Landry + Bouquet = 100

It’s a good thing that I’ve thought about and planned on what I’m writing tonight, because I haven’t done much to prepare.  Plus I got distracted tonight with the four little kittens that we got this week, and I ended up cleaning our front brick steps with a pressure washer.  It has to look good for the garden tour on Saturday!!  And now it’s 9:00 pm and I’m just getting started.  I can’t pay attention to anything else at the present, so hold your calls!  

This is slightly different than usual, because instead of talking about my ancestors, I’m talking about relatives.  But these relatives on my dad’s side of the family are special.  In many ways.  I’ve mentioned them a few times on previous blogs.  Mainly because they are part of the big entanglement in my dad’s family tree.

The central person to this post is Marie Manette Landry.  She was my dad’s (Robert Joseph Landry, Jr.) first cousin and she was a bit older than he was.  She was born in 1904, while my dad was born in 1929.  That was mainly because her father Sebastien Landry was almost 20 years older than my grandfather Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.  They were known as Seb (rhymes with dweeb) and Rob.  Uncle Seb married his first cousin Marie Manette Landry (yes, the same name as her daughter.)  When Manette-1904 was born, Manette-1876 died just 9 days later.  I’m pretty sure it was from complications from childbirth.

Uncle Seb never did remarry.  He lived with his parents for a while, so Manette was like a little sister to Rob.  When Rob was older, he married a cousin as well.  Manette-1876 had an older sister named Marie Therese.  Marie Therese married Ferdinand Patureau and they had many children, including Germaine Erie.  Rob and Erie got married in 1921.    They had the first of their eight children in 1923.  On May 9, 1924, (100 years ago today) Manette-1904 married Adnes “Bibb” Bouquet.  They had the first of their nine children in 1925.  So even though Manette was his first cousin, it was her children who were more like first cousins to my dad and his siblings.  The families have always been close.

I remember cousin Manette from when I was a young teenager.  I’m sure I saw her on several occasions through the years, but I distinctly remember going to their 50-year wedding anniversary in 1974.  It must have been in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  I remember eating snacks from the different tables and coming across an old photo of the couple when they were newly married.  It was so fascinating to me to see the photos of those young people and see how they had turned into these old relatives of my dad!  I seem to remember her having her hair in a bun and I wondered how long her hair was.  If she had let it grow all those years, it was probably REALLY long!  LOL  

I also remember when they took the photo from 1974.  I didn’t think anything of the wild patterns of their clothes.  That was the norm at the time.  I remember they looked like a big happy family, similar to my own family.  When I correspond with these family members now, sometimes they’ll ask exactly how we’re related.  Well, since Manette’s father and Rob’s father were brothers, they were first cousins.  Since Manette’s mother was the aunt to Rob’s mother, they were first cousins once removed.  There are more relationships that make it even more confusing.  It was always talked about like it was no big deal.  Most people nowadays don’t see it that way.

I remember hearing someone at a family gathering say, “Oh, yeah.  I remember when Uncle Rob married cousin Erie.”  I’m thinking that it was Manette that must have been the one speaking.  She definitely wasn’t insinuating anything bad about it, her own parents were first cousins.  She was a sweet lady and I’m glad to honor her on the 100th anniversary of her wedding.