Mon Parrain Est Mort: The End of an Era

My godfather has died.  It was pretty much expected, but it is always sad when family members die.  I’m talking about my Uncle Johnny, the last of my dad’s siblings to pass away.  There were eight children in all.  I recently got a new photo of the family from the new Box 301 Collection.  It’s only new in that I had never seen it before.  The photo itself was taken around 1939 in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

I usually start with the oldest first, but since this is a post about the youngest, I’ll start with him first.  You can see little Johnny standing in the front of this photo.  He’s only about three years old, so I estimate that it was taken around 1939.  John Alfred Xavier Landry was born August 2, 1936, and died July 28, 2024.  He was five days short of his 88th birthday.

The sibling closest in age to him was Frances Mae (1934-2020).  She’s standing in front to the right.  She was about two years younger than Wana Lidwin (1932-2014).  She’s the little girl standing behind Johnny. The next older sibling was Robert Joseph Jr., who is also standing in the front of the older ones.  That’s my dad, and he was known as Bobbie back then.  He lived from 1929 to 2017.  He was seven days short of his 88th birthday.  So he lived just two days less than his younger brother Johnny.

Less than two years older than Bobbie was his sister Germaine (1927-2020).  She is standing next to him in the dress with the white collar.  Her older siblings are the first three shown on the back row on the left.  Hubert was the third child and he lived from 1925 to 2006.   A. J. (Alcide Joseph) was second and he lived from 1924-2018.  He lived the longest at 94 years, 5 months, and 25 days.  Of the girls, Germaine lived the longest at 93 years, 3 months, and 9 days.  The oldest child was Aunt Marie.  Marie Therese lived from 1923 to 1998.  She had the shortest lifespan.  She died a month short of her 75th birthday.  All eight of the siblings were born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Rob (1893-1957) and Erie Patureau (1895-1973) Landry.  They can be seen on the right in this photo.

This second photo is one I’ve had for a while.  I decided a few years ago that I would use it for when Uncle Johnny died.  It’s such a sweet photo of him with my dad.  My dad and all of his siblings were close to each other.  Most of them lived in Lake Charles, so there were lots of get togethers through the years.  Plus, they would get three or four of them together regularly to play cards till all hours of the night.  There was a lot of laughing involved.  There may have been some discussion of rules, but I wouldn’t really call it arguing.  It was mostly fun and games.

Daddy and Johnny were really close.  He was my dad’s handy man!  Johnny told me that my dad informed my mom quite early in their relationship that he was not a handy man.  He reminded me of that at our last visit with him a few weeks ago.  I’m glad I got a chance to visit with him then.  He also told me that my mom used to hitchhike when she was in college.  I don’t remember hearing that before.  Maybe she was just catching rides with friends and acquaintances. 

They also liked to hunt together.  I’ve written a post about that before.  Another thing he told me at our last visit was that he had never heard my dad curse, even when he brought the wrong ammunition for the gun he brought for hunting.  I think Johnny was not averse to using colorful language, because he remembered that event as a time when Daddy would have been justified in using a few choice words.

And now they’re both gone.  As are their parents and siblings.  It’s the end of an era.  A spectacular era.