Month: December 2021

Patureau Family Photo Circa 1864

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The Ferdinand and Emma Landry Patureau family circa 1864. I think the photo was taken in New Orleans, Louisiana.

I wasn’t planning on posting this photo any time soon.  It was my most favorite one that I found in the Patureau Family Cache at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas, when I visited last month.  I try to space them out a bit so I don’t run out of the good photos too quickly.  I was actually running out of Patureau photos before I went to the collection in Beaumont.  In October I even repeated a photo of my grandmother from 1921 in a post.  I’m glad that I have a good supply of photos for that line of my family.

But I decided to post it now because a distant cousin also discovered that treasure trove and posted a copy of the photo on two online genealogy sites.  So it’s already out there for anyone to see.  So I decided to edit it a bit to clean it up and make it look its best.  It didn’t take very long to get a version that I was happy with.  And this time I made sure to save it.  I had worked on a different photo for a while and then walked away.  When I came back, the computer suggested installing an update.  I said ‘yes’ and by the time I realized what I had done, it was too late.  Back to the beginning for that photo.  But besides cleaning the photo up, there are some historical details that I need to resolve.

1826 birth record for (Ferdinand) Pierre Patureau in Riberac, France.

I have already written a post about all of the members of this family, so this time I will just identify those present in the photo.  The man in the back is the patriarch of the Patureau families in the United States.  He had a sister that has several descendants, but none of them have the last name Patureau.  If you run across a Patureau in America, it’s likely that they descend from this man – Ferdinand Pierre Patureau.  He was born in France on October 26, 1826.  I have a copy of his birth record and the name given on that document is only Pierre Patureau.  According to a document I found in the Tyrrell Historical Library’s collection, he and his father were both named Pierre Ferdinand Patureau.  Instead of referring to them as Sr. and Jr., they just switched the names for the son.  So Ferdinand Pierre Patureau was the son of Pierre Ferdinand Patureau.

Ferdinand was married to Marie Emma Landry, who is seen standing next to him in the middle of the photo.  She was born in 1829, so she would be about 34 years old at the time of the photo.  The year before, she had given birth to Rose Elisa.  She would be the little girl standing on the chair.  Obviously she could not stand still enough for the photo.  So she’s more of a blur.  No amount of editing could fix that!  In the middle of the photo is their oldest son Louis Leobon.  He would start to have brothers in the next year or so.  If you notice, one of his eyes is crossed.  I would have fixed that if I thought it was just an error in the photo.  But I remember seeing a newspaper article that Leobon was vouching for an eye doctor who corrected such a thing.  I looked for the article, but can’t find it right now.  I know I’ve seen it.  I’m positive! (See Update below)

On the left we have a grouping of three daughters.  The oldest is Aline, born in 1849.  The one on the end is Marie Zelica, born in 1857.  The last three children listed all married Hebert siblings.  Leobon married Amelia, Aline married Joseph Omer, and Zelica married Louis.  There were a lot of double cousins from that threesome – 23 to be exact.  The young girl on the bottom to the left is Anna Emma.  She was born in 1860.  I found another photo of her in the collection, but it looks like it was taken at the same time as this photo.

On the right we have Zulma and Palmyre.  Zulma was the oldest (born in 1848) and “everyone’s favorite.”  I’m fond of her because she collected a lot of these old photos along with a later sister Victorine.  Many times she wrote the names of people in the photos.  Very nice.  Palmyre or Palmire was born in 1855.  It’s odd that Palmyre and Anna Emma were born five years apart and they both died almost five years apart – they were both 14.  What a terrible case of deja vu that was.

So there you have it – all of the members of the Patureau family in 1864.  I really do cherish this photo.  It’s amazing.

April 9, 2022 – Update

Times Picayune from April 23, 1884

I finally found that newspaper article about Leobon Patureau’s eyes being corrected from being cross-eyed.  The whole article talks about a Dr. Prentice who cures all manner of evil.  He sounds like a quack or snake oil salesman.  Yet, an L. Patureau claims that he was cured by the good doctor.  He says that his eyes were crossed for 29 years.  The article is from 1884, when Leobon would have been 33 years old. 

The Jennings OLHC Manger Scene Circa 1965

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Last Christmas I noticed that I had neglected talking about the history of Christmas traditions in my family when I was growing up.  So I decided to remedy that.  I wrote two posts last year at Christmas time and this is the second one I’m doing this year.  I planned this one last year after seeing a photo of the manger scene from the Catholic church that our family attended.  I got the photo from one of our neighbors back then.  (Thanks, Lionel K. for the photo.  I’m not sure where the photo came from because I saw it again this year and Mike C. was credited.  Again, thanks.)

OLHC Christmas manger scene circa 1965 in Jennings, Louisiana.

Here is what the original photo looks like.   This was the manger scene that was set up every year at the side altar of Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church in Jennings, Louisiana.  This is a large stone church that was built in 1916.  It has beautiful stained-glass windows in it that capture your attention.

But during the season of Advent leading up the Christmas, the thing that got people’s attention (at least it always got mine) was the manger scene that was set up to the side of the main altar.  I’ve heard (via Facebook) that the person responsible for the figures and background was a Mrs. Annette Hebert, with the possible assistance of the Ladies Altar Society.  I don’t remember her, but I am a fan of her work.

But this photo doesn’t look like the way I remember it.  Sure, it has the manger with Mary and Joseph in it.  At midnight mass, part of the processional was bringing the figure of the baby Jesus to the manger.  Later on the three wise men would make their way to visit the baby Jesus.  There are people standing around on the mountainside looking out to see what was going on.  (It probably wasn’t meant to be a hill or mountain, it was to show things in the distance.  It was always a mountain to me!) 

My version of the photo from 1965.

But when I was a kid, I remember being in awe of it when we went to midnight mass.  So I edited the photo to better represent the way I remember seeing it.  I tried to get it to convey the feelings I had back then when my family and I would stand around it and point out things we could make out.  So I brought myself back to that time and place as I worked on the photo.

“Look,” I said, “there’s a kid up on the mountainside!”  Karen commented on how much she loved Mary’s blue dress.  My mom was so glad she never had to give birth in such a crude environment. 

Jodie said, “Look, that guy is playing the flute.”  My dad would just nod in agreement.  There were so many details to see among the twinkling lights and people standing about.  As I came out of my reverie, I found that I had tears in my eyes.  I had to say goodbye again to my parents and two sisters.  I figured that I got the feeling of the photo right if it did that to me!

The image isn’t much to look at on a glance.  For best effect, it helps to look at it in as large of a format that you can in a darkened room.  Then you can start to make out some of the details – the darkened church walls, the dim light coming through the window, the glowing lights scattered about, the figures standing around telling their story.

But you don’t really have to.  This is about me and my family’s memories.  I’m sure you all have your own.  And we can always make more.  So love the people around you and show them kindness.  But most of all, have yourself a merry little Christmas.

The Ruined Christmas Photo

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Rob, Karen, Jamie, Jodie, Van, and Al Landry on Christmas morning in 1966 in Jennings, Louisiana.

I’ve been planning on posting this photo for a while now.  I realized last year that I hadn’t posted any Christmas photos from my own childhood.  I posted a few photos last year and decided to wait until this year for this photo.  I was actually going to use it next week, but I was pressed for time this week and this photo has already been edited to my liking.

Let’s go back to 1966 when little Van Landry was all excited about Christmas.  I was only six years old, so I probably didn’t stay up for Midnight Mass like some of the older siblings did.  After spending Christmas Eve in Lake Charles with all of my Landry cousins, we made our way back to Jennings for the night.  We may have driven around a few places in Lake Charles to look at some of the lights and decorations for the season.  I remember doing that a time or two.  We would usually get back to Jennings pretty late and it would be time for bedtime.

But how could we go to bed?  Santa was coming tonight!  It was too exciting!  I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but before you know it I was sleeping.  I always missed my chance to sneak into the other room and catch him in action.  The next thing I knew, I was waking up to the sound of Perry Como’s “Little Drummer Boy” or Fred Waring’s version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”  Those songs and many more were regular Christmas morning fare in the Landry household at 758 Lucy Street in Jennings, Louisiana.  For some reason I also associate the music from “Peter and the Wolf” with Christmas as well.  I didn’t listen for very long, because when I became fully aware, I had to go see what treasures I had!

We usually had a few gifts and a stocking full of goodies.  Our stockings were actually one of our dad’s socks!  In the sock would be an apple, an orange, some nuts and some candy, and for me there would be a matchbox car.  Of course we’d want to open our gifts immediately, but our dad wanted to take a photo of us with our gifts beforehand.  Why this delay in our immediate gratification?  But we went along.  My dad got out his fancy Polaroid camera, got us organized for the photo, told us to say “cheese,” and snapped a photo of us smiling.

Christmas morning – Take 2

At least he thought we were all smiling.  When he took the photo, I decided to make a funny face to show the excitement I had for the day.  As he saw the developed photo after waiting a while, a look of dissatisfaction came over his face.  He fussed at me for ruining the family photo and decided to take another photo of us.  I tried to behave myself the second time, but you can see that I’m still laughing about the fun photo I took the first time.  I distinctly remember him fussing at me and it seems like it would have sobered me a little.  I don’t see any sign of it in the second photo.

I still like the first photo the best.

A Bucklin and a Peck

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Earlier this year I wrote a post titled “James Bucklin and His Forebears.”  In that post I wrote about the ancestors of my great great grandfather (and my own, of course) James Bucklin (1821-1890).  One of those couples was a Bucklin and a Peck.  That would have been James Bucklin’s great grandparents (my 5x great grandparents) James Bucklin (1709-1780) and Mary Peck (1721-1770).   In that other post I followed the Bucklin line back a few generations.  This time I’ll look back along the Peck line, mainly because I found an old newspaper article about her great great grandfather Joseph Peck.

Newspaper article about Joseph Peck who originated in Beccles, England, in 1587.

We’ll start with Mary’s parents Jathniel Peck, Jr. and Damaris Bowen.  Those are some unique names – at least compared to the Bucklin line that had Marys, Josephs, James, and Sarahs.  Of course you know that the Jathniel name is repeated – he’s a junior!  Jathniel Sr. was married to Sarah Smith.  Uh, oh!  I spoke too soon.  There’s another Sarah and with the most common of names – Smith.  At least her mother had an interesting name – Esther Chickering.  Going back to the Pecks, we have Jathniel Sr.’s parents Joseph Peck, Jr. and Hannah Playford.

All of these generations lived in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.  The first generation that lived there was Joseph Jr. and Hannah.  Hannah actually died in Seekonk, Rhode Island.  If you read the article, you’ll see that Seekonk was part of the original Rehoboth.  Now Joseph Jr. is not the Joseph Peck I talked about at first.  If you were paying attention, you would know that Joseph Peck, Jr. was the great grandfather of Mary Peck.  Joseph Peck Jr. was the son of – drumroll, please – Joseph Peck Sr.  I suppose you saw that coming. 

Joseph Sr. was baptized on April 30, 1587, in the Beccles Church shown in the newspaper article.  Joseph grew up in Beccles, which is in Norfolk, England.  He married Rebecca Clark in 1617 in Hingham, England, and they had five children by the year 1635. Joseph and his family were Puritans, and his brother Robert was the pastor of their church in Hingham.  The Puritans were being persecuted in England at the time, so they decided to escape to America.   It looks like Rebecca died in 1637 before they left for the New World.  Their group arrived in North America on the Diligent in 1638.   The settlement that they founded was called Hingham, Massachusetts.

Joseph Sr. came to America with three sons and a daughter, as well as two men servants and three maid servants.  It looks like he was pretty well off, and the article talks about him being one of the most influential men of  Old Rehoboth.  It’s interesting to find information about ancestors from the early history of our country.  Since he was involved with such an historic time and was so prominent, there is a good bit of information about him.  So if you ever want to find out more about him, there is information to be found.

Maman Emma Was a Beauty

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I know I have been posting a lot of things about the Patureau family recently, but sometimes information comes to me from one family group more than from others.  And it seems lately that most of it has been Patureau related.  The main thing was the nice collection of Patureau information that was started by Victorine Patureau Cropper in the late 1800s and was continued by her daughter Kitty Cropper Rush until her death in 1997.  Kitty’s daughter inherited the information and decided to ensure that it was preserved by donating it to the Tyrrell Historical Library.  I called this Patureau cousin last week to thank her for making sure the information was taken care of and available for viewing by all of us cousins.

Marie Emma Landry Patureau circa 1864. I believe this photo was taken in New Orleans, Louisiana, at the photographic studio of A. Constant. The original photo is the Tyrrell Historical Library Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Collection (AC-824) in Beaumont, Texas. The photo edit is by Van Landry.

The photo that I’m sharing this week comes from that collection.  It is a crop of Emma Landry Patureau from a larger Patureau family portrait from around 1864.  The original photo was the photo that I was most excited to see when I went through the THLPFP Collection.  The only copy I had before was a Xerox copy from 20 or 30 years ago.  I didn’t even know if the original photo still existed.  So when I saw the original in the collection, I was elated.  There are actually two copies of the same sitting, though one of them was bigger and better than the other.  That’s what I used for this edit.

My father was Bob Landry.  His mother was Germaine Erie Patureau.  Her parents were Vincent Maximilian Patureau (Grampa Max) and Marie Therese Landry.  Grampa Max was the son of Ferdinand Pierre Patureau and Marie Emma Landry.  So Ferdinand and Emma were my great great grandparents.  I am only one of several hundred people who can make that claim.  There are a lot of Patureau family members out there!

But I’m going to talk about the Landry side of the family since the photo is of Emma.  The photo actually had a Landry reference written on the back of it.  Besides having the information of the photographic studio, it also had the words “Pour Mme. Sosthene” written on it.  They were French after all.  Ferdinand and his parents immigrated from Riberac, France, which was in the Dordogne department.  Emma was mostly from Acadian ancestors.  They also spoke French, but more likely a Cajun French from the south Louisiana area.  So you end up with “For Mrs. Sosthene” when you translate the writing on the reverse of the photo.

Reverse side of 1864 photo.

That may not tell you that it was a Landry reference, but it was a clue for me.  Emma was the daughter of Elie Onezime Landry and Jeanne Zerbine Dupuy.  They had a son before her, but when she was born in November of 1829, he had recently died or would soon die.  All I know is that little Leon Landry was born in 1826 and he died around 1829.  Onezime and Zerbine had another daughter in 1831 and she was named Henriette Zulma Landry.  She was named after her French grandmother Henriette Serrette Dupuy.  I’ve written a post about Henriette and her husband Magloire before.

It looks like all of my Landry families moved from St. Gabriel, Louisiana, to Brusly sometime around the 1820s or 30s.  Emma was born in St. Gabriel and her sister Zulma was born in Brusly.  Their Uncle Narcisse (Landry) and Aunt Marie Carmelite were in Brusly in 1820 and that’s where their youngest sons (my ancestors) Trasimond and Alcide were born.  Uncle Manuel (Landry) and Aunt Celeste were also in Brusly in 1820 and their youngest daughters (my ancestors) Anna Adele and Marguerite Basalite were born there.  So Emma, Zulma, and their younger siblings would have grown up around their Landry cousins in Brusly.

Emma got married to Ferdinand on February 10, 1847.  By the time that Zulma got married in 1853, Emma had already given birth to Elizabeth Zulma, Marie Aline, and Louis Leobon.  I’m not exactly sure where those first children were born.  Everything that I’ve read says that they were born in Brusly.  No mention of any other place the family lived until they moved to Plaquemine in the 1850s.  But the US Census shows the Patureau family living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1850.  It looks like other researchers missed this little bit of information.  It is understandable.  They are listed as a F. Paturo who was from France, along with the wife Emma who was born in Louisiana.  Their first two daughters are listed as Elizabeth and Ellen.  I’m sure it is them.

Letter from Zulma to her sister Emma

I haven’t found Zulma Landry in the 1850 Census.  I need to find that to clarify some confusion about the family.  It doesn’t help that Elie Onezime Landry had an older brother named Elie. I know that Emma’s sister goes by the name Zulma because that’s how she signs a letter that she wrote to Emma in 1851.  She mentions Zulma (Patureau), Aline, and Leobon by name and encourages them to be reasonable or well-behaved and not to give their maman and papa any trouble. She signs off in French with “your sister, Zulma.”   

In a later letter, she signs it with a “Zulma A.” That’s because she was married and her husband’s last name was Aillet.  When Emma had a photo made of herself with Ferdinand and the kids in 1864, of course she wanted to send a copy of it to her sister.   For some reason she didn’t write “Pour ma soeur” or “Pour Zulma A.” or even “Pour Mme. Aillet.”  No, she decided to go with Zulma’s husband’s first name Sosthene.  So there it is!  Her sister Zulma was Mme Sosthene.

Earlier version of the 1864 photo. This is the best edit I could do with that one.