Patureau Family Photo Circa 1864

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.

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.

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April 9, 2022 – Update

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.