Month: June 2018

Martha’s Grandkids Are Gone

One comment

I was looking over my past few posts to see which family group I should write about.  I was somewhat surprised to see how few Keys family stories I have posted this year.  I don’t know how I let that slip by.  Maybe it’s because I wrote several last year when we had the family reunion and the next reunion isn’t until next year.  But that’s no excuse!  I need to dole out my stories in such a way that no one is neglected!  I know it is the highlight of your week when you are part of the family history!

Martha Lillian Bryan Boose (third from the left at top) died on June 23, 2018, in Bossier City, Louisiana. She was the last surviving grandchild of Martha Ann Cook Keys.  This photo is from the 1976 Keys Reunion.

And this week is a good week for this particular post.  That is because this past week saw the passing of the last grandchild of Martha Ann Cook Keys (1836-1896).  Surely you remember her?  She was that feisty woman who crossed the Atlantic with her five young children in tow in 1887.  She is the most recent immigrant in my family tree.  She was married at age 33 and had her first child at age 36, so her children weren’t that old when she died in 1896 just before she turned 60.

In fact, she did not live to see any of her children get married or have children.  Too bad for those grandchildren, because she seemed like she would have been an interesting woman to have for a grandmother.  But they heard stories about her from her children Henry “The Judge”, Leonard, Daisy, Ruth, and Mabel.  Seventy years later saw the passing of the last of Martha’s own children.

So a few years after that, Martha’s grandchildren (with the urging of one in particular – family historian Edith Keys Segraves) decided to get together to celebrate the Cook-Keys family in the Unites States.  The first reunion was in 1973 and several more followed.  In the first photo you can see the grandchildren who were alive and present at the 1976 reunion.  Most of them were grandparents at the time, including my own grandmother Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin.  She’s in the front row in a striped dress.

I will now name them all, starting with the back row.  Henry Phenice and Marguerite Phenice Hill – children of Daisy, Martha Bryan Boose – daughter of Ruth, Chester and Frank Keys – son of The Judge, Orville Phenice – son of Daisy, Seidel Keys – son of Leonard, Alford and Norman Miller – sons of Mabel.  The front row has Edith Keys Segraves – daughter of Leonard, Grace Phenice Sowder and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin – daughters of Daisy, Hazel Bryan Derouen and Elsie Bryan – daughters of Ruth, and Isaure Zoe Keys Adams  – daughter of The Judge.  (Thanks to the relatives at Facebook for helping me get all of Martha’s grandkids named.)

1985 Keys family reunion showing the cousins who were grandchildren of Henry Keys and Martha Ann Cook Keys.

I thought I’d go ahead and post another photo from the 1985 reunion.  That’s what I used to get the names for the other photo.  There is a similar photo in the Keys update book by Marilyn Phenice Thurmond Strickland from 2000 and it had all of the people labeled.  Very helpful.

Martha’s grandkids were a good group of people.  She would have been proud of them.  They were salt of the earth.  I’m proud to be a grandchild of one of them.

Landry Household June 25, 1900

Leave a comment

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about today.  I knew that it was time for a Landry post, but nothing really stood out for me.  Then I came across an old photo of Marie Celeste Leveque Landry that I had dated to around 1900.  I cleaned up the photo a bit and then wondered just what life was like for Grandma Celeste back then.  Of course she wasn’t a grandma just yet.  Or was she?  I guess it was time to explore a little.

1900 Census of the Landry family in Westlake, Louisiana.  The next household is Samuel and Zoe (Marson) Leveque.  Samuel was Celeste’s half brother.  Zoe was a 2nd cousin to both Celeste and Samuel.

So I looked at the 1900 Census, which is where the first photo comes from.  It gives lots of basic information like name, age, sex, relationship to head of household, and marital status.  This year was good because it asked for the month and date of birth in addition to the standard age category.  You just have to assume that the Census taker got it right when he asked all of the questions.  Most of the time they get it right.

But sometimes it is wrong.  So how can you ever be sure?  It’s not always obvious.  There is an obvious discrepancy in this one.  According to the information that I have collected, Celeste and her husband Alcide (my great grandfather Simon Alcide Joseph Landry) were married in November of 1868.  That would mean that they were married for 31 years as of June of 1900.  On their anniversary that year, it would be 32 years.  The information on the Census shows Alcide as being married for 34 years, while Celeste had only been married for 30 years.

How can that be?  I suppose you could say the average of the two is pretty accurate, but that’s not the way it’s supposed to work.  Maybe there were two years in there that were really rough and it seemed like four years to him, while she would rather not think of them!

Speaking of bad years, there must have been a few of them.  The census shows that Celeste gave birth to ten children and only six of them are still living.  Those were tough times for families, particularly for the mothers.  I have the names of the four children that died, starting with their firstborn child Marie Marguerite Carmelite “Lily” (named after her two grandmothers).  She was born in 1870 in Brusly, Louisiana, and died in 1889 in Westlake.  I’m not exactly sure when the family moved from Brusly to Westlake.  They were in Brusly at least until 1880 because they showed up in the 1880 Census there.  They were in western Louisiana at least by 1889, because Lily was buried in Lake Charles.

The next one born was Joseph E(lie) in Jan. 1872.  He shows up in the 1900 Census, but would only live until 1913.  He would be another child mourned by Celeste.  Then came Sebastien J. who was born in Oct. 1874.  I’ll tell you more about him later.  The next name I have is Joseph A(lcide) who was born in Feb. 1877.  Dad knew him as Uncle Joe.

Next is Louis (Joseph) who was born in Jan. 1879.  If you look at the Census, there is a ten year gap before the next child Mary is listed.  There were three children that were born and died during that period.  A son named Sam was born at the same time as Louis, but he did not survive long.  They gave birth to another son three years later and also named him Sam.  There was also a son named Alcide.  I’m not sure about Sam and Alcide, but they must have died before 1900.  They are not on the list of names, but they do account for the rest of the children that did not survive.  It’s a shame that most of the 1890 Census was destroyed, because it could possibly have provided some more information about their lives.

You would think that they would give up trying at that point.  But fortunately for me, they didn’t.  They had Mary in Feb. 1889 and finally they had Robert J(oseph) in Jan. 1893.  He would later come to be known as my Pee Paw.  And Celeste was 45 years old when she gave birth to him.  That is what you would call a strong constitution!  She needed it to get through all of those births and deaths.  Mary would die in 1909, so only four of her ten children were living when she passed away.

Marie Celeste Leveque Landry circa 1900.

So in 1900, this is what Celeste looked like.  In 1900 she would be caring for her six children who were from age 7 to 28.  She also had her 79 year old mother living in the household.  Besides being “Mrs. Joseph A. Leveque”, she was born Marguerite Baselite Landry.  Another interesting point is that Alcide and his mother-in-law Basalite were half first cousins.  They had the same paternal grandfather Joseph Ignatius Landry.  How cool is that?

And who else was in the house?  If you read the Census, you will see that it was a niece (of Alcide) named Manette.  Which would mean that she was a 23-year-old girl cousin to all of those 20something year old Landry boys.  I’m sure you can guess where all of this led!

Of course some of you knew this from the start, because you descend from Manette and her Landry cousin of choice Sebastien.  Manette and Sebastien would be married later that year.  They had a daughter named Manette in 1904.  Sadly, Manette the mother died a few days later.  So Celeste pretty much took over the role of mother for little Manette, and Manette was like a younger sister to my grandfather.

Since Pee Paw was the youngest of all of his siblings and he died before I was born, I never met any of them.  But I do remember Manette.  “Little” Manette was an older woman celebrating her 50 year wedding anniversary with Bibb Bouquet in 1974.  A link to that long ago household of 1900.

Kaleidoscopes and Postcards

One comment

A week or so ago, my cousin Rhonda introduced me to an app for the phone that acts like a kaleidoscope.  I should have known better than to get it!  I’ve taken hundreds of photos with it.  It’s amazing how such random and sometimes ugly items can make such interesting patterns.  I figured it would only be a matter of time before I would tie it into my genealogy.

A kaleidoscope combo

I’ve been thinking of sharing an old postcard that my mom had for a while.  It’s a note written to my mom (Betty Lou Bucklin Landry) from her paternal grandmother (Addie Mae Hine Bucklin). I was thinking I should maybe incorporate a photo of Addie in the post along with the card.

So I decided to do a mix-up of the two.  This kaleidoscopic image is composed of the postcard and a photo of Addie from an old family photo that I posted previously.  I thought it had an interesting look to it, so I’m sharing it along with the postcard.

The image from the postcard is a lookout tower from Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1947.  From time to time in reading about the Bucklin and Hine family, I see mentions about the family living in Arkansas for a while.  For some reason I thought it was something therapeutic about the hot springs that drew them there.  I always thought it was for Addie’s husband Lou, who seemed to have health issues.  I suppose most people have health issues if they live long enough, but he died when he was 54.  Since he was born in 1873, that puts his death as 1927.  So he wouldn’t have been alive for a while when this postcard was sent.

There are a few old photos from 1941 that show the Bucklin family with the Clement family from Arkansas.  I thought they were a family that the Bucklins met when they lived in Arkansas.  If that was the case, why did Mama get a postcard from her Grandma Bucklin dated June 16, 1947?

If you read the card, you can see that she had been there for three weeks.  She wasn’t alone and states that they “are both doing O. K.”  She mentions a Mary in it.  I assume she is talking about her daughter Mary Bucklin Phenice.  She also says that she can’t walk very far “yet.”  That makes it sound like she’s planning on staying for a while.

When I search further, I find more information that leads to even more unanswered questions.  In May of 1906 the Jennings newspaper reported: “Lew Bucklin and family left Tuesday for Siloam Springs, Arkansas, to spend the summer for Mr. Bucklin’s health.”  That must be the health issues I remember hearing about.  Then in October of 1906 the paper reported: “L. C. Bucklin has returned with his family from Siloam Springs and is occupying his residence in Roanoke.”  What?  I thought he was a farmer?  How can he afford to be away for a large part of the growing season?

Postcard from Addie in Arkansas to Louie in Louisiana in 1913

Then there is a letter I found from September of 1912 that was written from Addie in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, to Louie in Jennings, Louisiana.  She writes, “I wish you were here now.”  Why wasn’t he there?  I thought he was the one that needed the recuperative powers of the hot springs?  Is Prairie Grove even near the hot springs?  There is also another letter from her to him in August of 1913.  That must be the time period that they lived in Arkansas.  In the letter I shared from Addie’s mother Sue in 1916, she says that Addie and the folks had just moved back to Louisiana.

As you can see, little bits of information here and there, but nothing that really explains it all.  It does give me information about them that I never would have thought of.  I always pictured them living in their primitive homes on the southern Louisiana prairie year after year.  I actually thought that they never went anywhere!  Ever.  They were poor farmers and homesteaders who were developing the land with no electricity.

Now, come to find out, they were summering at the spas in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  And it wasn’t just Lou and Addie.  It was the whole family.  And according to another newspaper article,  Addie’s parents George and Sue spent a month there as well.  That was in 1906 and it may not have been the first time.  And it sounds like it continued off and on at least until 1947.

Can you believe it?  That would mean that this would have been happening in 1938, when my mom’s family was “too poor” for little Betty Lou to have a “real doll.”  So when my mom got all excited about getting her photo taken with a “real doll,” some family members were having sauna holidays.  And all my mom got was a measly postcard!

The Landry Family Circa 1930

Leave a comment

Little Bobbie Landry circa 1930

I always thought this was a funny picture when I was a kid.  I always wondered why Daddy was dressed up as a little girl when he was young.  Didn’t they know he was a boy?

I now know that it was the way they did things long ago and it doesn’t really look all that funny anymore.  It’s just a charming old photo of a little boy in southern Louisiana.  He was born Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. on January 31, 1929, in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  He was a “junior” even though he was the third son.

His parents’ names were Robert Joseph “Rob” Landry, Sr. and Germaine “Erie” Patureau Landry.  He would go by “Bobbie” for the early years of his life, and family would continue to call him that till his death.  Later he went by “Bob” and “Pluto.”  Then he was known as “Daddy” and “Pappy” by us kids and grandkids.

He would call his parents Mama and Papa, but I think his dad sometimes went by Pappy.  Is that right?  Maybe it was only his grandchildren (my generation) that called him that.  Mostly he was known as Pee Paw.

The Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. family of Lake Charles, Louisiana, circa 1930

This other picture shows the family that he was born into.  In the middle of the photo and standing directly behind little Bobbie was his sister Marie Therese Landry, who was born in 1923.  As I’ve told you previously, Marie Therese is a frequently used name in the Landry and Patureau family and she was one of the only ones to go by her first name Marie.

The next oldest child was little Alcide Joseph, who was born in 1924.  That was another common name and he has always gone by A. J.  On the other side of big sis Marie is next brother in line Hubert.  He was born in 1925.  You can barely catch a glimpse of sister Germaine Erie’s dress and hand on the right edge of the photo.  At least I think that might be Germaine with the rest of the family.  She was named after her mother and was born in 1927.

And there behind her brood was our dearly beloved grandmother that we all called Mee Maw.  But she was just a young mother at the time.  She still had three more children to go before she completed her family.  It’s a cute little family and she was a good mother.  I, for one, am grateful to be part of this family.