Category: Patureau

This post is about a very sad letter concerning Patureau family members from 1876.  The Patureau family came from France in 1840.  The family that came over at the time consisted of Pierre Patureau (born 1800) and his wife Anne Rose Machet (b. 1801), with their children Victorine (b. 1824), Ferdinand (b. 1826), Abel (b. 1827), and Elisa (b. 1828).  The family first settled in Opelousas, Louisiana.  In October of 1842 first Anne Rose, then Elisa died during a yellow fever epidemic.  They were buried near each other in the old Catholic cemetery in Opelousas.  It is believed that they are in unmarked graves, because they have not been located.

A year or two later, Pierre brought his three remaining children with him to Donaldsonville.  On September 3, 1846, daughter Victorine married Pierre Emile Laulom and they settled in Smoke Bend, which is near Donaldsonville.  Pierre Laulom was a French immigrant also.  Five months later, on February 10, 1847, Ferdinand married Emma Landry of Brusly.  Supposedly, they lived in Brusly for a few years after their marriage. 

In the 1850 Census, both Ferdinand’s and Victorine’s families were living in Baton Rouge.  No other family writings mention that, and Pierre and Abel are not found in the 1850 Census.  According to family lore, Abel remained a single man and lived with his father.  They were both bakers.  Wait!!  I just found them in the 1850 Census!  Pierre and Abrille Patuar lived in Baton Rouge.  I think the Census taker wrote Paturo, and the transcriber wrote Patuar.  I only looked for him in Baton Rouge because Ferdinand and Victorine were both here.  I went through every page looking at those individuals born in France.  And there he was – Pierre Patureau, caterer.  That means that all of his belongings were in Baton Rouge, including the bed that I now have in my home in Baton Rouge.  I wonder where he lived. 

This doesn’t match what family records say about Ferdinand and Emma.  That shows that their first three children were born in Brusly in 1848, 1849, and 1851.  It doesn’t seem like they would be moving back and forth across the Mississippi River back then.  They next moved to Plaquemine in 1852 or 53 and stayed there for a while as their family grew.  Father Pierre went to live with Ferdinand’s family in Plaquemine and stayed there until his death in 1860.  I think Abel stayed in Baton Rouge.

Victorine and Emile had two children, Eliza and Louis.  Their family moved to Brownsville, Texas, around the time of the death of the elder Patureau.  In 1864 Eliza got married at the age of 17.  She married Vicente Crixell, an immigrant from Cataluna, Spain.  They lived in Bagdad, Matamoros, Mexico, which was just across the border from Brownsville, Texas.  So when things got a little hectic in Louisiana during the Civil War, Ferdinand and his family went to Bagdad to get away from it all.  That is where my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian Patureau was born in 1865.  Eliza Laulom Crixell had a son around the same time.  It seems like the families were pretty close.

Soon after Grampa Max was born, Ferdinand and Emma brought their family back to Plaquemine, which is where they lived out the rest of their lives.  Emma gave birth to fifteen children, though only ten of them grew to adulthood.  When his youngest child (a daughter named Victorine after his sister) was about three years old, Ferdinand must have heard some news about his sister Victorine being ill.  He was probably worried about her and thought about her yet continued on with his family and work.

Then he received a letter from his niece Eliza Laulom Crixell in mid-February 1876 that told him about his sister’s condition.  The news was not good.  Here is a copy of that letter:

I got this letter from the Pierre Patureau Collection at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas.  I recently joined a group on Facebook that does translations for people.  I am learning French but don’t have the skills to translate everything in the letter.  But I received a wonderful translation from a fellow group member Marie-Helene, who lives in southern France.  Thanks, Helene.  Here is the translation that was provided:

[Translation].

Corpus Christi, February 15th, 1876

Dear Uncle.

It is with pain that I take up my pen to tell you about Mom’s illness. Doctors say they can’t do anything to save her. She has cancer in the womb, she has been in the hands of the doctors for 8 months. There is no hope, we are in desperate pain. She says she is very sorry to die without seeing you and my Uncle Abel. If it were possible to give her this satisfaction, she would be more serene. She always talks about Zulma, she would like to see her. Doctors say she can live two or three months, or she can die when we least expect it. She continuously loses blood. It is a cruel suffering day and night. We don’t give her any medicine at all, only opium to make her sleep, but it doesn’t help much. Dear Uncle, I no longer have the courage to write any more. Write to me, kiss the whole family for all of us as well as Aunt and Uncle Abel.

Goodbye dear Uncle, your niece who loves you and embraces you.

Eliza Crixell.

{on the side of the sheet:}

If it were possible for you and Uncle Abel to come and see Mom.  [End of Translation]

Isn’t that the most heartbreaking letter?  I can imagine what my great great grandfather felt when he read this letter about his sister.  I remember hearing the news about my own sister’s terminal prognosis with lymphoma.  But I don’t know his or his brother’s reaction.  I’m sure they were saddened by the news, but I have no way of knowing whether or not they were able to go visit their sister before she passed away.  It didn’t sound like she had long to live.

This is the only evidence I’ve found that provides a clue about when she died.  I have not seen any records, nor estimates for when she died.  But from the information in the letter, I’m sure she couldn’t have survived for more than a month or two at most.  She was only about 52 years old.  Ferdinand wasn’t far behind.  He suffered an accident in his sawmill and died the following year.  He was only 51.  Then Abel died in 1881 at the age of 53.  So the last three of the Patureau immigrants died within five years of this letter. 

Long live the Patureaus!

This photo was part of a group of photos that I believe came from my grandmother.  To me now, that seems rather obvious.  The photo is of her father, after all.  Where else would it come from?  But some old photos that I have do not have any information about who is in the photo.  Therefore, I don’t know where the photos came from.  If I did know where they came from, I’d have a better idea of who was in those unidentified photos.  I’ve been thinking about posting some of these photos to see if any cousins might know who the subjects of the photos might be.  In the meantime, make sure to label all of the photos you have with the names of the people you know are in them.  Maybe one day someone will thank you.

So today I’ll be thanking my dad for writing some information under these photos that he had collected.  My dad’s name was Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr.  He was the son of Mr. & Mrs. Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.  This leaves you with the question, “Who was Mrs. Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.?”  And the answer would be, “Why, the wife of Mr. R. J. Landry, Sr., of course.”  So if you follow my advice to label your photos, don’t use the logic I just used.  Use a person’s full name!  My wonderful Mee Maw was Germaine Erie Patureau Landry.  She was the daughter of Vincent Maximilian Patureau, the subject of this post.

Actually my dad labeled these photos with just a “VMP.”  But being that the photos included a photo of Grampa Max with a business sign that shows his name, it was more than acceptable and deserving of a mention of gratitude.  Thanks, Daddy!  I’ve estimated that this photo was taken around 1915 based on the age of Grampa Max.  That would mean that it was taken in Lafayette, Louisiana.  He had worked for a while as a self-taught veterinarian in Plaquemine, Louisiana.  According to newspaper articles, Dr. Patureau moved to Lafayette and set up a practice in October of 1911 on Pinhook Road.  He brought his family to Lafayette six months later in April of 1912.  He rented the “Boze house on the east side of the railroad.”  I have no clue where that would be.  Somewhere in Lafayette.

The photo shows Grampa Max at work with two dogs, though you only see one dog in this photo.  Between him and the dog, you can see a young girl with flowers on her top.  Even less conspicuous is a young boy reaching through the wooden fence to the dog’s collar.  I’m thinking that they are part of the family that owned the dogs, and Grampa Max was there in the capacity of Dr. Patureau.  The photos look like promotional photos to be used to advertise his veterinarian services.  

I just like having this photo of my great grandfather on the job.  Dr. Patureau, at your service.

Getting a late start tonight.  I just had an opportunity that I didn’t want to pass up.  But I still wanted to write this post.  I even thought about it off and on today.  Someone posted an article about one of the Patureau brothers on the Plaquemine Facebook group page and that’s what got me thinking about this topic.  I’ve written about Patureau brothers before.  I wrote one post called Patureau Brothers.  It would have been Part I if I had thought about it.  Then there are two other posts that could have been parts II and III.  But really, there are lots of stories about Patureau brothers – there have been so many of them through the years!  

But this one is about the brothers of my grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau Landry.  I knew her as my dear sweet Mee Maw.  I didn’t know either of them, because they died before I was born.  I’ve mentioned them in posts before, but I thought they deserved a post of their own.  Plus, I have a photo of each of them from the same year.  And in both photos, they are wearing a uniform.  

Max Patureau and Marie Therese Landry were married in 1888 and set up their home in Plaquemine, Louisiana.  They had nine children that lived to adulthood, including my grandmother Erie.  Their second of nine children was Romuald who was born on December 27, 1891.  He was called Rome (rhymes with homey).  Erie was number four of nine.  Number eight was Vincent Maximilian Patureau, Jr.  He was called Vincent and he was born on November 4, 1901.

The major event going on in 1917 was World War I.  That’s not what it was called at the time, though.  It wasn’t like they were planning on having the second World War twenty or so years later.  But there was conflict going on in Europe, and America joined in on the fight on April 7, 1917.  That meant that Americans would soon be going to military engagements in Europe.  Men between the ages of 21 and 31 were required to register for the draft.  Vincent was not required to register since he was only 15 at the time.  

But I do have this photo of him in what looks like a World War I uniform.  I saw somewhere that some young men could sign up for the military at the age of 16 with their parents’ permission.  That would have been Grampa Max at the time.  Their mother had died in 1909.  Some boys also lied about their age so they could go to war.  I don’t know the story behind this photo.  It says that it was taken on Dec. 4, 1918, when Vincent was almost 17 years old.  According to the birthdate that I told you, he would already be 17 on that Dec. 4.  Not only that, but the war would have been over by that time.  It ended on November 11, 1918, a day known as Armistice Day.

That brings us to the other Patureau brother.  Rome would have been in that first group of young men required to register for the draft.  He was the perfect age for war!  So off he went.  There is a very interesting article that was written by a Patureau cousin.  It was written by Mona Mel Mouton.  She was the daughter of Erie’s oldest sister Emma Patureau Mouton.  I actually edited this newspaper article.  It was longer than what I wanted and it had a picture of somebody else she talked about.  I wanted a photo of Rome to go with the article, so I found one and grouped it together with the part of the article about Rome.  

The topic of the complete article was Armistice Day, but I wanted this post to be about Patureau family history.  And this article says something really interesting about that.  Something that I haven’t been able to confirm or find anywhere else.

The part about Rome says that she (Mona Mel) first heard Taps at Uncle Rome’s funeral in Baton Rouge.  (He died in 1937 when Mona Mel was 15.)  I was listening to my brother Rob play that just the other day online.  He participated in Taps Across America on Memorial Day.  Mona Mel talks about how her Uncle Rome would tell stories about his war days in France in 1917 and 1918.

He was a motorcycle courier who delivered messages across the French countryside to military members.  Since the Patureau family originated in France, Rome decided to see if he could connect with some of the Patureau family.  His grandparents Pierre Ferdinand Patureau and Anne Rose Machet brought their family to America in 1840.

When Rome was in the Bordeaux area, it is reported that he was able to make contact with Patureau family members.  But the most intriguing part is that he stated that he visited the ancestral home of the Patureau family – a castle overlooking an expanse of land.  This made Rome wonder why the family moved away from that rich countryside.  He never found out more, because he had to get back to soldiering.  Fortunately for us, he told that story to someone who liked to listen and to write.

The article encourages me to explore the Patureau family even further.  Ou est le chateau de famille?

 

Here is the photo of Ferdinand Patureau that all of my Patureau cousins have been waiting for.  Actually, they didn’t know anything about it.  I didn’t know anything about it before sixteen months ago.  I had only seen one photo of Great Great Grandpa Ferdinand through the years.  Well, there really were two that I knew of.  One was a portrait of him by himself and the other one was a group family portrait from 1864.   Both of them were really terrible versions of the photos that I was able to improve upon by visiting the Pierre Patureau Collection at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas.

I’ve shared the improved versions of those two photos already.  I shared early versions of those photos with Patureau cousin Jo Ann.  She’s the one that had the Patureau bed that is now in my home.  As we were texting, she sent me this new photo that I had never seen before.  But I could tell right away that it was Ferdinand Patureau.  It looks like an old tintype photo in a cased frame.  It’s amazing that these old photos have survived through the years in our family.  

And yet again, this photo comes down through the Victorine Patureau Cropper line.  The Patureau bed and the Pierre Patureau Collection in Beaumont both come from that line.  That Victorine was a collector who cherished and protected those old treasures.  And by her example, her offspring followed in her footsteps.  I do not come from that line.  Victorine was the youngest child of Ferdinand Patureau and Emma Landry.  She had an older brother named Vincent Maximilian Patureau.  I descend from Grampa Max.  His daughter Germaine Erie Patureau Landry was my Mee Maw.  She was the mother of Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr., my father.  My dad and my grandmother spent many years researching the family.  They passed down an amazing amount of information that I am grateful for.  But they didn’t have nearly the number of artifacts or keepsakes that Max’s sister Victorine had.

But I definitely can’t complain – I’ve got the Patureau bed that came from France with my immigrant ancestors in 1840!  And this wonderful photo was generously shared with me as well.  I estimate it to be from around 1867.  It would probably have been taken in Baton Rouge.  Ferdinand was born in LaRoche-Chalais, Dordogne, France, on October 27, 1826.  If my estimated date for the photo is correct, he would be around 40 years old in this photo.  The family was living in Plaquemine, Louisiana, at this time after a short time spent in Mexico.  His large family was still growing, and he was probably busy getting his own sawmill operational and productive.  

It’s nice to have a glimpse into the past of one of our ancestors from over 150 years ago.  Thanks, Jo Ann, for sharing your treasures.

Don’t worry, this is not a detailed history of the Patureau family since 1864.  That would take way too long and way too much space.  This is just a continuation of a post that I wrote at the end of last year called The Patureau Family Photo Circa 1864.  I’m actually surprised that it was that long ago that I posted the photo.  It seems like I just recently posted it.  In that post I talked about the Ferdinand and Emma Landry Patureau family in 1864.  That’s who was in the photo.  It was before they had my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian – AKA Grampa Max. 

But he wasn’t the only one that hadn’t been born yet.  They had five more children and they all lived into adulthood.  The first one was our Max, followed by Pierre Oscar, Joseph Alcide, Abel Omer, and Marie Victorine.  They all went by their middle names.  Almost all of their children did.  What’s up with that?  That 1864 photo of the family came from the Pierre Patureau Collection at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas.  That collection originated from the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Emma – Victorine. 

Victorine must have started that collection early.  I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that she started in the 1890s.  She got married in May of 1892 when she was 18 years old.  She was married just a few months after the death of  Emma. (Ferdinand had died in 1877.) One of the things she must have gotten around this time was the bed that I am now in the possession of.  When she and Willie Cropper first got married, they lived in Plaquemine – possibly at the old Patureau home.  They moved to White Castle around 1899 and lived there for a few years.  She must have had some of these old photos and the bed with her then, because if she hadn’t, they would have been destroyed by a fire. On March 18, 1900, there was a large fire that destroyed all of the buildings on the Patureau property.  I wonder if there was other furniture that had come from France with the family?  I only know about the bed and I’ve only known about it for about four years.

That collection of photos, letters, and such was passed down to Victorine’s daughter and then to her granddaughter.  Then it was donated to the Tyrrell Historical Library.  Besides having the photo of the Patureau family in 1864, there were several individual photos of the family members.  I already had the photo of Grampa Max, but I did get these other photos of his brothers Pierre Oscar, Joseph Alcide, and Abel Omer.  You may recognize Alcide and Omer from the old photos of Kelly’s String Band.  They were both members.  I like these photos of the younger Patureau brothers.  I can definitely detect a family resemblance.  The oldest brother Louis Leobon was fifteen to twenty years older than these brothers.

The ironic thing is that in that wonderful collection of family photos that was started by Victorine, I was not able to find one good photo of Victorine herself.  I should clarify that and say that I didn’t find any photos that were identified as Victorine.  There were some unidentified photos that could have been her.  Oh, yeah, and then there is the one of her when she was no longer alive.  There is a photo of her in her casket. It’s actually a nice, clear photo.  It’s an open casket with several sprays of flowers surrounding it and a gleaming cross beside it.  I’m just not a fan of postmortem photos.  Call it a quirk of mine.

So I would appreciate it if someone could share a photo of Victorine with me if you have one.  Preferably young and alive.  Old and alive would acceptable.  The only prerequisite is that it was taken when she was upright and breathing.

That title seems like a mouthful, but it says what the topic of this post is pretty well.  The only thing it doesn’t tell you is that the event took place in Plaquemine, Louisiana.  To be a bit more accurate, it was in Crescent, Louisiana, a small community down the bayou from Plaquemine.  Someone posted some information about the Star Social Club on the Plaquemine Facebook group a few weeks ago.  I had to make a comment about it because my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian “Max” Patureau was one of the founding members of the club about 120 years ago.  My paternal grandmother Erie Patureau was just a young girl at the time.  She was one of Grampa Max and Gramma Marie Therese’s ten children at the time.

I wasn’t the only one who commented.  There were a few comments that were kind of interesting, but then I came across an amazing one.  It had this old invitation or ticket to the event from the initial ball for the Star Social Club in 1902.  That’s what you see here.  Of course I commented on this old piece of memorabilia with a reference to my very own Mr. V. M. Patureau.

Surprisingly, I heard back from the person in possession of the card and he said that he wanted to give it to me.  I told him I’d happily accept it!  He got it from a friend who found it in some of his old family papers.  I suppose the name V. M. Patureau didn’t mean as much to them as it does to me.  So I told him my address and now the invitation is mine.  Thanks, Mike C!

Of course I had to look to see if I could find out the date of this “initial” ball.  Tommy Landry was my grandmother’s first cousin, and in his book about the Landry family, he had an invitation from a December 27, 1902, ball for the club.  So I figured the initial ball was probably from the year before.  After looking through that book, I looked at some old newspaper clippings that I had saved.  It didn’t take me long to find out the date.

In this newspaper article from the Iberville South in May 1902, it gives the date of the initial ball as May 24, 1902.  It, too, mentions that the event took place at the home of my great grandfather.  So it looks like there were two balls in 1902.  I don’t know if they had two balls every year or not.  I suppose it could be that they decided to have two that year because they had actually built the Star Club Hall during that year.  The invitation for the December ball says that it was in the hall.  I’m thinking it was newly completed and they wanted to celebrate that with a ball.  Why not?

But that first ball must have been special.  There probably was a bit of excitement in the air at the Patureau household that third week in May of 1902.  I’m pretty sure their house wasn’t very old at the time.  I saw some writing recently that talked about a large fire that destroyed all of the buildings on the Patureau homestead on March 18, 1900.  It’s a good thing the Patureau bed was with Max’s younger sister Victorine, or it might have been destroyed as well.

So the Patureau home was a newish two years old at most.  I wonder if little 7-year-old Erie Patureau was excited about having a ball occur at her childhood home?  It seems likely that she would have.  The event was the talk of the community.  It was in the local paper after all!  Besides the piece of the newspaper you see here, there was another reference to it on the same page.  It said that the Club would be entertaining that night and that  “No doubt the affair will be a pleasant one.”  I’m sure the family was making sure their home looked the very best for the event.  There was to be dancing and eating and socializing and much merriment.

It makes me think about the scene of the ball from “The Sound of Music.”  Not that the ball in little Crescent would be as grand as that one.  The main part I think about is when the children in the movie sing “So Long, Farewell” as they head off to bed.  I picture little Erie singing, “Adieu, to you, and you and you and you…”  I’m sure that did not happen, but I still think it must have been a memorable event from her childhood.