June, 2019 | Family History

Landry Family at the Park

June 27, 2019 Van Leave a comment

Landry family circa 1952

Here is a nice photo of my dad’s family from around 1952. This is when the family was growing at a rapid pace. He and his brothers and sisters were getting married and starting to have children. As you can see, a few of them have already made their appearance.

My dad was Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. Most people called him Bob or Pluto, though the family called him Bobbie. Not me, of course, I called him Daddy. But I don’t think he was a father at this point. I’m not even sure if he was married then, either.

Of course I know that my parents were married on November 1, 1952, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. I’m thinking that this photo was taken either at the I-10 Park in Lake Charles or at Sam Houston Park north of Lake Charles. I’m judging the year based on who is in the photo. Of course my godmother Shirley is there. She is “The First” after all. The first three were born in the late 1940s, and that included her younger brother Hubey and cousin Mark.

Let me identify the people in the photo before I mention any more people. Starting on the left, you’ll find our dear sweet grandmother. That’s my dad’s mom. We called her Mee Maw. (or Memaw as some like to say) Her name was Germaine Erie Patureau Landry. She was “Mrs. Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.” She was very traditional, what can I say? Standing next to her is my aunt Mildred Sutherlin Landry. She was the mother of Shirley Landry Shaw, who is standing next to her. Shirley is standing in front of our aunt Frances Landry (later Raley). Frances looks like she might be thinking something negative about something she is looking at. But that couldn’t be possible, because she never had any negative thoughts! She’s likely just blinking while the camera shutter snaps.

In front of Shirley and Frances is a young boy. He’s most likely Hubey, because he’s sitting in his father Hubert Landry’s lap. Behind him are standing the oldest brother A. J. Landry and my dad. Sitting at the table is my godfather Johnny Landry. Now the next person definitely looks like she is not happy. That’s my aunt Marie Landry Reeves. She was the mother of my cousin Mark. Maybe she’s upset that she doesn’t have her son in the photo? Nor her husband. Or maybe that’s Mark in the photo and Aunt Germaine is holding him. If that were the case, then shouldn’t that glare be turned toward Germaine. I suppose I’m reading it all wrong. I’m sure Aunt Marie was very happy that day. Anyone can see that! Right?

So what’s throwing me off about the date of this photo is that when I first saw it, I thought the child on the right was Germaine’s daughter Daphne. She wasn’t born in the 40s, so it would push the year back a little. If it is her, there should be more grandchildren in the photo. Also missing from the photo is Pee Paw, Aunt Wana and Uncle Duffy, Uncle Ross, and Uncle Malloy. One of them was probably taking the photo. I’m sure my older cousins will help me out with these uncertainties.

Either way, it is a dreamy picture of some of the Landry family in the early 50s.

40 Year High School Reunions

June 20, 2019 Van Leave a comment

Van Landry, a 1979 graduate

This weekend I am going to my 40 year high school reunion. How can that be? I don’t feel like I’m 40 years older and I’m sure everybody is thinking that I don’t look old enough for a 40 year reunion from high school. Right? In my mind, I am that young guy going to the local photo studio one sunny summer afternoon in the late 70s to have a senior portrait made.

But really, who am I kidding? It was definitely forty years ago. My fellow classmates and I put on our caps and gowns on the evening of May 17, 1979, and got ready to head to the stadium. The girls in the group wore white gowns as the guys wore maroon. That’s because we were the Bulldogs from Jennings High School from Jennings, Louisiana, and those were our school colors.

Betty, Jamie, Van, and Bob Landry on May 17, 1979.

Before I left for the ceremony, I had to take a few photos with my family. Here I am with my mom and dad and my younger sister Jamie. I was the fifth child in my family to graduate from high school and Jamie would graduate the following year. My mom would be turning 46 a few days later, and my dad was 50 years old.

I remember thinking my dad was pretty old since I was in junior high, if not earlier. My mom was no spring chicken herself, yet they still had a few years before their own 40 year high school reunions. After taking the photos, we headed over to the stadium for the ceremony.

The Jennings High School class of 1979

I’m not going to look up the facts about the situation because using my memory will prove just how old I am! From what I remember there were 209 graduating seniors in our class. Supposedly it was the biggest class that there ever was at the time from the school. I also think that I’ve heard that there was never a larger class. Perhaps that’s true. I’m sure I’ll be corrected in the likely situation that I’m wrong.

Can you see me in the group photo? I’m on the right side of the photo in the maroon gown with a gold collar. That was another school color. So maroon, white, and gold were our school colors. Hmm, I think gray was another one. Can you have four school colors? But I think that’s all of them: maroon, white, gray, and gold. I won’t bore you with all of the other details from that night, mostly because I can’t remember them all! Remember? It was 40 years ago! Our class song was “The Theme From Mahogany.”

I was thinking about my reunion all this week. My classmates have been posting information off and on. I was looking through my family history information and ran across something interesting. It is a newspaper article about my grandfather’s 40th year high school anniversary in 1966. I knew when I saw it that I was going to have to include it in my post this week.

My mom was Betty Lou Bucklin Landry, and her father is the Fred Bucklin talked about in this article. He also had four older siblings that had graduated before him, though his graduating class included his identical twin Clarence and their younger sister Edna.

I am not mentioned by name in the article, but I am one of the grandsons that helped him have more grandchildren than any of his classmates. I don’t remember my grandfather going to his reunion, but I can remember lots of things in my life from 1966 and before. And one thing I am quite sure of: my grandfather was a really old man ever since I was a kid.

So this brings me to one glaring conclusion – I really am an old fart! There’s no getting around it. But that’s okay. Like I said at the first, I’m not alone in this. All my classmates are old farts, too!

Reunion update:

Thank you, Jean Coco, for reminding me that “The Way We Were” was our class song. I went to my Memories book to confirm this and found a newspaper clipping from the day after our graduation.

…found another article about my grandfather’s 40th anniversary online…

1966 was the year of my grandfather Fred Bucklin’s 40th year anniversary of graduating Elton High School

The Bucklins in 1950: Color by Betty Lou

June 13, 2019 Van One comment

Fred D. and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin family in 1950

This is the best photo of my mom and her family from when she was growing up. I posted a family photo of them from 1948, but that one didn’t include her parents. There were several photos taken on the day of this photo, with some of them looking like they were trying to be serious. But inevitably, one of them was laughing or smiling.

This is the Fred and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin family in 1950. Fred Bucklin married Myrtle Phenice on March 12, 1930, at the Raymond Methodist Church in Raymond, Louisiana. The day before their first anniversary, they had their first daughter Sylvia Daisy Bucklin. She is the dark haired beauty standing on the far left of the photo. Their next daughter was my mom Betty Lou Bucklin, who was born on May 20, 1933. She is standing on the far right of the photo. Their next daughter was Alma Marie, who was born on November 10, 1935. She is the blond standing next to my mom. Their fourth and final daughter was Loris Janet, who was born August 31, 1937. She is the brunette with the inquisitive look standing next to Sylvia. Then, the day after their 12th wedding anniversary, a little boy finally showed up. Austin Harry can be seen front and center in the photo.

This photo is actually a composite of two of the photos taken that day. Most of the photo is from one original photo, but I swapped the part of my mom with another photo that I thought was better of her. These photos are really difficult to work with. They are textured and matte finish, which makes them look scaly when they are scanned. I remember my mom liking the quality of the paper with that particular finish. She said that it worked really well for tinting photos. And that’s exactly what she did with one of them.

The colorful Fred and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin family in 1950. Color by Betty Lou.

This is the family photo that she tinted. It was this photo that was on my mind this week when I was considering my blog post. I recently joined a group on Facebook that provides free colorizing of old photos. I submitted one of my dad’s father and it came out nicely.

When I first started doing any type of photo editing, one of the things that I did was tinting black and white photos. I later decided to focus on making the photos as clear as possible by removing blemishes and improving the contrast and lighting.

But I’ve seen some really good colorizing that has made me reconsider my view. Maybe I’ll follow in my mom’s tinted footsteps and you’ll see a future post titled “Color by Van.”

Update Dec. 20, 2020 – replace photos with enhanced versions for more detail in the faces

Christmas 1923 With Grandma Amelie

June 6, 2019 Van Leave a comment

The first time I remember seeing this photo was shortly after clearing out my parents’ house in January 2016. I was the one that took all of the old photos and genealogy information for both of my parents. I was thinking that I was familiar with all of the old photos that they had, but I was wrong. There were several photos that I had seen online from other relatives that I had hoped to get copies of, and I discovered that I now had those photos.

But there were several others like this one that I didn’t recall seeing anywhere else. I found this image on a slide that was in a box of many more. On the border of the slide, it reads “Grandma Amelie + women who spent last Christmas with her 1923.” (As you can see in the photo I posted.)

I knew who Amelie was. She is my great great grandmother. My dad was Bob Landry and his mother was Erie Patureau Landry. Her mother was Marie Therese Landry Patureau, who was the oldest daughter of Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol Landry Babin. Boy, that is a mouth-full! But she was known by simpler names, such as Belite, Amelie, Grandma Amelie, or Grandma Babin.

But who were all of these women spending Grandma Belite’s last Christmas with her? My first thought was that it was some kind of women’s retreat that she had gone to. But really, what 80-year-old woman goes on a retreat a month before she dies? Not that she knew she was going to die just over a month later (Jan. 28, 1924), but you can see that she seems a bit frail in this photo. I then considered that some of the women were family members. I didn’t really give it much more thought, because I didn’t really recognize anyone in the photo.

Van Landry with dad’s first cousin Sis Vicknair.

A little over a year later in July 2017, I went to a Landry family reunion in Lake Charles. Of course there were lots of cousins there. One of those cousins was my dad’s first cousin Sis, who has been collecting Patureau family information for a while. When she was sharing her book, I saw this photo again! And she had the names of everyone in the photo! After seeing some more of her photos and some of the ones I had, we realized we need to meet up and share.

Amazingly, we actually followed through with that! Me and my own first cousins haven’t done the same thing, yet. We’ve been talking about it for a few years. Someday soon, I say, very soon.

Grandma Amelie + women Christmas 1923

So this is the photo that Sis shared with me. I’ve edited it to clean it up a bit and now I can tell you who all of those women are. I should have suspected that they were her grandchildren. She was referred to as “Grandma Amelie” on the notation after all! They all descended from her.

On the front row is Emma Patureau Mouton, Hazel Landry, and Wana C. Landry. The back row is Sylvie Patureau, Naomi “Sis” Landry, Therese Wynhoven “Tez” Mouton (held by Sis), Grandma Belite, Clemence Babin Landry, Lydwin Patureau, Mona Mel Mouton (held by MTP), Marie Therese “Bee” Patureau, and Zita Patureau.

The main thing I don’t like about this photo is that my Mee Maw isn’t in it! Neither is her sister Lorena. Their mother Marie Therese Landry Patureau wasn’t in it because she died in 1909, but their sisters Emma, Sylvie, Lydwin, Bee, and Zita were there. It also includes Emma’s daughters Tez and Mona Mel. Mee Maw was expecting her first child in a few months, so maybe that’s why she didn’t attend the gathering. Besides grandchildren and great grandchildren, one of her daughters is in the mix. Clemence was her daughter by Belite’s marriage to Magloire Babin. Clemence was married to Louis Joseph Peter Landry, and their daughters were Sis, Hazel, and Wana C.

I was considering explaining all of the other ways that everyone was related to one another, but it got really confusing quickly. Best just to say that Belite looks like she had a lovely gathering for her final Christmas with her family.

Dec. 17, 2021 – Update

I’ve been looking over some videos that my dad made and noticed some bits of information about this photo. This photo was taken at Uncle Louie and Aunt Clem’s home on South College Road in Lafayette, Louisiana. The copy of the photo I had from Daddy was a slide photo. I think he got that from his first cousin Naomi “Sis” Landry Vincent, the daughter of Louie and Clem. She put together a slide show of all of her old photos and got together with Daddy to explain who everyone was in those photos. An extremely helpful slideshow that fills in a lot of gaps that I had. Thanks again, Daddy and Sis, as well as cousin Tez who shared some of her photos as well.