Author: Van

Mom’s Memories Page 14 AKA Mom and Plants

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Can you believe I went all of 2024 without writing a Mom’s Memories post?  Not that I neglected talking about my mom or her side of the family, but I did let the recurring theme slip my memory.  It’s just a calendar year thing anyway.  I could go for a longer time between themed posts and still have them in successive years.  I was just a bit surprised when I looked for previous ones to see that it had happened that way.  

Page 14 of Mom’s Memories

So let’s remedy that!  Here is a page from the little book my mom kept when she started having her memory issues.  She talked about various things from her childhood and young adult life.  She was born Betty Lou Bucklin in Hathaway, Louisiana, on May 20, 1933.  She was the second child of Fred D. Bucklin and Myrtle Sylvia Phenice.  All of her childhood was spent in that small community in Jefferson Davis Parish.

On this page of the book, she was talking about her mom’s parents.  Grandma Bucklin’s parents were Harry Clifton Phenice from Pennsylvania and Daisy Henrietta Martha Keys from England.  All of my mom’s grandparents were from different places.  They all lived in Hathaway when she was growing up.  She talks about how pretty their place was when the roses and wisteria were in bloom at the same time.  That usually happens in early spring.  On page 12 she mentioned that Grandpa (H. C. Phenice) had a strawberry patch and a watermelon field.  There was also a grape vine over their back porch.

Grandpa Bucklin was a nurseryman.  He and his identical twin got into the nursery business when they were quite young.  They had a falling out at some point but continued working as nurserymen with their own separate business just a mile apart from each other.  So my mom grew up with plants all around her.  She helped plant seedlings and wrap grafts and knew about taking care of plants.  The nursery was on the property where they lived.

Betty Lou Bucklin in Hathaway, Louisiana, in 1941.

If you look at this photo, you might think that my mom was fond of plants.  She looks so happy with her little leaf.  Yet, she always declared that she had a brown thumb.  She claimed that everything that she tried to grow would just die.  I think that was mainly true for potted plants and such.  She was too busy taking care of everyone else to think about watering a little plant regularly.  When she was older, she had a bit more time to care for some plants around their front porch.

I just like this photo of 8-year-old Betty Lou.  She does look like she may have been getting into a bit of mischief.  I’m not sure what she’s doing with the leaf in her hand.  It looks like a camellia leaf.  My grandparents had lots of those plants around their house when we were growing up.  When we’d visit sometimes, we’d cut some of the flowers so we could bring them to our teachers.  Maybe we had similar grins on our faces when we were collecting those camellia leaves and flowers.

When I was growing up and my mom talked about her childhood, she was talking about things that happened 20 or 30 years earlier.  That seemed so long ago back then.  But my growing up years was 50 years ago!  No wonder those people at work were referring to me as an old man today!

We really do grow up with our parents.

Sans Parents for Eight Years

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I’m pretty good at math.  But sometimes when I figure things out, they just don’t seem right.  This year is one of those times.  Can it really be eight years since both of my parents passed away within a week of each other?  As the Magic 8 Ball would say, “All signs point to yes.”  Where did that come from?  I must have just had the number 8 on my mind.  Time sure flies by.

I’ve been thinking of them – and the fact that I’d write a post about this – all week.  I always have to have a great picture of them to go with the post, right?  I was thinking that since this is the 8th anniversary of their deaths, I might coordinate that with a photo from around their 8th wedding anniversary.  When would that have been?  Let me tell you.  Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr. married Betty Lou Bucklin on November 1, 1952, in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  That would put their 8th anniversary on November 1, 1960, which happens to be the day after I was born. 

They didn’t take an anniversary photo that year, because my mom was still in the hospital with me.  I was the fifth child, and I have A+ blood.  My mom was 0- and had built up antibodies from previous pregnancies with A+ children.  Her immune system fought my blood, and it resulted in me having to have a blood transfusion a few days after I was born.  Thank you, Methodist men’s group in Lake Charles!  So, I messed up my parents’ anniversary and I didn’t want to use my own baby photo for the post today.

Betty Bucklin and Bob Landry on their 2nd wedding anniversary in 1954 in Albuquerque, New Mexico

I thought I’d look back on the past posts to make sure I didn’t repeat a photo.  Last year I stated that I wasn’t going to use the 2nd anniversary photo of my parents because I would post it later in the year for the 70th anniversary of the photo.  And guess what I forgot to do in November?  That’s right, I forgot about using that photo.  So that settled it.  I’m using the photo of my mom and dad from their 2nd wedding anniversary.

Look how sweet it is.  My mom is wearing the dress that she made and got married in.  I’ve described the color of it before, which is difficult to do, but I resisted showing the photo before because I wanted to wait until the photo was 70 years old.  Like I said, I was going to post it in November 2024.  So now you can see it in full color.  Reddish brown?  Brownish red?  It’s not easy to say for sure.

As far as their deaths are concerned, my mom died on January 19, 2017, and my dad died five days later (January 24, 2017).  We had a joint funeral for them on January 28, 2017, at the Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church in Jennings, Louisiana.  Jennings was where they lived most of their lives and it’s where they’re buried.

Those that loved them miss them.

The Man in Black Part 2

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My grandfather Rob Landry with friends and relatives at the family property in Westlake, Louisiana, in January of 1912.

Can you believe it?!  There’s a part 2 to the Man in Black photo that I posted over eight years ago.  I still am partial to the first photo that I posted.  In fact I have a copy of it hanging in my cubicle at work.  I ‘ve only had the second photo for a few months.  I got it from Box 301 that came from my Aunt Wana’s attic.  I knew I would have to do a Man in Black Part 2 as soon as I saw it.  It’s always interesting to see a second view of an old photo that you really like.

It’s not exactly the same view.  For one thing, the man on the left in this photo is not in the previous photo.  Fortunately for us, the back of this photo was labeled, too.  Though the date given on this one says that it was taken in January of 1912, and the previous one said it was taken in December of 1912.  Knowing how I have confused dates when dating photos at the beginning of the year, I’m thinking that the previous one should have said December 1911.  I’m going to go with the January 1912 for both photos.  They were clearly taken on the same occasion.

back of the Jan. 1912 photo

The back of this photo says that the guy on the left is a Cambrige.  Some of the text is cut off on the back of the photo.  His first name doesn’t show.  Maybe he was the one that took the first photo.  Estelle Myhand was in his place for the first photo.  She probably took this photo.  The next person is Tom Bird.  His name was clearly written in the previous photo.  He was my grandfather’s cousin.  Their mothers were Leveque half-sisters.  He was also closely related to one of my current coworkers.  My grandfather Robert Joseph Landry Sr. is the next one in the photo.  He was called Rob back then.  He turned 19 on January 9, 1912.  Maybe this was a gathering for his birthday?

The woman standing adjacent to my grandfather was Beulah Myhand.  She was the sister of Estelle. I’m not related to them.  I am related to the little girl sitting on the stump.  I knew her as Manette Bouquet and she was an old woman when I was a kid.  She was my dad’s first cousin.  Her father was Sebastian Landry, the brother of Pee Paw.  Her mother died when she was born, so Sebastien and little Manette went to live with Seb and Rob’s parents Alcide and Celeste Leveque Landry.  So Manette was like a little sister to my grandfather.  She’s got her hand over her eyes in the photo, and she’s looking over to the next group of people.

According to the writing on the back of the photo, the person standing next to the stump is Mrs. Joe Landry.   That’s not how these people would have addressed her.  They would have been calling her Zim.  Her given name was Azema Landry.  She was the great aunt to another one of my coworkers.  Now you can see why I keep a copy of the Man in Black at work.  It shows a group of people together over 100 years ago, and now some of their relatives are working together.  It’s a small world sometimes. 

Azema was married to Joe Landry, obviously.  He is the man standing next to her and he was the brother of Rob and Seb.  Rob, Seb, and Joe were three of the sons of Alcide Landry.  Alcide had a brother named Trasimond Landry.  He had died in 1879 after fathering five children.  His youngest was Marie Manette, who married Seb Landry.  They were the parents of the little girl Manette in this photo.  Trasimond’s son Mose Landry was married to Claire Landry, the sister of Azema from this photo.  The connections can get confusing, especially when a Landry marries a Landry.  Trasimond’s oldest daughter was Marie Therese Landry, who was married to Max Patureau. 

Though I am extremely partial to their daughter Erie, who would later marry Rob Landry, I’m talking about their daughter Emma.  She is the person on the far right in the photo.  She was unmarried at the time.  She married Toby Mouton in 1919 and her first child was Therese Wynhoven Mouton.  I knew her as Tez and some knew her as Therese or Wynie (sounds like whiney).  Tez was renowned among the cousins, or should I say notorious?  Probably something in the middle, but that was later.

The photo, like I said, was taken in January of 1912 – possibly on Rob’s birthday on the 9th.  Both photos say that they were taken at the Landry property/homestead in Westlake, Louisiana.  I suppose the house to the far right might be the Landry home, but I’m not really sure.  It looks more like a neighborhood than a farming area.  That’s usually what I think of when I hear the word homestead.

I think that will be it for the Man in Black.  There is not a third photo from that day, at least none that I know of.  So it’s two and done.  See you next time.

Bucklin Family in 1960

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Sept. 23, 1960, was the date of my great grandmother Addie May Hine Bucklin’s last birthday. This is a photo of her with her children at the birthday party in Hathaway, Louisiana.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to post today.  When I saw this photo I wasn’t sure if I had used it before.  It seems like I would, because it’s a really nice group photo from my great grandmother’s last birthday.  Her birthday was September 23 and in 1960, that date fell on a Friday.  My guess is that the birthday celebration happened on the day after her birthday.  So the photo was probably taken on Sept. 24, 1960.  That was five weeks before I was born.  In another photo of the event I think that my oldest sister Jodie was there.  That would mean the rest of the family was there as well, including my mom – with me along for the ride.

My great grandmother was Addie May Hine Bucklin.  She was born in 1876 in Noblesville, Indiana.  The Hine family moved down to Louisiana in 1894 and settled in Jefferson Davis Parish around Hathaway.  A few years later Addie met Louis C. Bucklin and they were married in 1898 in Lake Charles.  Soon after that they started a family.  She was pregnant ten times and had a total of a dozen children.  

When those children were growing up, their grandmother – Addie’s mother Susan Stanbrough Hine – had a big celebration every year for her and her friend’s birthday at the beginning of October.  I don’t know if that tradition followed through to Addie and her birthday, but at this birthday there seemed to be a lot of people there.  I think most of them were family.  When you have twelve children, you tend to have a lot of grandchildren as well.  Addie had eighteen grandchildren.  I wish there was a photo of Addie with all of her grandchildren.  Then I’d know for sure if my family had been there.  

I know that my grandfather was there.  He’s the one standing up on the left in the photo.  His name was Fred D. Bucklin and he was born in 1907.  He was married to Myrtle Phenice.  Their second daughter was Betty Lou, who is my mom.  She had four siblings – Sylvia, Alma, Loris, and Austin.  To the right of Grandpa is his oldest brother Leo.  He was born in 1898, which means that Addie had a short pregnancy for him.  Leo was married to Emily Sonnier, but they did not have any children together.  To the right of Leo is Herbert who was born in 1906.  He was married to Dora Koll.  They had two children that lived to adulthood – Louise and Ray.  Next in line is Clarence.  He was the identical twin of my grandfather Fred.  I never met him.  He was married to Sadie Manuel.  They had one daughter together, but Carla was born after the death of Grandma Addie.  Next we have Ralph, who was the second son.  He was born in 1902.  He married Leona Johnson and they had Helen.  Standing up on the right side is Roy, the youngest son.  He was married to Effie Hetzel and they had Jeannette and Doris.

On the front row, sitting on the left is Mary Bucklin Phenice.  She was born in 1900 and was married to Sylvan Phenice.  He was Grandma’s older brother.  That’s right, Grandpa’s oldest sister was married to Grandma’s older brother.  Aunt Mary and Uncle Sylvan did not have any children, so there were no double cousins.  Sitting next to Mary was good old Addie, who was celebrating her 84th birthday.  She looks pretty happy, right?!  She’s not known for smiling in photos.  But by all accounts, she was a very sweet woman.  She loved her family.  To the right of Grandma Addie is Edna Bucklin Keys.  She was married to Frank Keys.  Frank was Grandma’s first cousin.  Edna and Frank had four children – Melvin (of Star Trek fame), Stanley, Arlene, and Vernon.  Sitting on the right is Ruth Bucklin Bruchhaus.  She was married to Budda Bruchhaus and they had two sons – Harley and Laurence.

So the photo is of Addie and nine of her surviving children.  There was a son Carl who had special needs, but I think at the time that the photo was taken he was living in a facility in Metairie.  There had been a son named Paul who died as an infant in 1904.  Robert Bucklin was born in 1911 and was married to Freida Rampmier.  They had a son named Robert Jr., but Robert Sr. died in 1944 at the age of 32.  My mom was 11 at the time and she remembered how traumatic that death was to the family.  In my mom’s own words “Losing a child must be the ultimate challenge for a mother – beyond comprehension – shouldn’t happen.”  She said something similar when she talked about the death of Robert, but those words were written about her own experience losing my oldest sister Jodie.

Of course, all of these people are gone now.  It’s nice to have photos to look back on those people who came before us.  We wouldn’t be here without them.

The Landry Family in 1967

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The Landry family in 1967 in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Usually when I’m sharing a photo of a Landry family from the 1960s, it is of me and my siblings.  But this time it is of my dad, his siblings, and their mom.  There are several photos of my dad and his siblings, and I don’t think that I’ve shared enough of them.  I think they deserve more recognition.  They were a great group of siblings that remained close throughout their whole lives.  

This is actually the first year in over 100 years that there won’t be one of these siblings around.  The first one – Marie Therese Landry – was born in 1923.  The last one – John Alfred Xavier Landry – was born in 1936 and he died last year on July 28, 2024.  From beginning to end was 101 years.  This photo was taken close to the middle of that time period.

In this photo, the last is the first.  Uncle Johnny is the one furthest to the left.  He was my parrain or godfather.  Next to him is the first.  She was the oldest, and she wore that role well.  She was the leader of the pack.  If she didn’t approve of something, she’d let you know.  She didn’t really look much older.  In fact in this photo, it would be difficult to distinguish who was older than who.  They were all pretty close in age and they’re all dressed so formally.  That’s due to Uncle Hubert, who is next in the photo.  He’s wearing a boutonniere because he was the father of the bride on this special day.

It was the wedding day of his daughter Shirley, who is my godmother.  She married Dudley Shaw on June 24, 1967.  (At least that’s what my Ancestry information tells me.  I had the photo incorrectly dated as 1968.  So sue me, it was a long time ago!)  I was looking through some of those wedding photos a few weeks ago and I think I may have spied myself at the reception.  I’m sure I must have been there, even though I don’t really remember anything about it.  It was an important event.  It was the first wedding of my generation of the family.  Uncle Hubert looks pretty pleased in the photo.

He should be, he’s standing by our dear Mee Maw!  Her name was Germaine Erie Patureau Landry and she was my paternal grandmother.  But before that, she was mother of these eight Landry siblings.  She gave birth to all of them in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and most of them lived out their lives there.  She was a wonderful mother and grandmother.  She was also very involved with her own family history and was already researching the family and collecting old photos and family documents.  Her collection was divided in 1973 after her death, but recently the cousins have gotten together a few times to share what they have.  A lot of my posts have been fueled by the passion that my grandmother had for her family.  Thank you, Mee Maw!

On the other side of Mee Maw is Uncle A. J.  He is the oldest son, even though he had more hair than Hubert at the time.  I always thought the two of them resembled one another.  In some photos I have to look really close to make sure I don’t have them confused.  Uncle A. J. was the only one that didn’t stay in Louisiana.  He was in Houston for a long time, then he and Aunt Margie moved to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, at some point.  That’s where her family was from.  After A. J., we next see Aunt Germaine and Aunt Wana.  I always thought that these two looked similar to each other.  They didn’t act the same.  Wana was very talkative and casual, while Germaine was more reserved and somewhat formal. They were both very kind and generous women, but their styles were decidedly different.

The youngest daughter was Aunt Frances.  I sometimes think of her as the heart of the family.  Love was her superpower.  It was demonstrated particularly at funerals through the years.  She was such a supportive presence to the family.  She also had some feistiness mixed in there.  And last, but not least we have my dad.  He was known to people as Bob or Pluto to his friends.  But his family knew him as Uncle Bobbie, Daddy, or Pappy.  He always appreciated his family.  It’s not something he ever said, though.  He was like his mom and spent several decades studying his family’s history.  You wouldn’t do that unless you appreciated your family.  He also provided a safe and stable place for our family to grow.  That leaves a lasting impression.

This is my family.

Seesawing in ’64

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Van, Jamie, and Al Landry playing in 1964.

I hope this works out.  I’m trying a new feature on the MyHeritage website that I’m a member of.  I use their software for sharpening lots of my photos and I’ve also used it a few times to animate old photos.  Their new feature is called LiveMemory and it creates a short video from any old photo that you download to the site.  I’ve seen some that look interesting but have not been successful with it yet.

I’ve only tried it on the photo of the Patureau brothers before they were doctors in 1881.  But that was a formal setting, so there really wasn’t any movement involved that could be acted on.  So it was rather boring.  It made me look through my old photos to see if there was one that showed some movement involved.  That’s kind of tricky, though.  The most common thing you do in photos is to stay still.  There aren’t that many photos showing people in action.  Oh, wait, I just thought of a good one that I hadn’t thought of before.  That’s the one I should have tried.  I even posted the photo in one of my blog posts.  It’s a photo of my grandfather and his friends playing basketball.  

But it’s too late.  Way too late.  I’m already two days behind on starting this post.  How did I forget about writing this on Thursday?  Christmas week can be so busy.  I was actually working on a photo during that time, but didn’t think that I would ever use it for a blog post.  I had also ruled it out for the LiveMemory as well.  I’m not really sure what reason I had at the time.  It wasn’t old enough?  It’s only 60 years old.  Also the photo only features me and my two siblings who are closest to me in age.  But it’s such a great old photo and I cleaned it up really nicely.  It’s never looked so good.  I’m sure you’ll just love it.

I downloaded the photo to be processed, and it takes a while before they email the results.  It’s probably on its way now.  Oh, yes, there it is now!  Can’t wait to see what it looks like.  Maybe you’ll be able to see.

I can’t stop laughing!  I was hoping to see Jamie and Al moving up and down as they seesawed on the concrete strip.  Maybe the puppies would play with me on the wagon.  Wouldn’t that be fun?!  What I got was a hilarious fail!  Jamie and Al are moving up and down and the puppy moved, but not in the way I had hoped.  See for yourself.

 

I hope you enjoy the original photo.

 

 

 

A Musical Bucklin Christmas in 1970

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I’m following my yearly pattern of writing two Christmas themed posts before Christmas.  I’m actually posting three photos that were taken the same day.  Two of them were a bit blurry, so I was never that attached to them before.  But now that we are able to sharpen them a bit with software magic, I’m liking them a lot more.  I suppose I’ll start with the one that I’ve always liked, even though my face is not showing in it.  Just like last week!

Singing around the piano in Hathaway, Louisiana, for Christmas in 1970.

How could you not like this photo?  It’s such a cute photo of my cousin Charla and my sister Jamie.  You can tell that they are right in the middle of singing a song.  At least it’s obvious to me.  I was standing there listening to them as I was looking at my Zobor robot.  I loved that battery-powered mechanical robot!  Al and I both got robots that year for Christmas.  I think they were from Grandma and Grandpa.  It had replacement body parts and one of them was a magnetic hand.  I still have that piece!  Charla is sitting in my dad’s lap, and he is sitting on a stool near the piano.  Uncle Ronald’s head can be seen in the foreground on the right of the photo.  You know, the big blob that is blocking my face!

My mom is not in any of those photos, even though this blog post is about her side of the family.  She was Betty Lou Bucklin, the second child of Fred and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin.  We called them Grandpa and Grandma, and we would go visit them in the country every year on Christmas Day.  They were in Hathaway, which was only a ten-to-twelve-minute drive from our home in Jennings, Louisiana.  We usually visited them once or twice a month.

Mom had an older sister named Sylvia, and her husband was Ronald Pilcher – the man on the piano and blocker of my face.  He was a really good musician and mainly he played the piano and sang.  My dad was Bob Landry, and he was also a musician.  He played many musical instruments and sang.  But he was mostly known as a music educator.  It made him a legend!  So when the Bucklin family all got together, there was lots of music about.  The Bucklin family had always had musical get togethers long before these sons-in-law came along.  Mama and Grandma both played the piano and sang.  Even before that, Grandma’s parents played piano and fiddle.  I’ve shared some of those old recordings before.

Bucklin sons-in-law making some music during the 1970 Christmas gathering of the Bucklin family.

And then there was Uncle Ernest.  He was also a musical fellow.  I’m pretty sure he was involved with the church choir in the Baptist Church that he attended at the time.  That’s him in the white shirt in that second photo.  Ernest Woolley was his name, and he was married to my mom’s younger sister Loris.  I always remember them living in Texas around Houston.

One of the other things I like about these photos is that we can see a little bit of my grandparents’ home.  Their piano was in the living room of their house, and it looks like it was decorated a bit with some Christmas flowers.  On the wall behind them, you can see some family photos hanging on the wall.  One of them is our Landry family photo that we took in 1969.  Those photos were sent to everyone!  

Christmas 1970 in Hathaway, Louisiana, for the Bucklin family

The third photo is the one that I changed the most.  I sharpened it up a bit and also “restored” the color.  It needed it.  It was the 1970s.  Color was everything and everywhere.  And evidently for the Bucklin sisters, so were wigs!  That is Alma Bucklin Seal, Sylvia Bucklin Pilcher, and Loris Bucklin Woolley standing in the back of this photo.  They were my mom’s three sisters.  I’m pretty sure Alma and Sylvia are wearing wigs.  Loris looks like she’s showing off her own hair.

In the front are Daddy, Uncle Ronald, and Uncle Ernest.  So even though this was a Bucklin gathering, not one person with the Bucklin last name shows up in the photos.  The only ones with the Bucklin last name at the gathering were Grandma and Grandpa.  Uncle Austin had the last name, but I think he was living in Australia at the time.

I wish Grandma and Grandpa had shown up in the photos.  There were also a lot more cousins around.  There were five Pilcher cousins, four more Landry cousins, three Woolley cousins, and one more Seal cousin.  Where was everyone?  I know we were all there when the presents were being given out.  That was a big commotion and lots of fun.  Especially when you get something cool like Zobor.  Maybe they were too busy playing with their new presents to gather around for the singing.

At least we have these photos, and they’re better than they’ve ever been before!  Enjoy.

 

Christmas Eve at Mee Maw’s in 1965

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The Landry family Christmas Eve Party in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 1965.

It’s that time of year again.  I can’t let the year finish up without a recollection of a Christmas from the past.  I looked back to the 1960s for some inspiration and it didn’t take long to settle on this wonderful Christmas photo from 1965.

It would be even more wonderful if my face showed in the photo.  I’m in the photo, as are all of my siblings and my mom, but my head is eclipsed by my oldest brother Rob’s head.  My younger sister Jamie could be equally disappointed in the photo, because her face is blocked by Rob’s toy airplane.  But at least you can see one of her eyes!

I still think it is a wonderful photo.  It captures the closeness that our family had when we got together for these large family gatherings.  I think my dad took the photo and he did a good job of getting all the rest of us in the photo.  It’s really good of my mom (Betty Lou Bucklin Landry) and my grandmother (Germaine Erie Patureau Landry – aka Mee Maw).

Mee Maw was the mother of my dad (Bob Landry).  My grandfather (Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.) died in 1957.  I think they hosted the family get together at their home in Goosport (a section of Lake Charles) when he was alive.  Mee Maw carried on this tradition for several more years.  I have photos from 1961 and those were taken in the home in Goosport.  Then Mee Maw moved at some point.  I don’t have Christmas photos from 1962, 1963, or 1964, so I don’t know when she moved.  Can you believe that?  I don’t have photos from these three big events in my youth.  Maybe one of my cousins or siblings has one and can share it with me.  Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

But this photo is from 1965, and it is in the house that I remember her living in.  I think it was on 14th Street.  An early memory from Christmas might have been from this year.  I remember some of the older siblings and cousins saying that Santa would be passing over soon and we could probably see Rudolph’s shiny red nose.  I could just imagine a tiny red light high up in the sky drifting over us.  I remember peering up at the sky expectantly.  But then I got distracted by gifts that needed to be opened.

Let me identify everyone in the photo.  The girl in the lavender sweater with blond hair is my cousin Phyllis.  She was the youngest child of Ross Winn and Germaine Landry Winn.  They can be seen across the room under the double conical lights.  My mom is in the center of the left side of the photo looking toward the camera and smiling.  Coming down across the front of the photo there is Jamie with blond hair and only one eye showing, Rob with his fascinating toy jet that he is showing off, and behind him in the yellow and brown striped shirt is little Van – that would be me.  Stealing the spotlight front and center is cousin Greg Raley. Al is next to him, but he seems more interested in Rob’s jet at the moment.  In front of Al is cousin Lauren Duffy. In the red dress is Karen.  Behind her is our oldest sister Jodie.  She seems to be excited about something.  Next to her is Mee Maw, who has a very nice smile on her face in this photo.  She looks to be very content having her family around her like this.  

On the right side of the photo in front are two more Raley siblings – Jeanne and Scott.  The Raleys are the children of Aunt Frances Landry Raley and Uncle Joe Raley.  Aunt Frances can be seen in the back to the right in the white blouse.  To the left of her is my godmother Shirley Landry.  This was a year or so before she was married.  She was the oldest of all of us cousins.  Her mother is to the left of her.  Her name was Mildred Sutherlin Landry.  The last three people are my dad’s youngest brother’s family at the time.  Johnny is in the back left in the photo.  He was my godfather.  Next to him is his wife Sondra.  Uncle Johnny and Aunt Sondra were Karen’s godparents.  They were also the mother of Mona Landry, who can be seen in Sondra’s lap.

They were such idyllic times.  It was such a warm feeling to be part of this large family.  The comfort that it brought is long lasting.  Looking back to these seemingly simpler times makes you long for those members that we’ve lost along the way.  But at least we had them for a time.

Betty Strikes a Pose in 1984

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Me (Van Landry) and my mom (Betty Lou Bucklin Landry) in Jennings, Louisiana, in the living room of our house at 758 Lucy Street.

For some reason I got it into my head that I was going to write about 1984.  It had nothing to do with the book of the same name, and I had no intention of writing anything so heavy and dark.  So when I sat down to write, I went to my computer folder to find my photos from 1984.  This is the photo that caught my attention.  The photo caught my attention several months ago, so I edited it and made it look its best.  At the time I had no intention of using it for a blog post.  I just wanted to make it look better for my collection of photos.

But how could I resist this photo?  It makes me smile every time I see it.  Just like I was smiling back in July of 1984 when I watched my mom strike this pose.  I have to admit that I don’t really remember that day in particular.  I (Van Landry) was 23 years old at the time and I was graduating from college that summer. My mom (Betty Lou Bucklin Landry) was 51 years old at the time and she had recently welcomed her second grandchild into the world.

Actually, I think both of those grandchildren show up in this photo.  Her first grandchild was Chris, who was born in 1981 before she reached her fifties.  Then the second one by the name of James was born toward the end of 1983.  I’m pretty sure it is Chris’s head that shows up in the bottom left corner of the photo.  He was a blond when he was that age and short enough to not block the view of me and my mom.  If the same setup was done today, you would only see Chris!  He’s a big guy and he’s much taller now.  At the bottom right are actually two heads.  My sister Karen’s head is the prominent one with the curls.  You can barely see past her to James’s cheek and his darker hair.  He must have been playing with his toy telephone.

Mama could have been playfully showing off for her young grandsons.  She only acted silly like that when she was completely comfortable and mainly it was around our family.  There aren’t many photos of that.  Maybe that’s why I like this photo so much.  It shows something that wasn’t easy to catch.  A moment of complete candor.  One of my favorite memories of one of these times was from 8 years earlier.

It was 1976.  The year of the bicentennial.  And the situation had all to do with the bicentennial.  Sure, a month before the bicentennial happened our family started performing together at the Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  I do tend to talk about our Landry Family Band when I talk about that time.  But today I’m talking about Sunday, July 4, 1976.  Yes, I had to do a search to find out the day of the week.  My memory is not as good as Jodie’s used to be.  She would always say what day of the week an event happened on.  Granted, we had no way of checking that back then.  We trusted her.  She was usually very honest, unless she was pulling our leg about something.  

Back to the bicentennial.  I know that I marched in a big parade in Lake Arthur that weekend.  Surely it wasn’t on a Sunday?  Right?!  Anyway, my mom was from Hathaway, Louisiana, and our family had a tradition of going out there to pop fireworks for holidays that required explosions.  The bicentennial of America’s birth definitely called for a trip to Hathaway with a stop at the fireworks stand on the way!  We had bottle rockets, firecrackers, sparklers, and assorted other things.  Nothing extravagant, just enough to celebrate appropriately.  While we were popping various things, my mom got a sparkler burning, raised it high in the air, and ran down the gravel road declaring, “I’m the Statue of Liberty!”  It was hilarious.

But I don’t have a photo of it.  Maybe I could edit this photo to make her look like the Statue of Liberty?  I could raise that arm higher and put a sparkler in it, then make her skin a bit green.  No!  Wait.  Someone might think she was a character from Wicked with a wand in her hand.  That wouldn’t do.  My mom wasn’t wicked at all.  I think I will just be satisfied that I have this photo from 1984 when she was striking a playful pose for her family.  It’s completely sufficient.

Patureau Brothers: Before They Were Doctors

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Vincent Maximilien Patureau & Pierre Oscar Patureau circa 1881 in Louisiana.

Happy Thanksgiving!  If I had to choose one photo that I was most thankful for this year, it would have to be this one.  I got it earlier this year at one of the three Landry family funerals that I went to this year.  That’s too many, especially since they had to do with my godparents and their families.  It’s good to be around family for those situations, but it’s nice when we get together to celebrate something.  We did have one of those, too.

This photo is part of the Box 301 Collection that I’ve talked about before.  It was up in Aunt Wana’s house for years.  When we were going through that box, I was very excited to see this photo, even though I didn’t know who it was at first.  The exciting thing was that it was an old metal tintype, and I thought it might be some Patureau boys.

My dad’s mom was Germaine Erie Patureau Landry and she went by the name Erie.  Though her grandchildren knew her as Mee Maw.  (I think I was her favorite!)  Her father’s name was Vincent Maximilien Patureau and he went by the name Max.  I usually refer to him as Grampa Max.  (Grampa pronounced with accents like the name Santa.)  Grampa Max was the son of Ferdinand Patureau and Emma Landry.  Ferdinand and Emma were the parents of 16 children.  Ten of them grew to adulthood – five girls and five boys.  The last five children were four boys and a girl.

I thought the photo could be of two of the younger Patureau boys.  When we were looking through the photos, I was hurrying to take photos of them and moving on to find the next good one.  I didn’t have time to spend examining them closely.  I would do that later when I was at home and had more time.  There were so many good old photos that I had never seen before.  That is always exciting to me.  I was able to bring several of them home to get good scans, too. 

Pierre Oscar Patureau, Sr. in 1895 in Nashville, Tennessee.

A few days later I looked at the photo closer.  I thought that I recognized the boy standing up as one of the younger Patureau brothers.  I looked through the photos from the Tyrrell Historical Library Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Collection.  I took photos of the collection when I went to Beaumont in 2021.  Sure enough, there was a photo that was identified as Pierre Oscar Patureau in February of 1895.  The boy standing up was definitely Oscar Patureau.  I also noticed that the teenaged boy sitting in the chair looked slightly older than him.  So I went to my family tree to see which brother was slightly older than him.  And – surprise, surprise – it was my very own Grampa Max!!!  Grampa Max was born in 1865 and Oscar was born in 1866.  They were only a year and a half apart.

The main reason I didn’t recognize him at first was because of the lack of a moustache.  In every other photo of Grampa Max, he is sporting a moustache.  Other than that, he looks just the same as he did in the other early photos of him.  As soon as I figured it out, I went to look at the photo on my phone.  And there it was – my phone’s facial recognition software identified him as Grampa Max, too.  I’m glad I figured it out on my own, but the confirmation with the software was an added bonus.

Max would go on to marry Marie Emma Landry.  They had fifteen children, with nine of them reaching adulthood.  Needless to say, I come from a large family.  Many of Max’s siblings also had large families as well.  There are over a thousand cousins out there.  Oscar only had four children, and as we saw a few weeks ago in a post I wrote, his oldest son committed suicide when he was just 19 years old.  He had no children.  Oscar, Sr.’s third son only had one daughter.  She was married to Alois Maxwell Hirt – better known as the famous New Orleans jazz trumpeter Al Hirt.  According to one of the Patureau cousins, he was friendly and welcoming to the Patureau relatives.

Dr. V. M. Patureau Veterinary Surgeon. His business sign in Lafayette, Louisiana

The other thing about Max and Oscar is that both of them became doctors.  I’ve written a few posts that talk about Grampa Max being a veterinarian.  He began his veterinary career in Plaquemine, Louisiana, but then around 1912 he moved to Lafayette for a bigger practice.  He retired in 1933 when his health began to go down.  The photo of Oscar was taken in Nashville, Tennessee, where he went to dental school at Vanderbilt.  He was a dentist for many years in New Orleans, then moved to Beaumont, Texas, to practice around 1920.  He died in 1926.

Talking about having too many funerals in a short amount of time, 1924-1926 was a difficult time for Grampa Max.  In 1924 his sister Zulma died.  In 1925 Zelica, another sister, died.  Then in 1926 Oscar died, followed by another sister Aline.  I’m sure they had some big Patureau get togethers then, as well.  Like I said, it’s a big family.  They’re good to have around in the good times, but they’re even better when they’re there for you in the bad times.  I do appreciate my family.

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