moved next door to them.  He was one of four sons of Mr. and Mrs. Hotard.  My older brother and I were a little older than they were and we played together a lot.  You know, playing games and riding bikes – the things that kids did growing up in the South in the 60s. 

It was a small town, so we always thought it was pretty safe.  And as I remember, David was the nicest of the brothers.  He never hit me over the head with a hammer and didn’t cut my finger with a shovel!  He also had a nickname.  We called him Bitsy.  I’m thinking that Mr. Hotard must have given him that nickname.  He did that with everyone.  I was either “Van the Bomb” or “Ban the Bomb.”  Karen was “The Lucy Street Crier.”

Things changed in September 1970.  It was the year that David started first grade.  As I remember it, he only attended three days of classes.  David decided he wanted to go bike riding.  He came by our house to see if anyone wanted to go with him.  No takers.  He found another neighbor to go with him.  They did not get far.  He was practically in front of his house when a car hit his bike and knocked Bitsy to the street.  He had a severe head injury and as a result he died shortly afterwards.  He died on September 7, 1970.

That day was very memorable, but even more so was the funeral.  It was a few days later.  I know it was a school day, because we missed half a day of school that year.  It was such a sad day.  I remember going to the graveyard and seeing Mrs. Hotard sobbing.  I remember crying along with her and it still chokes me up to think about it.  It must have been at this point that my mom talked about how parents should never have to endure the death of one of their children.  Such a terrible loss.

Earlier this year I wrote a post about my Acadian ancestors and their experiences during the Grand Derangement.  In this particular post I mentioned my Bourg ancestors.  One of the Hotard brothers sent me a note saying that they also descended from the Acadian Bourgs!  Come to find out, little Bitsy had been my 7th cousin twice removed.  His grandmother Hazel Bourg had been my 7th cousin.  She died in 1967, but I don’t recall that happening.  All my life I thought Mrs. Hotard was only Italian.  She was my 7th cousin once removed Sandy Passantino through the Cajun side of her family.  Imagine that!

I recently reread the book about my ancestor Trasimond Landry.  There is a mention of Trasimond going to a funeral of a friend when he was young.  He grew up with Arthur and his twin brother Anatole.  Arthur’s funeral was the first funeral he had attended where he cried.  When Trasimond’s mother Marie Carmelite died a few years later, Anatole was there to share the grief.

When I read that, it made me think about my experience at Bitsy’s funeral all those years ago.  And like Trasimond who had his friend at his mother’s funeral at a later time, my cousin Sandy was at my parents’ wake.  She actually led the rosary that night.  But we didn’t know we were related back then.  We were just sharing grief again over the loss of people we both cared about.