Month: January 2019

H. C. and Daisy With the Kids

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The Harry Clifton Phenice and Daisy Henrietta Martha Keys Phenice family circa 1934.

Here’s an interesting photo of the Phenice family in the mid 1930s.  At least that’s my estimate of the date that it was taken.  The photo is not the best photo as far as clarity and balance is concerned, but it is almost ninety years old.  The person whose face is the hardest to make out is my grandmother’s, who you can see second from the right in this photo.

When my grandmother was born in 1906, her parents H. C. and Daisy gave her the name Myrtle Sylvia.  In 1930 she married her sweetheart Fred and acquired the last name Bucklin.  If this photo was taken when I estimated, she and Fred would be parents already.  Their first daughter Sylvia Daisy was born in 1931, and in 1933 their second daughter Betty Lou, my mom, was born.  (They would later have Alma, Loris, and Austin.) Now that you know how I connect to this photo, let’s see who everyone else is.

In front and center are my great grandparents Daisy Keys and Harry Clifton Phenice.  Daisy was born in 1876 in Hackney, London, Middlesex, England.  She came to Louisiana with her mom and siblings in 1887.  Harry was born in Butler County in Pennsylvania in 1874.  By the time he was six, his family had moved to Nebraska to homestead.  So Harry grew up on a farm in Nebraska.  When he reached the age of 24, he struck out on his own and arrived in Louisiana in 1898.  He married Daisy in 1900 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and started a farm and family of his own.

Sylvan Austin was their first child and he was born 11 months after they were married.  You can see him on the far left in the photo.  He  married Mary Bucklin in 1926.  They never had any children.  The next child born to HC and Daisy was Grace Leona, who was born in 1903.  She can be seen standing next to her father.  She had married Ray Sowder in 1929 and they did not have any children at the time of this photo.  They would later have two daughters by the names of Patricia and Flora.

The next child of HC and Daisy was my grandmother Myrtle, who we have already discussed.  My good old Grandma!  After Myrtle came Henry Charles, who was born in 1909.  He was the middle child and he can be seen standing next to his mother.  He was married to Irma Hetzel in November 1934.  They later were the parents of Wayne, Charles, and Diane.  After Henry Charles came Bernard Orville, who was born in 1911.  Orville can be seen second from the left in the photo.  He got married to Elta Whitman in the same year that Henry and Irma were married, but they were married in January of 1934.  They had five children together: Marilyn, Kathleen, Linda, Paul, and Carol.

That leaves two more children of HC and Daisy.  Their youngest son was named Warren Algernon and he was born in 1916.  He is the son in the middle of the photo standing between his parents.  He would get married to Wilma Hylton in 1939 and they had four children.  Their two sons were named Terrell and Kevin, while their daughters were named Julie and Lisa.  The last child of HC and Daisy was Martha Marguerite, who was born in 1918.  She can be seen on the far right.  She was a just a single young adult at the time of this photo.  She would marry Thomas Hill in 1943.  Their children’s names are Shelly, Darla, and Warren.

As I was writing this, I realized that I have a lot of memories of my grandmother’s siblings. I remember seeing Uncle Sylvan, Uncle Henry, Uncle Warren, and Uncle Orville from time to time.  I remember lots of laughs at Grandma’s house when Aunt Grace and Aunt Marguerite would come around.  But I don’t have many memories of Grandpa’s siblings.  I remember hearing about them occasionally, but we didn’t see them much.  My dad’s parents were about a decade older than Grandma and Grandpa, and that made a big difference.  Pee Paw and all of his siblings died before I was even born.  Mee Maw and a few of her siblings were alive when I was a kid.  I have just one memory of any of them.

So I think of the children in this photo as my extra aunts and uncles.  That’s what we called them.  There was no “Great Aunt Marguerite” or “Grand Uncle Orville” when we saw them.  Even though we already had 22 ‘real’ aunts and uncles, I appreciated those extra ones.  I appreciate them even more now that they’re gone.

Times Of Change

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Landry Family Band performing at Shakey’s in 1978.

Today is the second anniversary of my dad’s death, so I thought I would write something in his honor.  I was thinking about it this week, and one evening I came across this photo.  It was from a slide that I took on December 23, 1978, at Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  I posted a photo from this same evening a while back.  The other photo is a photo of my mom and dad along with me and all of my siblings.  It wasn’t often that all of us were there together, so it’s a special photo.  Any time I mention to someone that my family used to sing together at Shakey’s in the late 70s, I’ll invariably show them that photo.

But this photo is different.  It shows the family members who are no longer with us.  Jodie died in 1989.  It’s hard to believe that it will be 30 years this year.  Then my mom and dad died two years ago within five days of each other from natural causes.  As far as performing at Shakey’s, Mama and Daddy were there more often than the rest of us.  Jodie or Rob were probably there the least.  You can also see my dad’s brother Hubert Landry in the yellow shirt and his wife Mildred Sutherlin Landry next to him.  Uncle Hubert would play the harmonica with us pretty often.  Uncle Hubert and Aunt Mildred are no longer with us as well.  Aunt Mildred died in 1990, less than a year after Jodie, and Uncle Hubert died in 2006.

All of those changes happened after our time at Shakey’s.  We started playing there in June of 1976 and finished up five years later in August of 1981.  Those were times of big changes in the Robert Joseph Landry, Jr./Betty Lou Bucklin Landry family.  In 1976 there were still five of us living at 758 Lucy Street in Jennings.  There was Mama, Daddy, Al, me (Van), and Jamie.  We were the youngest three of the six children and the following school year was the only time that there were three Landry children in high school at the same time.  Al was going to be a senior, I was going to be a sophomore, and Jamie was going to be a freshman.

Also at that time, Jodie was married to her first husband.  They were in Lake Charles at McNeese when they first got married, but later moved to Texas to go to Texas A & M.  They must have moved by this time, otherwise we would have seen them more often at Shakey’s.  Rob was single and in school at Louisiana Tech in Ruston.  Karen was single also, but she was at McNeese.  She was able to be at Shakey’s frequently, too.  In fact she got a job there and worked there during the week as well.

By the time 1981 came around, Mom and Dad had become empty nesters.  Al graduated in 1977 and followed Rob up to Tech.  I graduated in 1979 and went to McNeese.  How could I give up performing at Shakey’s on the weekends?  Jamie graduated in 1980 and also went to McNeese.  I don’t know how Mom and Dad did it.  My mom didn’t work outside of the home and my dad was a band director living on a school teacher’s salary.  I seem to recall there being five of us in college at the same time at one point.  Performing at Shakey’s was a way to make ends meet.  I always just thought of it as fun.

A big change for the family during that time was that Jodie went through a divorce.  In some ways that doesn’t sound like a huge thing.  You see it all of the time.  But it wasn’t something that happened in OUR family.  That’s what other people did.  It wasn’t something Jodie wanted for herself, but it happened.  I know she had a bit of anxiety breaking the news to Mom and Dad.  This photo and the photos from that same evening remind me of that situation.  Seeing how Jodie went through that helped me and probably other siblings in breaking troubling news to our parents.

Rob’s first marriage was in 1980.  (He improved that situation a few years later.)  Karen and Jamie met their future spouses during that time as well.  And eventually, so did Jodie.   She even got married during that time.  Al and I were in college.  I actually missed the last month or so of the family performing at Shakey’s.  I was working at AstroWorld in Houston during the summer of 1981.  I’m not sorry I missed it, because I got to see Jodie more often and see her going through her last few months of pregnancy.  I was going to be an uncle!

So the years 1976 through 1981 saw my mom and dad through the last years with children in the house and then on to empty nesters.  Then the following month they became grandparents when little Christopher Rhodes made his grand entrance into the world.  He was the first of the twelve grandchildren enjoyed by Grammie and Pappy.  It was a start to the last era in their lives.  They had some good years.

Mom’s Memories P. 1 aka “I Hated That Haircut!”

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Mom’s memories, page 1 begins with the beginning.

Since the second anniversary of my mom’s death is in two days, I thought I would write a little about her.  I decided that I’d write about my mom’s earliest memory.  My mom had a really good memory for most all of her life.  She remembered what it felt like to be a little kid, so she could sympathize with them easily.  Maybe that’s because her earliest memory wasn’t a pleasant one.

According to the little booklet she wrote in during her later years when her memories were starting to be inaccessible, her first memory concerned a haircut she hated.  There are a few photos of her during this time, and every time she would see one of those pictures, she would inevitably say, “Oh, how I hated that haircut!”

Obviously it was not a style becoming to little 3-year-old Betty Lou Bucklin from Hathaway, Louisiana.  She did not like having hair like a little boy.  After all, this was the time when little Shirley Temple was making movies showing off her full head of curly hair.  It was bad enough that her hair was pencil straight – not one curl to be found.  How could she curl her hair when it was too short to go on a roller?

Betty Lou Bucklin with first cousin Stanley Keys and their grandmother Addie Hine Bucklin

And the photos of her with that haircut showed her disapproval.  She was either frowning or looking away from the camera.  In this photo she doesn’t look too thrilled.  At least she is a little distracted by her new little cousin Stanley Keys.

This photo used to confuse me when I was a kid.  My mom’s father was Fred Bucklin.  Fred’s mother was Addie Hine Bucklin. My mom’s mother was Myrtle Phenice Bucklin.  Myrtle’s mother was Daisy Keys.  So how is it that Mom’s first cousin is a Keys and he’s a grandchild of Addie Bucklin?  I thought that maybe Mama was confused since you can’t see the face of the grandmother standing there.

But come to find out, she was not confused.  I was.  Stanley Keys was the son of Frank Keys.  Frank was Myrtle’s first cousin.  But Frank married Edna Bucklin.  Edna was Fred’s sister.  So that would make Stanley my mom’s first cousin through the Bucklin line, but he was also her second cousin through the Keys line.  I wonder if that confused my mom back then?

Probably not.  All that was going through little Betty Lou’s mind was this:  Who’s bright idea was it to give me this stupid “little boy’s” haircut?

Mama was good about writing on the backs of her photos. This one gives all of the pertinent information.

My Father Was a Hunter

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Rob, Jodie, Jamie, Karen, Al, Bob, and Van Landry in 1963 in Jennings, Louisiana

I was reminded of that fact recently.  We went to our friend Lulu’s house where her son Matthew was selling copies of a book he had just written.  I was not keenly excited about the book, because I have never been interested in hunting.  But we were wanting to support him for various reasons.  Plus the book was written about southern Louisiana by someone who grew up in the area.

Matthew read a short passage from his book (“The Duck Camp” by Matthew Wemple) about when he was a child and his father came home from hunting.  It brought back so many memories of my own that I hadn’t thought about in years.  I don’t really have that many references to hunting to jar those old memories of mine.

But his writing brought back plenty.  For one thing, it reminded me of this old photo from around 1963.  I’m pretty sure it was an instance of my dad coming home from hunting.  He’s got his hunting cap on as well as his rubber boots.  That was some of the standard hunting clothes that he had back then.  There were a few photos taken of this event.  I posted one of them on Facebook last year for Father’s Day.

Daddy hunting in 2000.

There was another article of clothing that Matthew reminded me of in his excerpt – my dad’s old hunting vest.  For some reason, I remember being intrigued with that thing.  It seemed like there were pockets all over it for various things and there were even places to store shotgun cartridges on it somewhere.

There are other vague hunting memories that I remember.  He and my mom’s dad would prepare for duck hunting by getting decoys ready.  My grandfather would make some of those decoys himself and also carved ducks that could be hung on a wall.  He and my dad would sometimes test their aim with a pistol by tossing a coin up in the air and shooting at it.  I seem to recall them actually hitting it at least once.

Bob and Johnny Landry (brothers) hunting in 2000.

Then there were the unpleasant memories associated with hunting.  They were always getting up really early on cold mornings.  Who wants to do that?  Then they’d bring all those birds home and you’d have to pluck them.  That wasn’t so bad until you had to singe them.  Not a smell that you’d want to be around too long.

Those things were enough to keep me from wanting to go hunting.  The desire just wasn’t there.  But you can see from this photo of my dad that he enjoyed it.  I can see how it can be an enjoyable diversion.  And I was glad to be reminded of those long ago pleasant memories of my dad that were lurking in my brain.  Thanks Matthew.

Bob Landry in Jennings, Louisiana. It looks like he was a pretty good shot.

Grandma Sue and the Granddaughters in 1919

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I’ve posted three other photos that were taken on the same day as the photo I’m posting today.  The photos were taken around 1919 somewhere near Hathaway, Louisiana.  The first photo I shared from that day was posted over two years ago.  The other two photos were shared in 2017.  I didn’t post any in 2018, so I’m thinking it is time to share this one.  The only problem is that I don’t have any more from that date, so this is it.  Unless, of course, a few more show up in the future.

Susan G. Stanbrough Hine with her seven granddaughters in 1919.

One of the photos was of my great great grandfather George Henry Hine with his grandsons.  This photo is of his wife Susan G. Stanbrough Hine with her granddaughters.  Of course, we all know her now as Grandma Sue, since we found letters that she wrote and signed as Sue.

Sue and George were born in Hamilton County, Indiana, as were their six children Addie, Bert, Rowe, Lonnie, Jim, and Ollie.  Before any of the children were married, the family had moved to southern Louisiana.  So all of their grandchildren were born in Louisiana, except for Robert Bucklin who was born during the short stint that Addie and Lou Bucklin spent in Arkansas.

In the photo you can see Grandma Sue in the middle of the photo surrounded by her granddaughters.  She actually looks happy in this photo.  Like her daughter Addie, she tended to not smile in photos and in some cases it looks like they are scowling.  But she has a nice smile in this photo, which I really like.  Sitting in her lap is her youngest granddaughter at the time Wanda Hine, who was the daughter of Bert.  She was born in 1917 and is the younger sister to Leta Hine.  Leta can be seen on the far right in the photo and she was born in 1912.

On the far left of the photo is a little girl with her head hung down.  Her name is Alta Zay Hine, she was born in 1912, and she was the daughter of Lonnie.  I don’t know what she was sad about.  Maybe she wanted to be the one sitting in Grandma Sue’s lap?  Standing between Alta and Grandma Sue is Audrey Hine.  Her father was Jim and she was born in 1910.  She would have a younger sister named Darlene in four years.  Darlene would have Grandma Sue around for the first ten years of her life.

Standing behind Grandma Sue is the oldest granddaughter.  Her name was Mary Bucklin and she was born in 1900.  We saw a photo of her with her mother Addie along with Sue and George previously.  Addie’s middle daughter is the girl in the dark dress.  Her name is Edna Bucklin and she was born in 1909.  Addie had six sons in a row between those two girls. (Including my maternal grandfather Fred D. Bucklin) There was either one or two sons between Edna and the next daughter Ruth.  She was born in 1915, but so was her twin brother Roy.  So if Ruth was born first, only Robert was between Edna and Ruth.  Otherwise Ruth was the last child born to Addie and Lou.

So that’s it.  Sue and her girls have all been identified.  Oh, wait!  I mentioned Ruth, but forgot to say which one was her.  But since I have pointed out all of the others in the photo, you know that she was young girl in the front on the right of the photo.  She seems preoccupied with something she has in her arms.  It looks like it could be a stuffed animal or such and her little cousin Wanda seems drawn to it as well.

Now we’re done.  Everyone accounted for.

Say so long to Grandma Sue.