Author: Van

My grandfather played baseball in Lake Charles when working for Gulf States Utilities.

It’s been a while since I posted a baseball photo of my Landry grandfather.  I posted one back in 2021, and before that one it had been five years since I posted one.  I was once concerned about overdoing it with his baseball photos, but I had no reason to be concerned.  Maybe I should have posted more!  After all, he was a semiprofessional baseball player back in the heyday of baseball’s infancy.

My grandfather was born in 1893 in Westlake, Louisiana.  He grew up with a family of four older brothers.  I’m sure there were lots of games played in that family during that time.  What else were they to do?  There was no television and certainly no internet, so they were left to their own devices.  If their children and grandchildren are any indication of their behaviors, games were being played.

And with games comes competition.  Having older brothers pushes you to be better earlier if you want to compete.  I’m thinking that must have been the case with young Robert Joseph Landry – better known as Rob at the time.  I really don’t know anything about his education.  I’ve never heard anyone talk about that.  He did marry a schoolteacher, and previous generations of the family were known to value education.  But I did hear about him being a semiprofessional baseball player.  There are photos to document that.  

Rob Landry was my grandfather.

Rob was involved with a baseball group out of Beaumont, Texas.  The year was 1915, and the group was the Texas League Beaumont Oilers.  The photo of that group is the earliest photo that I have of his baseball career.  It was taken during tryouts.  I don’t know much about Rob’s involvement with the group.  His career took a break in 1917 when he joined the military during World War I.  There’s a photo of him with a group of other guys playing baseball during that period.  He didn’t give up the sport completely during that year-long stint.

The war ended before he was ever deployed and after that he went to work for Gulf States Utilities.  His father had died in the beginning of 1917.  The rest of the family moved to Lake Charles shortly after that.  The caps of these baseball uniforms have an LC on them, which I’m pretty sure is for Lake Charles.  I think he was living with his mom, his widower brother Seb, and Seb’s young daughter Manette.  I think it was during this time that Rob was playing for the Sawdust Circuit in that same area.  I suppose he played for Gulf States because that’s where he worked.

I estimated that this photo was taken around 1920 or 1921.  A newspaper article said that he played until that time, even though his pitching arm was not quite what it used to be.  Rob Landry is standing in the back row of this photo.  He is the second from the right.  Or you can easily see him in the crop that I enhanced in the second image.  He was starting to be known as Pappy back during this time.  It wasn’t until much later when he became a grandfather that he would be called Pee Paw.

I came across this photo tonight and I just had to share it.  I didn’t remember seeing it before, but it is in a folder that I look through from time to time.  Tonight it really stood out to me, so I cleaned it up a bit.  It took me way too long.  I think my hand has a cramp in it from all of the cleanup.  It had lots of fine scratch lines all over it.  I had to make sure the faces were clear of blemishes.  Then I didn’t want so many scratches in the background either.  Like I said, it took way too long.

The Landry children of Lake Charles, Louisiana, around 1930

But doesn’t it look amazing?!  Maybe not amazing, but it is definitely a charming photo from almost a hundred years ago.  It’s a photo of my dad with his older siblings from around 1930.  My dad was Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. and he was born on January 31, 1929, in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  He was known as Bobbie back then to his family.  They called him that the rest of his life.

The parents of these children were Robert Joseph “Rob” Landry and Germaine Erie Patureau Landry.  Rob was born and grew up in Westlake, Louisiana, and Erie was born and grew up in Crescent, Louisiana, which is around Plaquemine, Louisiana.  So how did they meet?  They were related, of course.  Erie’s mom Marie Therese Landry Patureau was the first cousin of Rob.  Cousins marrying cousins was way more common than it is now.  They definitely didn’t have the same aversion to it that people have now.

So Rob and Erie got married November 12, 1921, in Lafayette, Louisiana, which is where the Patureau family was living at the time.  But Rob and Erie went to live in Lake Charles, just across the lake from Westlake.  The first child they had was Marie Therese who was born in 1923.  That’s Marie on the far right of the photo.  The second born was Alcide Joseph and he was born in 1924.  A. J. is the one standing directly behind my dad, who you see in the front of the photo.  Actually, I think A. J. is sitting down next to the other two siblings.

When I was working on the photo, I zoomed in quite a bit to work on all the fine scratches on it.  Did I tell you that it took a long time?  Yes, I definitely did.  When I got to one little patch, I thought I was looking at some trellis under the porch or whatever it is they are sitting on.  I zoomed back out and realized that what I had seen were the plaid stockings that A. J. was wearing!  He’s got on an interesting outfit.  Moving along in the order of birth, we come to Hubert Joseph who was born in 1925.  That’s Hubert looking all cool on the far left of the photo.  I’m pretty sure this was before he learned how to play the harmonica. 

The fourth child of Rob and Erie came in 1927.  Germaine Erie was named after her mother but went by her first name.  I was thinking this photo might have come from her by way of the Secret Collection – so many of them do – but it actually came from an envelope of negatives that I discovered a few years ago.  My dad must have gotten them from his mom many years ago.  And now you can see it in all of its glory.  There may be a few little scratches left, but I got rid of most of the serious ones.  I think it was worth it.

1991 get together of Landry family members

I posted a video of our family singing last week.  The previous post was a post about the Landry side of my family.  Since my family name is Landry, it would seem that last week was another Landry post.  But technically it wasn’t.  Because my mom was a Bucklin and we are just as much Bucklin as Landry.  Plus in the video, a brother of each of my parents showed up.  But to break the Landry-Bucklin tie, my mom’s brother Austin had one of his granddaughters with him.  Little Violet broke the tie, making it a Bucklin post after all.  That clears the way to post another Landry-related story this week.

I want to make a Landry post because of a comment on Facebook about the video.  A distant Landry cousin suggested that I bring my guitar to the big Landry Family Reunion during the Great Acadian Awakening event coming up next month.  It is also known as the Grand Reveil Acadien and it is held every few years in southern Louisiana.  This year it is from Oct. 11-19 and it has events in Lafayette, Broussard, St. Martinville, Abbeville, Loreauville, and more.  There are grand ceremonies, workshops, presentations, masses in French, French Tables, music, food, and more.  Part of that more is a big Landry Reunion on October 16 from 5:00-9:00PM in Lafayette.   More information can be found at louisiane-acadie.com.   Anyone with the Landry name in their family tree is invited to attend the reunion.  

Since I was writing about Landry family members getting together, I thought it would be appropriate to use these photos from 1991.  I have been looking at them a while and thinking it was time to use them in one of my posts.  Especially since they include some Landry family members getting together.  It wasn’t a family reunion, though.  I think it was a gathering of a few cousins who were interested in family history.  I have used information from three of them pretty extensively in my posts about the Landry family.

Of course, most of that information came from my dad. In case you don’t know him, Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr. is the man shown on the far left of the first photo.  He spent about forty years tracing his lines back to the founders of Acadie.  At the time of the photo, he was only 62 and had spent about 20 years researching.  I have all of his research and collected photos that he had.  I think he got some of them from these cousins.  Next to my dad is Bernadine Haydell Landry, the wife of Tommy Landry.  Landry was her married name.  

In the middle of the photo is Alice Naomi “Sis” Landry Vincent.  She was my dad’s first cousin.  Daddy’s father was Robert Joseph “Rob” Landry, Sr. and Sis’s father was Louis Joseph Peter Landry.  Rob and Louis were the sons of Simon Alcide Landry and Marie Celeste Leveque Landry.  Sis collected a lot of old Landry photos and Daddy made a video of her around the time of this photo.  In the video she talked about the history of their shared Landry family.  It has so much great family information about the Landrys of that generation.  Even though she is Daddy’s first cousin, she was twenty years older than him.  That’s because Rob (my Pee Paw) was the baby of the family.  In 1991, Sis was my dad’s only paternal first cousin that was still alive.  She died in 1996.  I don’t remember ever meeting her.  I’m sure she was at some family get togethers I went to.  

The man wearing the tie is Tommy Landry, the husband of Bernadine.  Our connection to Tommy is through my grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau Landry.  Erie was known to us grandchildren as Mee Maw.  Tommy and Erie were first cousins because Erie’s mother (Marie Therese Landry Patureau) was the sister of Tommy’s father (Thomas Belisaire Landry).  Therese and Thomas were the children of Trasimond Landry and Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol Landry Babin.  Tommy did a lot of research about his family and one of the books that he put together was about Trasimond Landry.  I refer to that book all of the time.  He lived here in Baton Rouge, and I remember meeting him once.  It was before my interest in family history, so I didn’t thank him for writing that wonderful book of family information.  He died in 2005.

1991 photo of Landry family members

The woman on the far right is Myrtle “Myrt” Amelie Landry Cazes.  She was also a grandchild of Trasimond and Belite, so therefore a first cousin of Tommy and my grandmother Erie.  She was also the mother of Lew Cazes, who can be seen in the red shirt in the second photo. 

In Tommy’s book, he says that Lew had the biggest collection of information or memorabilia about Trasimond Landry.  Or was that Thomas Richey who said it in his book about Trasimond?  Somebody said it and I believed it.  I’ve gotten together with some of Myrt and Lew’s family, and they’ve shared some great photos with me, including these two.

But I don’t believe everything Tommy says in his book.  He has a photo of himself with Sis and Myrt.  Above the photo it says that they are the grandchildren of Trasimond Landry.  But Sis is not a granddaughter of Trasimond.  She is a granddaughter of Belite Bujol and Belite’s second husband Maglorie Babin.  Sis is a half-first cousin to Tommy and Myrt.  But she also has a Landry connection.  Belite and Magloire’s daughter Clemence Babin was married to Louis Landry.  They are Sis’s parents.  Louis was the son of Alcide Landry, who was the younger brother of Trasimond.  So, Sis is also a second cousin to Tommy and Myrt.  She is also a half first cousin once removed to my dad.

I tried to make that as clear as I could, but when I got to that last sentence, I realized I had failed in the attempt.  Whether it is accurate or not is beside the point.  When I have photos of my dad with his cousins, it gets complicated quickly.  I didn’t even talk about the fact that Marie Celeste Leveque’s mother was a Landry also.  That adds more connections to these people.  Because Belite’s mother and Marie Celeste’s mother were Landry sisters.  So, if you are related to these people, you may want to attend that Landry family reunion.

Hello, people!  It’s time for a post about my dad’s side of the family.  Of course, you probably know that already because you’ve been paying attention and know that last week I wrote about my mom’s family.  I’m just joking, because I have to refer back to my post from the past few weeks to see what I need to write about.  I’ve written so many posts through the years.  

The Robert Joseph “Bob” and Germaine “Erie” Patureau Landry family in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on December 27, 1947.

I found a few photos that I thought of using, but when I came to this photo, my mind was made up right away.  It’s just happenstance in regard to which file folder I might look into when I start my searches.  This photo came from the file called The Secret Collection.  (Shhh!  Don’t tell anyone!)  It is curated by my cousin Daphne, and it was passed down by her mother Germaine Landry Winn.  Aunt Germaine was my dad’s (Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr.) older sister who was closest in age to him.

There are several older photos like this of the family that were taken through the years in the back of the family home in Lake Charles.  It’s a photo taken around December 27, 1947.  That is the date that was printed on the back of the photo by the place that processed the film – Mac’s Camera Shop.  The photo was probably taken at Christmastime or maybe even at Thanksgiving.  It depends on how many photos they were taking back then.

I like the photo because it has my dad in it when he was just 18 years old.  It also has both of his parents (Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Sr. and Germaine Erie Patureau), a few of his siblings, and one brother-in-law.  You can probably tell that I don’t know the occasion for this photo from what I’ve said earlier.  But I am able to identify everyone in the photo.  The names of everyone were written on the back of the photo by some family member.  It could have been an aunt or a cousin.  My dad is identified as Bobbie, which is how he was known by the family.  My grandfather is identified as Pee Paw, which is what us grandkids called him.  He is also identified as Bob Landry.  Sometimes he is referred to as Bob in photos, while other times he is called Rob.  Since my dad is Bob and my brother is Rob, I usually stick with using Pee Paw to identify him, especially in a group family photo such as this.

The two Bob Landrys are on either end of this grouping of family.  On the left is 18-year-old Bob.  He graduated from Landry Memorial in 1946, so he would have been starting his third year in college at McNeese.  He was involved with the band but wouldn’t become involved with barbershop quartets until the next year.  He also hadn’t met my mom yet.  So much more was yet to come.  Next to him is his younger sister Wana.  She was only 15 at the time.  I wonder what she liked to talk about back then.  She was always a talker.  I bet she was a fast talker back then.  Yet she looks rather calm in this photo.

Next to her in the back row is older brother A. J. (Alcide Joseph).  He wasn’t married at the time.  He had spent some time in the military during World War II but had come back home at this point.  A. J. was the second of the eight kids.  Older sister Marie had gotten married in 1945 to Malloy Reeves.  He is the other guy in the back row of this photo, but Marie is nowhere to be found!  Why is Malloy there, but not Marie?  But Uncle Hubert wasn’t there either.  He was third of eight.  He had married Mildred Sutherlin in 1946.  Maybe they were at home taking care of the First.  My godmother – and cousin – Shirley was just an infant at the time, so Mee Maw and Pee Paw had just become grandparents.  I guess that is a sufficient reason to take a photo.

I still need to identify the youngest three of the eight siblings.  In the middle of the photo is Frances Mae, sometimes known as Framay.  She looks very happy in this photo.  For some reason this photo of her reminds me of Daphne.  But Daphne is the daughter of Aunt Germaine (who is also not present in this photo).  But still, it’s what I see.  Standing in the front of the photo with his mother’s hands on his shoulder is little Johnny.  He was only 11 years old at the time.  I’m sure he was a handful.  He was mischievous even as an old man!  I enjoyed having him as my godfather.

So there it is.  A sweet little family photo from 1947.  It might have been Christmas.  It might have been earlier.  It’s likely to be the earliest photo of my grandparents when they became grandparents.  I like it.