Month: March 2019

The Wooden Leg

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There wasn’t any one photo or story that called out to me for my blog this week. So I went searching through my “Old Photos” folder on my computer to see what I’d come across. I kept coming back to this photo, so I decided to go with it.

Myrtle and Fred Bucklin were my grandparents.

This is a photo of my maternal grandparents. I am Van Landry. My mom was Betty Lou Bucklin Landry, and her parents were Fred Bucklin and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin. I had thought of posting this photo several times, but put it off for various reasons. I figured I’d end up posting it at some point. That point is now.

One of the reasons I didn’t post it was that I can never decide on a date for the photo. They seem pretty young in the photo. The Depression was going on during the 1930s, yet they seem to be dressed pretty nicely. Of course I used to think the family had no money at all, but then had to rethink that when I found out my grandfather used to summer at the spas in Arkansas.

She was born Dec. 19, 1906, and he was born less than a year later on Oct. 2, 1907. They both grew up in the same area and now that I think about it, I have no idea how they met. It’s not like my other grandparents who were cousins and probably knew each other all their lives. But they could have met when they were young since they were the same age and lived near each other. They got married March 12, 1930. So this photo could have been taken before then, or it could be fifteen years later. I just don’t know.

Either way, I think they make a handsome couple. My grandmother was never referred to as a beauty, but was said to be handsome. I wonder if that was said because she wasn’t dainty. I think she looks very striking in some photos. Like this one. She looks a bit stylish with that hat, coat, and handbag.

Grandpa looks nice in his suit, also. It may not have the same lines that are popular today, but he looks rather dapper. Of course when I was a child, I never thought such a thing. He was just an old man that liked to complain about his health. I never thought of him as this young man starting out his married life with his cherished bride. I do think I resemble him a bit, as did my cousins Keith and Dale. (Depending on the photo.)

The other thing that I didn’t like about this photo is that it looks like Grandma has a wooden leg. When I looked at this smallish photo when it was in a photo album, that’s what I’d see. It wasn’t until I scanned it and looked at it on my computer that it quit looking like that, so maybe you won’t see it at all. Maybe you’ll just see a handsome couple looking stylish as they smile for the camera.

The Five Paths to Joseph Ignatius

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For those of you have been reading these blog posts that I write, you’ll have learned about the cousin marriages in my family history. For those that have researched families with Cajun or Acadian ancestry, you’ll know that this was a common practice. Some people are not very comfortable with these marriages, while others don’t seem to have a problem with it at all. It’s just part of history and I owe my life to it all.

A visual aid to show the paths from my father Bob Landry to his great great grandfather Joseph Ignatius Landry.

In my family, I don’t have to look far to find an example. My grandparents were first cousins once removed. You can see that in the handy diagram that I created for myself to help me keep it all straight in my mind. It can all get a bit confusing sometimes. At the bottom of the diagram is my dad Bob Landry. Following the lines up from him bring you to Rob and Erie. Those are my paternal grandparents Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. and Germaine Erie Patureau. Their grandkids knew them as Pee Paw and Mee Maw.

Rob and Erie

If you follow Rob and Erie’s lines up through the middle of the chart, you come to their common ancestor Narcisse Landry. (I normally like to name both parents of individuals when I know them, but in this case I’m just listing those in the line leading to the ultimate common ancestor Joseph Ignatius Landry.) Rob and Erie were first cousins once removed because Narcisse was Rob’s grandfather while he was Erie’s great grandfather. Or put another way, Simon Alcide Landry and Jean Trasimond Landry were the sons of Narcisse. Rob was the son of Alcide and Marie Therese Landry Patureau was the daughter of Trasimond. Rob then married his first cousin Therese’s daughter Erie. Since Narcisse, Alcide, Trasimond, and Therese had all died before 1921, none of them were alive to celebrate Rob and Erie’s union.

But that’s not the only way that they were related, just the closest. That first connection was derived from Rob and his first cousin Therese’s fathers. The next connection we’ll look at the connection through their mothers. Rob’s mother was Marie Celeste Leveque Landry. Celeste’s mother was Marguerite Basalite Landry Leveque. Basalite was the daughter of Joseph Emmanuel Landry.

Now for Therese’s mother’s line. Her mother was Marie Amelie Bujol Landry. Since she had a long life, I have more photos of her and have written a few posts about her. Remember? We call her Belite. (She is also known as Grandma Babin to some of her descendants. Don’t let this throw you.) I’ve also referred to her as one of the beautiful daughters of the Widow Bujol. That would be her mother Anna Adele Landry Bujol. Adele was also the daughter of Joseph Emmanuel “Manuel” Landry. So if you look at the maternal lines to see the connection between Rob and Erie, you find that they were second cousins once removed.

Grampa Max circa 1914

We’ve looked at both sides of Pee Paw’s tree and on both sides of Mee Maw’s mother’s tree. Now it’s time to look at Mee Maw’s father’s line. We all know him as Grampa Max, but his full name was Vincent Maximilian Patureau. I don’t usually think of him as a Landry, but his mother was a Landry. Her name was Marie Emma Landry Patureau. Emma’s father was Elie Onezime Landry. Though both Rob & Erie descend from Narcisse and Manuel, only Erie descends from Onezime.

But there are still more connections, because Narcisse, Manuel, and Onezime were all sons of Joseph Ignatius Landry. Joseph was born in Acadie in 1748. He was only seven years old when the Grand Derangement took place. It was 1755 when the English exiled the French Acadian population. Joseph and his family spent the next 12 years in Exile in Maryland, then settled in Louisiana in 1767. He married Scholastique Breaux in 1776. She was also an Acadian who spent the Exile in Maryland. She happened to be his double third cousin as well. They had four children together including a son named Manuel.

Scholastique died in 1785. Two years later he married Olive Elizabeth Breaux. She was the 2nd cousin of Scholastique and a 3rd cousin of Joseph. They had six children together including Narcisse and Onezime. So Narcisse and Onezime were full brothers and Manuel was their half brother.

So there they are. My paths to Joseph Ignatius. My siblings, nieces, nephews, and first cousins share these common paths. Some of my other cousins share a path or two and have a few of their own twisted paths to Joseph Ignatius. I even know of at least one with seven paths to that illustrious ancestor. I have to admit that fact makes me a little jealous. Is that weird?

Cook-Keys Connections

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As you all may recall, my great great grandmother was Martha Ann Cook Keys. She was the brave widow woman who immigrated to America with her five young children in 1887. Her daughter was Daisy Keys who married Harry Clifton Phenice. One of their daughters’ name was Myrtle Phenice and she married Fred Bucklin. Myrtle and Fred’s second daughter was my mother Betty Lou Bucklin Landry. That tells you my connection to the Cook-Keys family, but let’s look a little further back.

Martha was married to Henry Keys in 1869 in Middlesex, England. But they were not the first Cook-Keys couple. Martha’s younger sister Henrietta had married Henry’s younger brother William in 1861 and shortly afterwards started a family. Their children were double first cousins to each other. That meant that they had more DNA in common than most first cousins. This helps us now because it increases the chances that 4th cousins of these couples still share DNA.

And they do. That’s what made me think of this post for this week. I started corresponding with two different descendants of Henrietta and William Keys. And since I always like to see photos of my ancestors, I thought I’d share the ones I have. I thought some of you might like to see some of this information as well.

Henrietta Cook Keys

This is a photo of Henrietta Cook Keys. My ancestry program identifies her as my great, great, great aunt. What I really appreciate about her is that she kept a diary and wrote about some of her and Martha’s family history. How cool is that? Too bad they didn’t have blogs back in her day. We might have seen even more information!

She talked about her father Job Cook dying when she was young (less than a year old). He was a sea captain who was “free of the river” and who had traveled the world. He died after voyaging to India. On his way home he was seized with pain in the head. Since they were so close to home, the doctor had already left the ship. The sailors tried to help him by cutting the hair off of the top of his head and applying some type of poultice. His situation only grew worse and he died only an hour after returning to shore. Supposedly if they had applied the ‘blister’ to the back of the head rather than the top of the head, he would have survived.

Henrietta says in her diary that she had in her possession the letter that brought her mother the sad news of her husband’s death. Now that’s a letter I’d like to see! There are other things that she refers to that I wish she had gone into more detail about. She talked about how her mother Ruth Horsnell ran a private school to make money. And it sounds like the dress shop that Martha had was partly run by their mother. Henrietta herself was not put to a business because a family friend had decided that she was “delicate.” She doesn’t look so delicate in this photo, but looks can be deceiving.

Henrietta also identified her paternal grandfather as William Cook and talks about his grave in Walthamstow, England. She was living there when she wrote the journal and she talked about people recognizing her as part of the Cook family. William had also been a seaman and died at a young age. Henrietta was certain that there was a connection between her Cook family and that of the famous sea captain James Cook.

All of this information was in the book that cousin Edith Keys Segraves put together in 1980. She, like Henrietta, was also pretty sure of the connection, though she was never able to find a link. She said that she included the information and the diary in hopes that someone in the family will one day find that link.

The search continues…

Family tree for Martha and Henrietta Cook. A lot of this information comes from Henrietta’s diary.

To see the diary pages that I have a copy of, see this link.

My Dad’s Mom and Sisters

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Germaine Erie Patureau Landry stands in the middle of her four daughters circa 1939.

I love this old photo of my grandmother and aunts. It was taken some time around 1939 and it was probably taken in Lake Charles somewhere. The only thing I don’t like about the photo is that their feet don’t show in the photo. I’m not particularly fond of feet. It’s just that if you’re going to take a full length photo of a group of people, get the whole person (or persons) in the photo. This was long before phones with cameras or digital photos with instant results to check, so I guess I’ll have to forgive them. It would also have been nice to see the group centered in the photo. Oh, well, at least they took this wonderful photo.

My dad came from a somewhat large family. There were eight children, with four boys and four girls. I’ve shared a photo of the male members of the family previously. The photos look like they were taken the same day. The background is the same, the lighting looks the same, and the border is the same. But instead of a father with his four sons in the previous photo, this one is of a mother with her four daughters.

But it’s not just any old mother in the photo. This is my beloved paternal grandmother who we all called Mee Maw. Her given name was Germaine Erie Patureau. She married Robert Joseph (Rob or Bob) Landry, Sr. and then went by Erie Landry. The first child of this couple was their oldest daughter Marie Therese Landry. Aunt Marie is shown on the far left in the photo. She would later marry Malloy Reeves, and they had one son named Mark. The next daughter born to Rob and Erie was Germaine Erie. Aunt Germaine can be seen to the right of Mee Maw in the darker dress. She would later marry Ross Winn, and they had three children.

The third daughter of Erie and Rob was Wana Lidwin. She can be seen on the far right in the photo. She would later marry Norman Duffy. Aunt Wana and Uncle Duffy had six children. The youngest of the girls – though not the youngest of the eight – was little Frances Mae. Aunt Frances or Framay would later marry Joseph Raley. Aunt Framay and Uncle Joe had five children.

These lovely ladies and warm, nurturing women are a strong emotional backbone for our family. That stood out particularly clearly to me in regard to the death of my sister Jodie in 1989. These four sisters were not there just for their brother, they were there for all the family. They were such a great example of what family can do for one another. They still are.