Patureau Lane Properties

Circa 1905 Patureau Lane in Crescent, Louisiana

I came into possession of this photo a little over a year ago.  I had seen it in the book “Trasimond Landry: Soldier and Public Servant” by Thomas R. Landry (my Mee Maw’s first cousin) and was on the lookout for a good copy of it.  That book is one of two books that I have about my great great grandfather Trasimond Landry.  It has some history of the Landry family and also lists all of the descendants of Trasimond Landry.  But this post is technically a Patureau post since he was my grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau’s maternal grandfather.

When I started writing these posts, I knew I was going to have to track down more photos because I really didn’t have that many to begin with.  So I referred to this book to see what photos I wanted and this was one of the top ones I wanted.

Then we moved my parents out of their home in Jennings when they moved to assisted living in Lake Charles in August 2015.  Someone saw the “happy house” at 758 Lucy Street and decided they wanted it, so my siblings, nieces, nephews, in-laws and I cleared out their home in January 2016.  As you may have guessed, this photo was discovered while clearing out the house.  My brother-in-law Allen found it with some other old photos that I had never seen before.  I’ve already posted some of the others, but now it’s time for Patureau Lane Properties.

I called it that because this is a south-facing view of Patureau Lane in Crescent, Louisiana, around 1905.  It was named Crescent because of the crescent shaped bend in Bayou Plaquemine about 4.5 miles west of Plaquemine proper.  For a period of time it was a central portage area for travelers in that area of Louisiana.  This led to a community in Crescent in the early 1900s that consisted of many members of the Landry and Patureau extended families.  (Which made it easy to find and marry your not too distant cousins!)

One part of that community was the Star Club.  This was long before social media, so people had to have some place to get together to share news with their neighbors.  It was a social club, but it also performed services for the community.  But the big event was a ball that they had at the end of the year.  The ball was held in the Star Club Hall, which is shown on the right in this photo.

But another important fact about the Star Club was that the secretary for the year of 1902 was my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian Patureau and the treasurer was my great great uncle Thomas B. Landry (Thomas R.’s father).  In the photo V. M. Patureau’s home is the house that is to the left (across from the Star Club Hall).  The home on the right belonged to the Leobon Patureau family.  The Thomas B. Landry family lived across the bayou road from V. M. Patureau. (The horse and carriage in the full-frame photo was in front of that home.  This photo was taken at the intersection of Patureau Lane and the bayou road.)

The main problem with this photo is not really a problem with the photo.  It’s a problem with my knowledge.  I don’t know who all of these people are!  Even though there are several little girls in the photo and they look similar to old photos of the Patureau family, I can’t definitely identify anyone.  But I’m sure they must be family.  Why else would we have the photo and the photo was used in the book about descendants of Trasimond Landry?  I sure would like to know who they were.  Does anyone know?  There may be other copies of this photo out there.  If anyone knows more or finds out more, I would appreciate being kept in the loop.  Inquiring minds want to know!

Full-frame photo of Patureau Lane looking south from the bayou road. Behind to the left would be Thomas B. Landry’s home, to the left is V. M. Patureau’s home, Star Club Hall is in the middle to the right, and to the right is the home of Leobon Patureau. Circa 1905.