May, 2019 | Family History

Twins and Stilts

May 30, 2019 Van Leave a comment

I remember my mom telling me about her dad’s family when I was a child. I thought we were a pretty big family because I was one of six children. But my grandfather was from an even bigger family. He was one of twelve children! I was pretty impressed by that. It was like that book I read back then called “Cheaper By the Dozen.” But my great grandmother Addie Hine Bucklin cheated a little, because she had two sets of twins. So she only had ten pregnancies.

My grandfather Fred was in one set of twins. He had an identical brother named Clarence. They were born Oct. 2, 1907, and they were the seventh and eighth children of Louis and Addie Bucklin. I’m not sure who was born first. I wonder if anyone knows? After two other children were born (Edna and Robert), there was another set of twins in 1915. Obviously they were not identical, because the girl was named Ruth and the boy was named Roy.

Ruth Bucklin, Myrtle Phenice, Orville P., Clarence B., Myrtle Moon, Warren P., Roy B., Fred B., and Jack Jester circa 1927

Both of the sets of twins can be seen in this photo. Ruth is on the far left of the photo, while Roy is the one with the stilts on. I would say they look about 12 years old in this photo, which would put the year for this photo at 1927.

According to the IDs that I had on this photo from Joseph and Louise (ID’d by possibly Ruth and my mom), Clarence is the twin fourth from the left and Fred is the one second from the right. I really like this photo and really appreciate the IDs, but the original version of the photo that I got was rather poor. I was getting ready to inquire about a better version, but then I got this copy from my cousin Carla. And that’s why you’re seeing it today – I finally have that better version.

There aren’t any other twins in the photo, but there are some other similarities. If I got the date correct, Fred would later marry Myrtle Phenice and Clarence would later marry Myrtle Moon. Myrtle Phenice (or Grandma to us grandkids) is second from the left and Myrtle Moon is the center person in the photo. There are two other guys in the photo who kind of look alike, but they’re just regular brothers. Actually they are two of my grandmother’s younger brothers. Orville is to the right of Grandma, and Henry is to the right of the other Myrtle. That leaves just one more person in the photo. I thought of cropping him out of the photo, but didn’t have the heart. He’s not part of my family, but he is part of somebody’s. Maybe someone will know him. He is identified as Jack Jester. He must have been a friend of the family.

I like these photos of the two families – Phenice and Bucklin – together. With eleven children in the Bucklin group and eight in the Phenice group, there were a lot of opportunities for friendships. Two couples came out of the two groups – Sylvan P. married Mary B. in 1926 and Fred married Myrtle in 1930. I’m hopeful that there are more photos to be discovered and shared with everyone. I’m always on the lookout.

Pee Paw Strikes a Pose

May 23, 2019 Van One comment

I don’t remember when I first saw this photo of my paternal grandfather. I know that at one point I had an old version of it that I edited to get rid of scratches and such. Then shortly after I finished that, I got a better version from somewhere else. I’m thinking that I got the improved version from Uncle A. J., but I’m not sure. Either way, I put off working on the new version since I had just edited the old version nicely. So last year I posted a different photo of Pee Paw in the Great War and put off the redo on the upgraded version.

But now is the time for this great photo. This is a photo of Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. I have several photos of him from his time at training for World War I. On one of the photos I got from Uncle A. J., it stated that the date was 1919 and that he was at Camp Lee in Virginia. That was near the end of the war, so it looks like he went through the training for the war, but was never shipped anywhere.

But there were several photos. He was a big baseball player, so there’s a team photo with military uniforms. There is also another group photo with his unit, I presume. Many of them are just goofing around with friends or posing by himself. But this one has always been my favorite. He’s got such a casual pose, yet he looks rather dignified.

Everyone loves a man in uniform.

Landry

Keys Reunion 2019

May 16, 2019 Van One comment

I thought I would send out a reminder/invitation to this year’s Keys Family Reunion. We had a reunion two years ago, and it was such a success that we decided to have another one. The first Keys Reunion happened in 1973 and our family went to that one. (I’m still hoping to see a video from the people I remember recording the event. I didn’t know who it was with the recorders, but remember seeing them being lugged around.) I have photos from that reunion and from subsequent ones throughout the years.

I don’t know if the reunions went on consistently through the years, but I remember some happening in the 90s and 2000s. We started them up again two years ago and there was a good turnout. But it would be nice to have all of the children of Martha Ann Cook Keys represented. She was that brave woman who brought her five children from England to southern Louisiana in June of 1887. She also happens to be my great great grandmother. Her five children were Henry Alfred “The Judge” Keys, Leonard James Keys, Daisy Henrietta Martha Keys Phenice, Rosetta “Ruth” Keys Bryan, and Mabel Olive Keys Miller.

Mabel Keys Miller, Daisy Keys Phenice, Harry Clifton Phenice, Leonard James Keys, and Edessa Havenar Keys in 1938.

I got this photo recently that shows three of those five siblings. Since I’m wanting all five of them to be represented, I should use a photo that has all five of them in it. But I don’t have one! This one has Mabel, Daisy with her husband H. C., and Leonard with his wife Edessa in 1938. It was taken at Leonard’s home in Elton. I posted a larger group photo from the same day about nine months ago.

When I first saw this photo I was really excited because I was thinking it might be the five siblings in the same photo. Then I realized that two of them were spouses. I can’t be too disappointed since it is such a great photo and my great grandparents are in it. If anyone has a photo that includes all five siblings, I would love to see it and scan it. Bring any interesting photo to the reunion. I’ll take photos of them or borrow them to scan if possible. I tried to take a photo of Daisy and H. C. with some kids on a horse, but it didn’t come out very well. I’d like to try again, but can’t remember who had that photo.

I thought I’d post this photo of The Judge’s family, since he didn’t show up in the first photo. I got this from a cousin on Facebook, but can’t remember who that was. I need to take better notes! I’d also like to have a few names for people in the photo and the approximate year.

I know that many of them lived in Kinder. Henry Alfred and his wife Eugenia LaFosse had twelve children together, so there should be lots of descendants from that line. I’d like to see some of them at the reunion.

I can’t ignore the Ruth Keys Bryan line of the family! This photo is from the 1973 Keys Family Reunion and it shows the descendants of Ruth at that time – at least the ones that showed up and were willing to pose for a picture.

I know the names of some of these, but would like to know more. And if I were to guess who it was that had a video recorder back at that reunion, I would say it was this guy in the red jumpsuit. Who is that man in red?

We can discuss who these people are online, or you can wait until the family reunion. Like I said, I’d like to see you there. “Where?” you ask. It is going to be at the Raymond Methodist Church annex, which is located at 5532 Pine Island Hwy. The festivities are on Saturday June 15th and they start at 10:00 a.m.

Keys

Our Erie the Student

May 8, 2019 Van Leave a comment

Long before my dear sweet Mee Maw (Germaine Erie Patureau Landry) taught me and my siblings how to play Solitaire – even before she taught her own children how to play Canasta and Pinochle, she was just little ol’ Erie, student at SLI. According to this old school newspaper, she started school there in 1912 after graduating high school from Crescent, Louisiana.

Class photo from around 1914 at SLI in Lafayette, Louisiana

I think this picture titled “Fourth Year Class” was taken in 1914 at the beginning of her senior year at SLI. The accompanying school newspaper cover shows the graduating class of 1915 with Erie on the front row. Neither one of the photos is very clear. They are school newspaper photos after all and I think it’s amazing that they have survived in any form all of these years later. I like this photo because she looks so stylish with her black skirt and lace-up boots. (In the front on the right.)

I remember that when I was younger, I thought my Mee Maw was from Lafayette. Now I think of her a being from Plaquemine. Most of her childhood was spent in Crescent, which is a suburb of Plaquemine. Her mother died in 1909 when Erie was just 14 years old. Her mother’s mother Belite (Marie Amelie Bujol Landry Babin, known as Grandma Babin to some) moved to Lafayette by 1910. Her father Max (Vincent Maximilian Patureau) stayed in Crescent until 1912, which was around the time Erie finished high school. He set up practice in Lafayette in October of 1911 and brought the children over in April of 1912.

So once she finished high school, her home was Lafayette for about ten years. Even after she got married in 1921 and moved to Lake Charles to live, her father lived in Lafayette for several more years. When I was a kid I didn’t consider all of these details. I wish I had asked a bit more back then, but we were too busy playing games and singing songs. So it’s a good thing these articles were saved that have a few photos and some reminiscences of young Erie.

The front page photo has Erie second from the right on the front row. (See here for a better version of the photo.) It looks like the photo must have been taken in the cooler time because of the heavier clothes. This photo has more people in it than the previous one, so that is a little confusing for me. Usually classes get smaller as time goes on with people dropping out or moving away.

This front pages starts introducing members of the class and telling what each individual accomplished during the years. Mee Maw is not mentioned there.

The second pages gives a description of the paper and its staff. It also has a dedication. Someone must have asked the class what they wanted to will to the younger class mates. It’s called “LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE SENIOR CLASS.” Very dramatic. Check out number 19: I, Erie Patureau, do will and bequeath my good times to Pierre Hernandez.

My favorite part of the pages is the article on the right side called “HISTORY OF THE CLASS OF ’15.” (That’s 1915 in case you were unsure.) It mentions many of the class members, but what they write about Mee Maw is sweet – “The following January after all dangers of finals was over Erie showed up. Modest and retiring, she was hard to make friends with, but we were determined and now she’s ours.” I like that.

Page 3 continues with introductions to the class. There at the bottom of the first column is our Germaine Erie Patureau. That’s where I learned that she entered S. L. I. I. from Crescent Graded School in 1912. It doesn’t list any accomplishments at all. Not one. I wonder why that is? What it does have is a quote in Latin: “Dulce est recipere in loco.” According to Google translate, that means “Sweet is back in place.” That makes no sense.

I tried to reword it, but nothing really made sense. Put sweet back in its place? Give sweetness back in place? Dude? Sweet! (What does mine say?) So I searched again and found a famous Latin quote – “Dulce est desipere in loco.” That means, “It is sweet on occasion to play the fool” or “It is pleasant to be frivolous at the appropriate time.” I wonder if that is a quote that she liked, or was it said to her?

Page 4 has a letter that is a study in alternative reality. Someone wrote a letter as though it were years later and talks about the old classmates he runs into on his travels. There is a mention of our Erie in it. In that alternate reality, she went to Europe as a Red Cross nurse helping in a hospital.

While that would have been a grand and noble thing to do, I do prefer the reality of her staying here in the States and becoming my grandmother. Of course, I am biased.

Patureau

100 Years Gone, Bye George

May 2, 2019 Van Leave a comment

I’m repeating myself. Of course, these posts are all about repeating stories from the past. But this time I’m using a photo that I’ve used before. Twice before, actually. It’s just such a great photo, though. I really need to get a good print of this photo, by George. Those eyes mesmerize me.

The occasion for posting this photo again is that May 3, 2019, is the 100th anniversary of the death of our George. That would be my great great grandfather George Henry Hine. My mother was Betty Lou Bucklin Landry. Her father was Fred D. Bucklin. His mother was Addie May Hine Bucklin, the oldest child of George. George got married to Susan G. (Grandma Sue or just Sue) Stanbrough on October 12, 1873, in Hamilton County, Indiana. Besides having my great grandmother Addie, they had five sons.

“The People’s Guide: A Business, Political and Religious Directory of Boone Co., Ind.,” 1874, p. 136

The family was from Indiana and lived there until 1894. I’ve shared photos of the family in Indiana before, but recently I found some more history of George’s family in Indiana. I knew that Sue’s Stanbrough family had moved to Indiana from Ohio around 1830. I also knew that the Hine family had moved to Indiana from North Carolina around 1835. But George’s mother was Malina Cox and the Cox family name was a recent discovery. I found that Malina’s father was Benjamin Cox, who was born in 1796. In an old book about Boone County, Indiana, it had a small mention of the family moving to Indiana from North Carolina in 1829.

So sixty years later the Hine family – at least the George Henry Hine family – made their way south to Louisiana. They homesteaded in Jefferson Davis Parish around China. In a letter I shared previously from May of 1916, Sue wrote about how George had come close to dying on May 2 (1915). He was doing quite well in 1916 as a result of quitting his medicines and drinking cold water. (Per Grandma Sue’s letter.) She talks about how Addie and the family had moved back to Louisiana after their stint in Arkansas. She was also glad that their son Roe lived close by and could answer their ring when they needed something.

Obituary for Grandpa Hine in the Jennings Daily Times Record on May 22, 1919.

I always thought it was so sweet that Sue’s son Rowe (Roe) lived so close and could help them out in their older years. But then I realized that Rowe died only four months after that May 1916 letter was written. Like my sister Jodie, he died at the age of 36. And I’m sure his death must have impacted their family as it did ours. I’m sure that bell she mentioned in the letter was one of the bittersweet reminders of her son.

Then came that fateful day 100 years ago when George passed away after he and Sue had been married for 45 years. He was 72 years, 5 months, 6 days old. As Sue would say a few years later when speaking of her brother’s death, “the Death angel came for him.” The newspaper article that gave notice of his death talked about how much George suffered his last few years.

So Grandma Sue was probably thinking of her dear George when she wrote that letter to family about her brother’s death. Even though she wasn’t specifically writing about George, the words probably fit her sentiment about her husband’s death, “I was glad he did not have to suffer (any longer). and of course we all have that debt to pay sooner or later.”

Cox
Hine