The Patureau Family After 1864

Don’t worry, this is not a detailed history of the Patureau family since 1864.  That would take way too long and way too much space.  This is just a continuation of a post that I wrote at the end of last year called The Patureau Family Photo Circa 1864.  I’m actually surprised that it was that long ago that I posted the photo.  It seems like I just recently posted it.  In that post I talked about the Ferdinand and Emma Landry Patureau family in 1864.  That’s who was in the photo.  It was before they had my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian – AKA Grampa Max. 

But he wasn’t the only one that hadn’t been born yet.  They had five more children and they all lived into adulthood.  The first one was our Max, followed by Pierre Oscar, Joseph Alcide, Abel Omer, and Marie Victorine.  They all went by their middle names.  Almost all of their children did.  What’s up with that?  That 1864 photo of the family came from the Pierre Patureau Collection at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas.  That collection originated from the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Emma – Victorine. 

Victorine must have started that collection early.  I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that she started in the 1890s.  She got married in May of 1892 when she was 18 years old.  She was married just a few months after the death of  Emma. (Ferdinand had died in 1877.) One of the things she must have gotten around this time was the bed that I am now in the possession of.  When she and Willie Cropper first got married, they lived in Plaquemine – possibly at the old Patureau home.  They moved to White Castle around 1899 and lived there for a few years.  She must have had some of these old photos and the bed with her then, because if she hadn’t, they would have been destroyed by a fire. On March 18, 1900, there was a large fire that destroyed all of the buildings on the Patureau property.  I wonder if there was other furniture that had come from France with the family?  I only know about the bed and I’ve only known about it for about four years.

That collection of photos, letters, and such was passed down to Victorine’s daughter and then to her granddaughter.  Then it was donated to the Tyrrell Historical Library.  Besides having the photo of the Patureau family in 1864, there were several individual photos of the family members.  I already had the photo of Grampa Max, but I did get these other photos of his brothers Pierre Oscar, Joseph Alcide, and Abel Omer.  You may recognize Alcide and Omer from the old photos of Kelly’s String Band.  They were both members.  I like these photos of the younger Patureau brothers.  I can definitely detect a family resemblance.  The oldest brother Louis Leobon was fifteen to twenty years older than these brothers.

The ironic thing is that in that wonderful collection of family photos that was started by Victorine, I was not able to find one good photo of Victorine herself.  I should clarify that and say that I didn’t find any photos that were identified as Victorine.  There were some unidentified photos that could have been her.  Oh, yeah, and then there is the one of her when she was no longer alive.  There is a photo of her in her casket. It’s actually a nice, clear photo.  It’s an open casket with several sprays of flowers surrounding it and a gleaming cross beside it.  I’m just not a fan of postmortem photos.  Call it a quirk of mine.

So I would appreciate it if someone could share a photo of Victorine with me if you have one.  Preferably young and alive.  Old and alive would acceptable.  The only prerequisite is that it was taken when she was upright and breathing.