Pee Paw and Friends Circa 1918

The photo I’m using this week is another one of the recent photos I acquired.  It’s from Box 301 that was in my Aunt Wana’s attic.  She passed away almost ten years ago, so that box was up there for many, many years.  A few of them were in bad shape, but considering the heat, the dirt, and years of no care, most of them were in good shape.  As I said two weeks ago, there were some real treasures in there from the Patureau side of the family.  But there were also some nice ones from the Landry side.  As usually is the case when there are lots of old photos, some of them are not identified.  I will definitely be trying to work on figuring out who some of them are.

I chose this picture because it’s a fun picture of my paternal grandfather Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. around the year 1918.  Everyone looks so happy in the photo.  My grandfather Rob is in the back row toward the middle.  This was before he was married to my grandmother Erie Patureau.  The only other person I can identify in the photo is the other guy on the back row.  The one on the left.  I have another photo of him with Pee Paw (that’s what us grandkids call him) from around the same time.  His name was Lloyd Lynch.

This is one of four photos from the box that were taken on the same day.  One of the girls is missing from this photo, so she must be the one taking it.  From looking at all four photos, it is obvious that the four guys are all good friends.  As you can see in this photo, they have their hands on the shoulders of the friends in front of them. 

I think they could all be friends from Rob’s baseball days.  He was a semi-professional baseball player back then.  He made his name as a pitcher in the Sawdust Baseball Circuit.  These four must have had some formal event to go to and they decided to go together with their dates.  The dates don’t really seem like serious girlfriends.  The guys show more affection toward their buddies than to any of the women.  There are no couple photos, but there is a photo of just the four guys together.

The girls must have just been friends, too.  At least for Rob.  If she had been serious, Erie would likely not have kept it all of those years.  Who wants a picture of their partner with a previous partner?  Sure, Mee Maw was a sweet grandmother who treated everyone wonderfully.  But she had been a young girl who was subject to jealousy or insecurity like most people. So, just friends.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  Just a bunch of friends going out to a nice event and having a fun time.