Month: November 2021

A Boy Scout, A Ukulele, and a Rattan Couch

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Jamie, Jodie, Al, Karen, Van, and Rob Landry circa November 1966 in Jennings, Louisiana.

I went looking for a photo that related to Thanksgiving, and this is what I came  up with.  I don’t think it is from a Thanksgiving, but the estimated date for it is November 1966. So it’s kinda close to the time of Thanksgiving from 55 years ago.  And since I’m always thankful for the large family that I grew up in, I thought it was appropriate.  Plus it’s just a good photo of us kids back in the day. 

So this is me and my siblings at our family home at 758 Lucy Street in Jennings, Louisiana.  From left to right is Jamie, Jodie, Al, Karen, Me (Van), and Rob Landry.  Our parents were Bob and Betty Landry.  We’re sitting in the den of the house.  I know that because it has paneling on the wall and I think it was the only room in the house with paneling until a few years later.  Plus it has the rattan couch that we are sitting on.  That couch was in the den against the east wall until we got the pool table at a later date. 

The other thing that brings back memories is the Boy Scout uniform that my brother Rob is wearing.  I remember that he went to a place called Camp Edgewood with the Scouts.  It is somewhere between DeQuincy and Ragley, Louisiana.  I remember the whole family riding in the famous Country Squire station wagon to go pick him up.  My dad was driving, of course, but the memorable part of it was that it was misty and chilly outside and the windshield was fogging up.  He and someone else – my mom, I think, who doesn’t like fooling with buttons and such – were trying to get it to clear up.  Nothing worked and my dad eventually ended up rolling down the side window and sticking his head out to see where we were going.  It seemed a bit concerning at the time, but seems funny now.

The uniform also reminds me of going to pick out Christmas trees after Thanksgiving.  I think the scoutmaster was Arthur Sneed.  At least he is the person that I think about when I think about getting Christmas trees back in the 60s in Jennings.  The Boy Scouts were somehow connected to providing Christmas trees.  He and my dad would always chat and have a good laugh.  I would sometimes wonder why he didn’t laugh that way around us.  I recently went to a funeral for a classmate who was from the Sneed family.  One of the first things I noticed were all of the people that had on Scout uniforms.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – for the Sneed family and the Landry family.  There is something reassuring about that.

Landry family get together in Galveston, Texas, November 2021.

For the Landry family I am referring to the ukulele seen in this photo.  My youngest sister Jamie is playing the uke in this photo.  We all learned how to play the ukulele and/or the guitar and a band instrument when we were growing up.  What do you expect?  Our dad was a band director!  The family recently got together in Texas for the marriage of her youngest daughter.  And of course, we had our ukuleles and guitars to play.  Al had gifted me a ukulele for my birthday a few weeks ago (thanks again!) and encouraged me to bring it.  So there was some singing and playing going on at our get together. 

We also played some card games.  It was more enjoyable to me than usual.  Not just because I won – that helped.  It was also because there wasn’t much arguing over rules.  Someone listening from the outside might not have noticed much difference.  We can get rather loud when we are playing games!  Our family has a habit of talking over each other at times, and when we play games it is even more pronounced.   I love it!  And I’m thankful for it.

I hope you are able to find things to be thankful for.  Happy Thanksgiving 2021!

Patureau Family History Cache

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THLPFP Collection Box 3 includes a photo album of old Patureau family. This is the cover of the album.

A couple of months ago I found out about a collection of Patureau family memorabilia that had been donated to a library in Beaumont, Texas.  (Thanks, Dana P. for the heads up.)  What?  I thought.  Why would someone donate family history information to a library when there are so many Patureau family members out there with an interest in family history?  The online information about the Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Papers at the Tyrrell Historical Library showed that it included old photos, French documents, death notices, correspondence, and much more.  Old photos?  I want old photos!  And there were a few old Patureau family photos that I have been on the lookout for.

So I decided to add a stop in Beaumont to view this collection after a visit with family in Galveston last weekend.  After two delays from Covid, my niece was having a family get together for renewal of her vows.  We had a great time getting together after being apart for so long.  I even got to meet three of my newest family members – Max, Kate, and Jacob.  The family keeps growing!  So, once the weekend was over, I stopped in Beaumont on the way home to see what this Patureau collection was all about.

THLPFP Collection Box 3 includes a cigar box.

Now, my line of the family has been collecting Patureau information for a few generations.  It started with my grandmother Erie Patureau Landry.  Like I said a few weeks ago, I once thought she was one of the main persons that were exploring the Patureau line.  I found out that there were several people who have shown interest in the Patureau family through the years.  And now I think that it is impossible for anyone to have more Patureau information than what is in the collection at the Tyrrell Historical Library for Pierre Ferdinand Patureau (ID number AC-824).  Let’s call it the THLPFP Collection.  It will be the source of many a Patureau posts in the future.

It is overwhelming.  There are six boxes of items.  I went directly to Box 3 because it had a photo album in it.  Of course that would be the first one I would go to!  I was not disappointed.  I found the original photo of my great great grandfather Ferdinand Pierre Patureau (son of Pierre Ferdinand) that I had a copy of.  I also found a photo of his wife Marie Emma Landry Patureau that I had never seen before.  I’m not sharing those photos now, because I need to clean them up a bit and see if any modern day magic can improve them.  I am posting a picture of the cover of the album.  The other thing in Box 3 was a cigar box.  I’m not sure what the significance of the cigar box is.   I’ve heard stories of very small babies born into the family and the baby was kept in a cigar box.  None of those stories were associated with the Patureau family.

THLPFP Collection Box 5 also had a photo album. This is the cover.

The next box I looked into was Box 5.  It included prayer books and another photo album.  This album had several really old family photos.  Many of them were tintypes.  It is a shame that many of them were not identified.  But some of them were.  I found an unidentified photo that I thought was my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian Patureau (Grampa Max) wearing some type of military or band uniform.  I had never seen the photo before and wasn’t sure it was him.  There were several prayer books in this box.  I think most of them belonged to Victorine Patureau Cropper.  She was Grampa Max’s youngest sister.  She is the one that started this amazing collection.

But the most exciting thing I found was the original photo of Ferdinand Pierre Patureau and Marie Emma Landry Patureau with their family from around 1864.  I shared a pitiful copy of the photo back in 2018 when cousin Melwyn died.  It was the only copy I had back then, but it’s the oldest photo of the Patureau family that I know of.  I can’t wait to share this photo once I have cleaned it up.

Signature of Pierre Patureau from his 1856 passport.

The next box of goodies that I looked into was Box 6.  It is an oversized box that included a few large photos in it.  They were all of the old portrait of Ferdinand Patureau.  He died in 1877 at the age of 51, so the photo was at some point before then.  The box also had the original passports of Pierre Patureau from 1840 and 1856.  There is also a document from 1863 for Ferdinand Patureau that came from Cuba.  I’m not sure what it is.  There are a few pieces of sheet music, some newspaper clippings, a Cropper family tree, and a few letters in there as well.

THLPFP Collection Box 4 included some letters from Ferdinand to Emma.

I looked at Box 4 next.  It had a ledger from 1866 that Ferdinand Patureau used to keep track of his sawmill business.  It’s interesting to see some of the history of their business, but what was even better were some of the letters that were pressed between the pages.  The letters are undated, but many of them are from Ferdinand to Emma.  Most of them end with him telling her, “I  embrace you with all my heart.”  So sweet!  I’m posting one of the short notes he wrote.  I’m not sure what it says, so I could be taking a risk.  I hope it isn’t too scandalous!  Beside the ledger, it has an order book from 1905 and a trial balance book from 1930.  You can see that they were later used to hold newspaper clippings and to write down some family history information.  The letters were the best.

Death notice from my great great grandfather Narcisse Landry from 1876 in Brusly, Louisiana.

Box 2 has lots of family documents in it: Cropper family photos, Crixell family photos, copies of the Emma Landry Patureau photo, a new photo of Ferdinand that I’ve never seen before, a Mexican passport for Ferdinand in 1865, and various other papers.  I had been looking through this information for over 2 hours or so when I got to these last two folders.  I was rushing furiously through them taking photos.  I really didn’t have time to see much of the details on all of the things I photographed.  I saved that for later.  I finally made it to the last box, which just happened to be Box 1.

Box 1 had an assortment of family history information that had been collected by Patureau family members through the years.  I already had some of it.  I even saw my name in a list of some descendants!  Then there were more letters written in French in folder after folder.  I didn’t have time to photograph them.  And really, when am I ever going to have time to read those??  I’d have to get them translated before I could even do that.  I already have copies of letters that I’ve never gotten translated.  So I skipped over several folders and looked through the death notices.  The collection had one for Pierre Patureau, which I had never seen before.  It also had one for Narcisse Landry, which I have seen before – twice.  It’s amazing that I’ve seen three copies of that same document from 1876. 

Graduation card for my great grandfather V. M. Patureau. I wonder what this was for? Circa 1885 in Plaquemine, Louisiana.

In Box 1 there was a folder of postcards that I almost passed over.  I decided to skim through them and boy am I glad I did.  In among these generic postcards was a card that looked like a graduation card or some such thing.   The name on the card was V. M. Patureau.  It was for Grampa Max!  But not only that, it had a small photo that matched the one I saw earlier that I had suspected was him.  I was correct.  Now I want to know what this card was for.  Any suggestions.

Before I saw this collection, I was a little miffed that someone gave all of this wonderful stuff to a library when they could have left it with someone who was really interested in the Patureau family – like me!  But now that I’ve seen how extensive the collection is, I’ve changed my mind.  I think it is probably in the best place for it.  Sure, I would like for it to be a little closer to Plaquemine, Louisiana, where the Patureau family first settled.  But there are a lot of Patureau family members who live in Texas as well.  And I really wouldn’t want to take care of all of those important documents.  I think there are plans for the library to digitize the collection at some point, so that would be even better.  If that happens, we can all see the whole collection from our homes at a leisurely pace.

That’s a good thing.  I think my back is still a little sore from standing over those items for three hours taking photos at just the right angle with just the right amount of light.  It was worth the trouble.  I still may have to revisit it at some point.

Bucklin Burials: Part 2

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Van Landry (author) with the grave of his great great grandfather James A. Bucklin in the Raymond Methodist Cemetery on Nov. 6, 2021.

This is Part 2 of a post that I wrote two years ago.  I wrote that one because I had acquired a photo of my great grandfather’s (Louis Charles Bucklin’s) burial at Raymond Methodist Cemetery in Raymond, Louisiana.  It also showed the original look of his father James A. Bucklin’s grave.  In the selfie I took with that grave this past weekend, there is no obelisk sitting on top of the base.

But that’s not why I was there this weekend.  I was attending the funeral of my mom’s first cousin Ray Bucklin.  Besides being family, he and I shared an interest in genealogy and family history.  I suppose that’s why he was buried at this cemetery.  Even though he had lived in Florida for many years, he was buried at the old family grave site.  He is probably the last of four generations of Bucklins to be buried at that graveyard.

There may be other relatives buried in that graveyard in the future, but it’s likely that he will be the last family member with the Bucklin last name buried there.  His father Herbert Bucklin is buried there, as is his grandfather Louis Charles Bucklin (our common ancestor).  Louis’s father James A. Bucklin was the first Bucklin family member buried there.  He brought his family down to Louisiana in 1884 from Massachusetts.

James Bucklin actually had three sons, but only his son Louis has descendants at this point.  Louis had nine sons, but only three of them had a son.  Herbert was the father of Ray and Ray did not have any children.  Robert, Sr. had a son named Robert, Jr.  He had a daughter, so the Bucklin name did not carry on.  My grandfather Fred had a son.  Austin is still with us and he has grandsons with the Bucklin name, but they are not connected to the Raymond area.

Family members of Ray Bucklin at his gravesite on Nov. 6, 2021, at Raymond Methodist Cemetery in Raymond, Louisiana.

So the family that came to pay respects to Ray are like me.  We’re part of the Bucklin family, but we don’t have the last name Bucklin.  We took a photo at the grave site and that is the picture I’m sharing today.  I warned them beforehand, so I guess that means that I have their permission to do so. 

I’ll name people by how they connect to the children of our common ancestor Louis C. Bucklin.  In the front row is the surviving family of Herbert Bucklin.  From the left is his son-in-law Joseph Connors III, the husband of Louise Bucklin Connors.  She is sitting next to him.  Next to her are their sons Joseph and John Connors. 

On the back row are the cousins.  First up on the left is me, Van Landry.  I am the son of Betty Lou Bucklin Landry and the grandson of Fred Bucklin.  Next is Kristi Jackson Davidson.  She is the daughter of Jeannette Bucklin Jackson and the granddaughter of Roy Bucklin.  To the right of her is Charles Bruchhaus, son of Harley Bruchhaus and grandson of Ruth Bucklin Bruchhaus.  Directly behind Louise is Carol Taylor Fraser.  She is the daugther of Helen Bucklin Taylor and the granddaughter of Ralph Bucklin. 

The next four people are first cousins of Ray and Louise.  First we have a female cousin on the Koll side of the family.  Sorry, I can’t remember her name even though she nicely introduced herself.  Second is Doris Bucklin Lawson.  She is the younger daughter of Roy Bucklin.  That would make her Kristi’s aunt.  Third is a male cousin on the Koll side of the family.  Again, I can’t remember his name.  And fourth is Arlene Keys Ware.  She is the daughter of Edna Bucklin Keys.  She is related to my mom on both sides of the family through the Bucklin and Keys families.  The person on the far right in the back is Lauren Bruchhaus Fruge (not Foley!  I said it incorrectly a few times.  Sorry!)  She is the daughter of Laurence Bruchhaus and the granddaughter of Ruth Bucklin Bruchhaus.  That would make her Charles’s first cousin.

It was good getting together with cousins to remember Ray.    Some of my mom’s Phenice first cousins were at the Methodist Church Annex after the grave site visit because they were helping to prepare the food for lunch afterward.  It was good to see them, also.  With this group of cousins, the common family background and DNA was noticeable.  Certain phrases, smiles, and mannerisms among them reminded me of my mom.  She was a part of all of our lives.

Since today is Veteran’s day, I would like to thank all of those who have served our country in the military.  Ray Bucklin was one of those.  He served in the Air Force.   Hat’s off to him.

Samuel Phenice’s Civil War Record

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It seems like I write a post about my great great grandfather’s Civil War experiences every two years.  This is the third one I have written about it.  (See  A Witness at Ford’s Theatre from 2017 and Eating Tacks in the Civil War from 2019.)  Of course I mention the fact that he was in the Civil War more frequently.  Besides sharing a document about my ancestor Samuel Charles Phenice from the War Department, I’m sharing a photo of him.  The document has a date of December 18, 1890, but the photo didn’t come with a date.  I’m guessing that it is from around 1935.

Samuel Charles Phenice in Almena, Kansas, circa 1935.

I’m sharing the photo of Charles first, because most people are more interested in people photos that old musty documents.  Fortunately for you, I will share both of them.  I find the musty old documents interesting, too.  The photo is not the best photo I have of him, but I still like it.  It comes from a photo of him with two of his daughters and a son-in-law by way of the Lincoln Collection (thank you, Mona!).  The photo is a bit distorted, especially of the other people in the photo.  Maybe I’ll get a bet version of it some day.

From the approximate ages of the people in the photo, I estimated it to be taken around 1935.  Samuel was born in 1844 in Mercer County, Pennsylvania.  That would make him around 90 years old in this photo.  He lived to the ripe old age of 95.  Not too bad for a guy that was shot and could have died during the Civil War when he was just 20 years old.  It was sometime around 1935 that he went to live with his daughter Myrtle.  Not his granddaughter Myrtle who was my grandmother.  Her name was Myrtle Phenice Bucklin.  Charles’s daughter was Myrtle Phenice Cozad.

That Myrtle lived in Almena, Kansas, but it’s not like Charles moved far away to live with his daughter.  He lived by himself in Precept, Nebraska, which is near the southern border of Nebraska.  Kansas is on the other side of that border and the first town you come to is Almena in Norton County.  It’s only about 10 to 15 miles away.  It’s out in the middle of nowhere with fields surrounding you as far as the eye can see.  So this photo was taken somewhere in that area.  In 1936, he was one of only two surviving veterans of the Civil War in Norton County, Kansas.

Dec. 18, 1890, document from the War Department for Samuel Phenice.

Though he was known as a Civil War Veteran for 70 years at that time, he only served for a short few months.  That’s because he was injured in the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5, 1864.  This document shows the exact dates of when he was injured and the hospitals he was admitted to.  He was a private in Company F of  the 57th Pennsylvania Volunteers.  He mustered in at New Brighton on Feb. 12, 1864.  Following that:

May 5 – received severe flesh wound to the thigh

May 24 – entered Carver General Hospital in Washington, DC, with gunshot wound

May 31 – transferred to Haddington in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

June 16/17 – entered General Hospital in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

October 8 – transferred to Invalids Corps

It doesn’t mention it in this document, but other sources show that he was in a field hospital between receiving the injury and entering Carver G. H. in Washington.  During that time it was taken over by Confederate forces and was unable to get adequate treatment.  He suffered from severe hunger and gangrene.  I’m not sure how long he was under medical care between the June and October dates.  I’ve also seen something that showed that he suffered from that injury most of his life.  It didn’t keep him from farming and homesteading in Nebraska.  He seemed to have an active life.

I’ll leave you with one of the many articles about Charles that I have found.  It concerns his activity while in the Invalid Corps.  He was assigned to Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.  and was there on the night of April 14, 1865.  Cue the curtain to rise for the performance of “Our American Cousin.”

Sioux City Journal on Feb. 21, 1938.