Mee Maw and Her Leveque kin

Here is a sweet looking family group photo from my dad’s side of the family.  It was taken around 1930, give or take a couple of years.  I got the photo in 2019 when some cousins met up to share their treasures.  This is one that came from the Secret Collection.  I have shared two other photos that look like they were taken on the same day.  The other photos didn’t have as many people in it. 

My dad’s name was Bob Landry.  At least that’s what most people called him.  But he was also known as Pluto by quite a few people.  His family mostly called him Bobbie or Uncle Bobbie.  He was born in January of 1929.  So it’s possible that the youngest child in this photo could be him.  Or it could be one of his older siblings.  Like me, he had two older brothers and two older sisters when he was born.  I wish these photos had been identified with the date.

My dad’s parents were Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. and Germaine Erie Patureau.  They were known as Rob and Erie.  He was also known as Pappy, and I think that he got that nickname when he was playing semi-professional baseball in the 1910s.  Us grandchildren knew them as Pee Paw and Mee Maw.  Mee Maw is the young mother with her two children in this photo.  Marie is in the middle of the photo and she is the oldest of her children.  Now that I say that, I’m thinking that Marie can’t be older than 3 or 4 and she was born in 1923.  So that would mean that this is not a photo of my dad.  The child in Mee Maw’s lap was probably one of her older sons A.J. or Hubert. 

On the left in this photo is Pee Paw’s mother Marie Celeste Leveque Landry.  These grandchildren are her youngest grandchildren.  In fact her oldest grandchild Manette Landry Bouquet was starting her own equally large family around the same time as her Uncle Rob.  The two families have been close until this day.  So even though they were all the same ages, my dad’s family was from a different generation.  That’s because Rob was Grandma Celeste’s youngest child.

Since I called this post “Mee Maw and Her Leveque Kin,” I have to tell you of their Leveque connection.  Because not only is Grandma Celeste Erie’s mother-in-law, they were also related by blood.  Celeste was the daughter of Josephe Auguste Leveque.  Joseph had a sister named Marie Francoise Leveque.  Francoise was the great great grandmother of Erie.  That would make Erie the first cousin three times removed of Celeste. 

The other person in this photo is also a Leveque.  Her name is Amanda Leveque and she was the daughter of Celeste’s sister Evalina.  So Amanda was Pee Paw’s first cousin and Mee Maw’s second cousin twice removed.  She was born in New Orleans in 1866 and was living there until at least 1910 according to the Census.  Grandma Celeste was living in Lafayette at the time.  So Amanda must have met up with her Aunt Celeste and came to visit some family in Lake Charles.  It looks like they were having a nice visit.  I’m glad they decided to take a few photos to commemorate the visit.