November, 2017 | Family History

Too Young to be Grampa

November 30, 2017 Van Leave a comment

“Who is that dashing young man?” you may be asking yourself. That’s what I would be asking if I didn’t have the information available to me. I’ve posted several photos of him in the past, but none of them were this far into the past.

This photo was taken around 1888. I estimate it to be from that year because that was the year he got married. He looks about the same age as he does in his wedding photo, maybe even a little younger. He was 23 when he got married. Does he look that age to you, too?

But men don’t necessarily take photos of themselves when they became engaged. Could it be a high school graduation photo? That would make it closer to 1883, assuming he graduated when he was 18. Assuming he actually did graduate from high school. I don’t have all the details of his life.

Have you figured out who he was? I posted a photo of his wife Marie Therese Landry two months ago. He’s the only ancestor that I call “Grampa.” Not Grandpa or Pee Paw. He was born in Mexico, though he is not of Mexican descent. His ancestry is not from Spain, but from France. He lived in Plaquemine and he was the only grandfather my dad knew.

Yes, it is our very own Vincent Maximilian Patureau, later to be known as Grampa Max. But he was just a young man in this photo. This is one of the great photos that come from the collection of my dad’s cousin Sis. (She is one of the Marie Therese womenfolk in the family – Marie Therese Schafer Vicknair to be exact!) So great when family members are willing to share their treasures with us. Though some people in the Patureau family have been known to be a bit stingy with their photos. I won’t name names, but I’m sure that none of you reading this are like that!

But this photo is before Sis was in anyone’s imagination. It was also before the birth of her mother, who was also named Marie Therese. This was when young Max’s only thought of a Marie Therese was the young woman he was planning on marrying. So when he popped the question to her all those years ago, how could she say no to this dashing young man?

Patureau

George and Susan’s Eighteen in ’19

November 22, 2017 Van Leave a comment

George and Susan with their 18 in ’19. A nice old family photo from almost a hundred years ago.

George Henry Hine and his wife Susan G. Stanbrough Hine had eighteen living grandchildren in 1919. Their daughter Addie’s fifth child did not make it past infancy or there would be one more in this photo. There are actually more people in the photo. It includes their six children and a few unidentified people who are most likely family.

Before I get too far, let me remind you who George and Susan are to me. I am Van Landry and my mother was Betty Lou Bucklin Landry. Her father was Fred Bucklin who is one of the twin boys standing directly behind George (the seated man). The twins’ mother Addie Hine Bucklin (my great grandmother) is standing directly behind them. Addie’s parents are George and Susan, who are my great great grandparents. I’ve actually posted two other photos previously that were taken at the same occasion, though they were of smaller groups than this.

What’s that you ask? ‘Who are all of those people?’ Well I already told you who the important ones are, so I suppose you want me to name everyone. So that is what I will attempt to do. I think we’ve settled it now that George and Susan are the older couple sitting in the front of all of their progeny. They were from Indiana and while there, they had their six children. They then moved to Louisiana in 1894 where the children grew up and started families of their own.

Hine family group in 1919 with name designations.

Addie was the first one born and she was the first one to provide them with a grandchild. She is the one with the big A on her head in the second photo. She was married to Louis Charles Bucklin, but he rarely showed up in photos. Their first child was Leo (A1) who was born in 1898. According to a letter written by Susan in 1916, Leo had an accident with a saw blade that left him “a cripple.” Leo did walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Next was Mary (A2) who was born in 1900. Ralph (A3) was born in 1902 and he later had a daughter named Helen. In 1903 Addie and Lou had a son named Paul, but he was the one that did not live past infancy, so he is not in the photo.

In 1904 a son named Carl (A5) was born. The photos from this date are the only ones of him that I know of. When he was very young, he lost his hearing and never learned to speak. I don’t know if there were any other learning deficiencies or just that there was no Anne Sullivan out in the country in 1919, but I don’t think he had an education. When my mom was a kid, she was kind of scared of him. He stayed up in his room a lot, but sometimes he came down to sit on “his nail keg in the kitchen.”

On to number A6. That would be Herbert born in 1906, who was the grandfather of Joseph. Too bad Herbert is mostly hidden behind an unidentified boy in the photo. Clarence (A7) and Fred (A8) came along in 1907. Clarence is the father of Carla, and Fred is the grandfather of me and all my maternal cousins. In 1909 Edna (A9) was born. One of her sons was Mel Keys (my mom’s first cousin through the Bucklins and 2nd cousin through the Keys) who helped to build the working model of the Starship Enterprise for the original Star Trek series. And he is the father of Steven and Teresa.

The tenth child of Addie and Louis was Robert (A0) who was born in 1911. He’s sitting in the front looking a little sad. We have seen that same look time and again from his mother. I’ve given her a hard time about it on these blog posts, but look at her mother Susan. She has a big frown on her face as well. I guess Addie came by that scowl honestly. Yet there is a photo of Susan with a smile on it from this same day. I’ll save that for a special occasion!

Back to the list of people – particularly the children of Addie. We’ve already named ten! But there are two more to go. In 1915 she had another set of twins. Not identical ones this time. A girl by the name of Ruth (AA) was born with a boy named Roy (AB). Ruth is the matriarch of the Bruchhaus branch of our family and Roy was the father of Jeannette and Doris.

On now to the second child of George and Susan. Take heart, some of them did not have any children at all. After Addie was born in 1876, along came Bert in 1878. He was married to Anna Jones (BW) and they had three children. Leta (B1) was born in 1912, Wanda (B2) was born in 1917, and Harold was born in 1921. Being that the photo was taken in 1919, Harold can not be seen in the photo.

Harrison Rowe is the next child of George and Susan. Rowe was born in 1880 and he was married to a woman named Electra (or May). She may be the dark haired woman standing in front of Rowe, but I don’t have any identified photos of her. They did not have any children that I know of.

Lonnie was born in 1882 and he was married to Millie (LW). They had two children and they both show up in this photo. Arthur Henry (L1) was born in 1905 and Alta Zay (L2) was born in 1912. Jim was born in 1884 and he was married to Dorinda Thomas (JW) who had been a teacher at Nubbin Ridge in the Hathaway area. They had four children together. Aulden (J1) was born in 1908. He graduated from Jennings High School in 1926 (the year after my grandmother Myrtle Phenice Bucklin) and lived the rest of his life in Jennings, Louisiana. Audrey (J2) was born in 1910. The baby at the time was Kenneth (J3) who is in his daddy’s arms. Later on another daughter was born. Her name was Darlene and she was born in 1923. She was married to Dalton Landry in Jennings. I remember being confused about this when I was a kid. They were Landrys but they were related to us from Mama’s side of the family? What? It doesn’t seem confusing at all now.

The last child of George and Susan was Ollie who was born in 1886. He was a mama’s boy. When he was younger he dated a girl, but he was too connected to his mom to allow the relationship to become more serious. I’m not sure if he lived with both parents at this time, but after his father died later this year, the 1920 census shows him living with his mom and her 70 year old brother James Stanbrough. Ollie lived with his mother until she died in 1933 and only married after that time. He was a mama’s boy.

But Susan must have been a loving person. She seemed fond of her children and grandchildren. She also had her brother living with her family for many years. He came down from Indiana with her family and he never married as well. I don’t know his story. He may be one of the identified men in this photo – possibly the bearded man in the back left. There is also another adult man, an adult women, and some children who are unaccounted for. I wish I knew who they were.

Well, that’s it. Thanks for traveling back to 1919 with me. I hope you enjoyed it. But most of all I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.

A Home for the Keys

November 15, 2017 Van Leave a comment

I’ve spoken a few times about my Keys family when they first moved to the United States from England in the spring of 1887. The main thing that people in the family talk about is how the family of Thomas Lord MacVey let the family stay in their chicken house because the Keys didn’t have a home when they first moved to southern Louisiana.

The original Keys house that was built in 1887. Mabel Keys is on a horse in front of the house.

And since the Keys arrived in the spring, it was a good time for building a house. The matron of the family – Martha Ann Cook Keys – decided to stay in the China, Louisiana, area, so she purchased forty two acres of land. Soon after that there was a building bee by the local townsfolk to build the family a house. And this photo shows that house.

The lumber was hauled to the site by oxen and wagon. The house had wooden floors with a kitchen, bedroom and living room with bookshelves downstairs. The half story upstairs was one big room. The house was heated with a fireplace. A chimney can be seen on the right side of the house in the photo.

I’m sure they were grateful to have their own home to live in, especially since it had all the conveniences of a modern home. A man named Monroe brought mail from Jennings to Art Anderson’s store where Martha would go to pick it up. She would go to Welsh or Jennings by horse or wagon for the few needs required by the family. Eventually there was a nice trail beaten down by the horse’s hooves. The prairie grass was as tall as or taller than the wagon. The different houses in the area had driveways in a sense – they each had their own beaten down path to the main trail that led to Jennings or Elton. That main trail was on the high ground, of course.

And while we are getting closer to cars that drive themselves, our ancestors had something similar. Since taking a trip to Jennings or Welsh could take all day, sometimes they would fall asleep on their way home. It was no problem, though, because the horses knew the way home. What more could you ask for?

There was one problem they had to look out for while living out on the primitive prairie during the fall, and that was grass fires. My mom used to talk about this from time to time. I think she was proud of her great grandmother’s resourcefulness. Martha learned how to “back fire” a prairie fire. This is done by starting a controlled burn of the grass near your house in the direction of the wind. That way the grass will slowly burn toward the prairie fire and there is no fuel for the fire around your house.

When I look at this photo, I imagine that Martha is standing in the doorway looking out at her youngest daughter Mabel sitting on their horse. It has only been a couple of years since the move, but she is satisfied with the changes that she has made for her family. They have a home in a quiet, safe place with horses, cows, pigs and chickens aplenty. She admires the trees that she’s planted, knowing that they will grow and produce food for her family. She and her children are adjusting well to this new, strange land. Yet it is already feeling like home.

Cook
Keys

Pappy Landry on the Streetcar

November 9, 2017 Van Leave a comment

This is a photo of my paternal grandfather Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. He was known by friends and family as Rob or Uncle Rob. His children called him Papa or Pappy. But us grandchildren all knew him as Pee Paw. (Though some of us spell it wrong – PePaw or some such thing.) It was taken around 1924 in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Rob was born on Jan. 9, 1893, in Westlake, Louisiana, to Civil War veteran Simon Alcide Joseph Landry and Marie Celeste Leveque. Alcide and Celeste were half 1st cousins once removed with a common ancestor of Joseph Ignatius Landry. Both were born on plantations in slave-era southern Louisiana just before the Civil War. They were married in 1868 in West Baton Rouge Parish, which is where they had grown up. Their first child Marie Marguerite Carmelite (named after both grandmothers) Landry arrived in 1870. They then had seven sons in a row. The next daughter arrived around 1889, probably just before the family moved to the Westlake area.

I’m not really sure why the family moved to that area. Probably for employment opportunities. They weren’t the only ones in the family that moved there. A few other families from the extended Landry, Leveque, and Bird families moved there. I’m sure they moved there hoping for the best of everything, but sadly that was not to be. Their oldest daughter Marguerite Carmelite died shortly after moving there. She is buried in the Old Catholic Cemetery in Lake Charles.

It wasn’t long before our very own little Rob showed up and hopefully brought some joy to their lives. He was the last child to be born to the couple. His father Alcide was 47 at the time of his birth. He was the baby of the family and the one closest in age to him was the only surviving sister Marie Therese (there’s that name again!) who was four years older than him. When he was six years old, she died as well. So after that he grew up as the youngest son of six or seven boys. (I am not entirely sure of the number of sons in the family or if any died early.)

As you know from previous posts, he was fond of baseball and fishing and he was in World War I. He also worked for Gulf States Utilities and one of the positions he held was that of streetcar conductor. And that is who you see in this photo. Rob as a young man starting out with a company that he would stay with for several years. He had married his sweetheart Erie Patureau and they were starting a family of their own in Lake Charles. He looks like a friendly and happy fellow. I like that.

Landry

A Keepsake Letter – A Message From Susan

November 2, 2017 Van Leave a comment

When you first read this title, you may have thought that I was referring to my great great grandmother Susan Stanbrough Hine on my mother’s father’s side of the family. Although I do in fact have a letter (two letters now) from her that I intend to share later on, I am writing about a different ancestor named Susan. This one is Susan Jackson Phenice, my great great great grandmother on my mother’s mother’s side of the family. Her son was Samuel Phenice who fought in the Civil War. Her grandson was H. C. Phenice, who was the Phenice that brought the Phenice name to Louisiana.

And H. C didn’t just have one grandmother with the name of Susan – both of his grandmothers were named Susan. I’m pretty sure his other grandmother’s name was Susan Penrod Foster. ( Correction – now I am absolutely sure that his other grandmother was not another Susan. Her name was Anne Magdaleen Milliron Foster.) I’m not certain about that other Susan, so in the meantime we will look at Susan Jackson Phenice and the letter that she wrote to us.

Well, it wasn’t actually written to us, but we can take some of her sentiments to heart. It was written on April 16, 1877, to her daughter-in-law Ida Fitzgerald Phenice, who was married to son Abraham Phenice. They had a small daughter named Emma Maud (maud in the letter) who was about three years old at the time. Susan talks about some of her children, though she doesn’t mention Samuel by name.

Let’s take a look at that letter now. I have spent some time cleaning up the scan of the letter so it would be more legible. But I will go ahead and transcribe it for you.

First page –

April the 16, 1877

Well Dear Ida I suppose you think/ by this I dont intend to write to/ [indecipherable words] I should/ and would have writen before but/ when I heard from when ever you/ wrote to Abram (her son Abraham) in particular after/ I was informed of your condition/ I sympathize with you very much/ for I have experienced such times/ but be of good cheer and in good heart/ keep up your courage and dont/ dispare for he that puts on the/ burden – can take it of again all/ that we must do is to look to Jesus/ and he will help in times of need/ how soon do you expect to be/ back to work you could be here/ before that time we would all/ (continued on page 2)

Page 2 –

feel better satisfied to be/ together there none of us can count/ on many years at the longest/ and why not be with each/ other while we are here it is the Joy of my heart when the children / comes home you wanted to know/ if Abe was as good a son as he was a husband/ he is I am/ very proud of him and/ all the rest but better boys than/him and harper is cant be/ found every day. I expect we will/ move to petrolia this week or the/ first of next if you come out here you/ will be handy the catholic church/ Just quit(e) a short distance from where/ our house is and the methodist/ church is handy too I think Willams (another son)/ family will be here soon. Just as/ soon as we leave the house Daughter/ Kate will be quite handy and [blob] (continued on page 3)

Page 3 –

That Dear little boy of/ yours (Abe) went to petrolia (in Butler County, Pennsylvania) to work/ this morning as lively as a cricket/ he is in good heart work is/ plenty they can get all they do/ can do all they have to do is to work/ and they will money no doubt/

well Ida I have nothing of/ importance to write to you/ as Abe writes so often he tells you/ all the news the family is/ all well I dont feel very rugged to day my head aches/ considerable but it will soon/ be better I am going to make/ myself some coffee and that/ will straiten me out I suppose/ I trouble myself to much about/ moving the boys scolds me/ for it that Abe and Harper they think I have no need to worrie (continued on page 4)

Page 4 –

Ida Dear remember me in/ your prayers that I may obtain/ a home in heaven Oh that/ we all will meet at the right of god/ and walk hand in hand in/ the new Jerusalem where there/ is no sickness nor sorrow all is/ peace and happiness let us try to/ meet the Dear ones gone before us/

I will stop by bidding/ you good by for a while/ kiss maud for me this is her/

from your mother

Susan Phenice

the family all sends their love/ to you and maud

(end of letter)

Isn’t that a sweet keepsake to have? I remember Mama having a copy of it in her collection of family information. I don’t know how she got it. Maybe her cousins provided her with the copy. I’m grateful to whoever did.

My favorite part of the letter is from page 2 when she says “it is the Joy of my heart when the children comes home.” I’ve even used it as cousin bait. That is a term I’ve read in genealogy circles (trust me, they’re out there) that doesn’t sound very sweet. It just means a little enticing tidbit that you share with a cousin to tempt them into responding to you. I did that with cousin Mona and it worked! I edited it to fit my message by altering her quote to “It is the Joy of my heart when the children come together.” I think it has the same meaning and I’m sure Grandma Susan would approve of my intent.

And if I was actually having a conversation with ol’ Susan, I’d also like to ask her about “the Dear ones gone before us.” Because I don’t know the names of her parents or grandparents. I do know that she was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in 1806, and then she died in Petrolia two years after she wrote this letter. And it’s obvious from her writing that she has strong beliefs and that she really cherished her family. Good things to know.

My mom’s family tree. Her mom was the Phenice, so you can follow her line (the yellow trail) up to Susan Jackson (Phenice).