Louis Bucklin With Two Eyes

This title is making me laugh.  It probably shouldn’t.  I sometimes laugh inappropriately at things.  But I can’t help it, I find so many things funny.  And it’s not funny that later in life, my great grandfather Louis Bucklin lost one of his eyes.  I’m pretty sure it was a result of a farming accident.  He was a farmer after all.  He was also a writer.  He kept journals for many years.  I have not read them all.  I don’t think that I’ve seen them all.  I’ve only seen a photo of a grouping of old journals that he wrote, and it looked like there were a lot of them.

He wasn’t too revealing about his personal life in those journals.  He didn’t write about the young girl he was interested in who was living in Leeds, Iowa, in 1893.  I only know about that because he must have saved the letter that she wrote to him to break up with him.  That letter didn’t stay in the Bucklin family, but it somehow was kept in the Keys family.  Fortunately, his son married into the Keys family and the letter survived until it came back to me.  It led to all kinds of discoveries about Louis and his brother Joe.  I’ve written all about that previously.

Louis also didn’t write about his interest in Addie May Hine, who later became his wife.  All he really said in his journals was that Addie had come to the house to help his mother Mary Ann McGrath Bucklin do some household chores.  I guess that’s something.  She did merit a mention.

The journal also comes in handy when people ask questions about some of the history of the Hathaway, Louisiana, area.  He mentions a few people and some events that happened.  He was in a play in Jennings, Louisiana, on May 20, 1894.  I don’t know the name of the play, but he felt it would have gone better if they had been more organized and better practiced.  He pointed out blunders by a Hoag and a Macmartin.  A few weeks later he talked about an impromptu Fourth of July celebration in China, Louisiana.  China is another small community north of Jennings.  He was particularly impressed with the speeches of Mr. Powell and Mr. Eaton.

I don’t know when Louis lost his eye.  I don’t know if that information is in one of his journals or not.  I’m also not sure when this image of him was done.  I’m thinking that it is a drawing that was made when he was in his twenties or thirties.  Unfortunately for us, there aren’t many photos of him to compare it to.  He was very good at avoiding the camera.  I’ve never been that fond of this picture, but since there are so few of him, I’m using it.  Some of his features in this image remind me of my grandfather, which points to me that it might be pretty accurate.  

I do know that his eyes were blue, because that was the color of the glass eye that was made for him to replace the eye he had lost.  Somehow one of his grandchildren came across that eye in Addie’s bedroom years after Louis died.  I’m hoping that she was snooping a bit.  It would be a bit strange if it was out on display or set up as if it were looking at her.  There I go laughing again.  Because as strange as the idea of having it on display sounds to me, I would really like to see that eye.  I’d even be tempted to post a photo of it for everyone to see!

And to go a step further, I’d like to have that eye in my collection of family heirlooms.  I have a display case for all of my rocks and minerals.  There are already a few glass pieces in it.  I think that eye might look good on display.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  If this ever were to happen, I do know that the reaction I would get from people would make me laugh.   No maybe about that.