Month: February 2022

Landry Family in 1964

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Bob Landry with his six children in 1964 in Jennings, Louisiana.

I felt like posting a photo from my own childhood, so that’s what I’m doing.  It takes a lot of thought to try to figure out who’s who, what’s what, and when’s when in those old photos.  Not that I can remember everything about photos taken in my own childhood, but at least I have a better idea of what’s happening!

I was drawn to this photo for a couple of reasons.  It’s a good photo of everyone, it has the family dog and the family car in it, and it’s obviously taken after we went to Sunday church.  I had also previously edited the photo and enhanced it.  That saves a lot of time for the evening of putting a post together.

I don’t have to guess about who is in this photo.  It’s my siblings and me with our dad.  Behind most of us is my younger sister Jamie in the arms of my dad.  His name was Robert Joseph Landry, Jr.  He was called Bobbie, Bob, Pluto, Daddy, and Pappy, depending on who you were.  In the front is Rob (RJL, III), Al, Van (me), Jodie, and Karen. 

The dog in the photo was Princess.  She was a good dog.  She had at least one litter of puppies, because I can remember climbing under the house around this age to get the puppies out so we could play with them.  Princess had them under the steps of our old house in Jennings just north of the Interstate 10 on Highway 26.  We had Princess with us when we moved into town later this year.  She ended up getting hit by a car and killed on Roberts Avenue just a few blocks from our home.  I remember Jodie coming in the house crying and frantic because Princess had gotten hit.

The Volkswagen van in the photo also brings back memories.  It must have been our family car when I was born or shortly thereafter.  I remember it being under the carport at our house in Lake Charles when I was just 1 or 2.  The funny thing about it is that in my memory, there are no back seats.  It was just open space.  Maybe my dad took the seats out so he could haul something around and that left an impression on me.  Even after we got rid of the vehicle, we had the seats at our house on Lucy Street.

I can’t believe it!  That’s not a Volkswagen van!  I think I started to realize that because I was questioning the spelling of the name.  I looked at another photo of this van and it definitely had ‘wagon’ on it.  Obviously, I have never been someone who knows what kind of car they’re looking at.  My adjectives for vehicles are mainly a color and whether it is a car, truck, or van.  So I asked Chuck and he said it was a Ford.  So I did a search for Ford vans in the 1960s and I found the Ford Falcon Club Wagon in the same color blue as ours was.

Betty Lou Bucklin Landry with her five children in 1961 in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

But then I did a search in our older photos and found the 1961 photo of the family and the vehicle in that photo definitely was a Volkswagen.  So there were two vans that we had back then.  I can be forgiven for making that simple mistake.  And here I was saying how at least I know what’s going on in photos of myself as a child.  I had considered using this photo in the post, but decided against it since Jamie wasn’t around yet. 

So I saw photos of two different vehicles and didn’t notice the difference.  In my defense, there are no color cues to give it away.  That’s my main way of distinguishing vehicles.  So if this vehicle was also blue, then I would have made the same mistake anyway!  I’m thinking that they were both blue.  It’s like Karen was choosing the color of our vehicles back then!  This photo has my mom in it and it was taken at our house on Clover Drive in Lake Charles.

So there you have it – a trip down memory lane.  And we were not just traveling in one vehicle, but two.  We may not have realized it was two at first, but at least we caught on after a while!

Patureau and Landry Musicians Circa 1900

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Kelly’s String Band from Plaquemine, Louisiana, circa 1900.

I’ve posted this photo before, but it was a poor quality version of the photo.  Then at the end of last year I was given an original copy of the photo when I went to pick up an amazing Patureau family heirloom.  The photo is a cabinet card from around 1900 in Plaquemine, Louisiana.  It came from a Patureau relative, which makes sense because three of the people in the photo are Patureau relatives.  Even though I still have several photos to edit from the Patureau Collection from Beaumont, I decided to edit this photo anyway.  I even made a colorized version with a new and improved program. I like the results.

When I posted the photo previously, I didn’t know the connection that I had with one of the other band members – Wade Landry.  I found out the connection a while back.  But those two things by themselves wasn’t enough to cause me to write a post about the photo again.  What pushed me over the edge in deciding to write about this topic was something that was shared on Facebook last week.  In the Plaquemine – My Home Town group, B. D. posted a newspaper article that talked about a tragic accident that happened in Plaquemine in 1907.

Before I tell you about that, let me introduce you to everyone.  (Drum roll, please!) In front on the left, playing the trumpet is our very own Joseph Alcide Patureau (1868-1919).  Alcide was three years younger than his brother Max.  Vincent Maximilian Patureau was the father of my paternal grandmother.  I’ve never heard of Grampa Max playing any musical instrument.  Front and center with the banjo is Alcide and Max’s younger brother Abel Omer Patureau (1870-1917).  Also in the front row is another Patureau family member – Joseph Ferdinand Hebert.  His mother was Aline Patureau Hebert – older sister to Alcide, Max, and Omer.  Ferdinand played the mandolin.  In the second row we have Nick Manola on the upright bass.  It looks like he tears up those strings.  One of them looks like it is wrapped around the head of the instrument.  I don’t know of any relation to him.  I know he lived in Plaquemine and later moved to Chicago.  And that leaves us with Wade Landry on guitar.

I’m sure everyone remembers that Grampa Max’s mother was Marie Emma Landry.  If not, then now you know.  Don’t forget it!  His great grandfather was Joseph Ignatius Landry, who just happens to be an ancestor of Wade Landry as well.  Come to find out, Wade’s father Joseph Alcee Landry was a second cousin of Max, Alcide, and Omer.  That would make Wade the third cousin of Ferdinand Hebert.  Both of them were from the next generation.  When I read the newspaper article about the tragedy, I posted a comment about it and shared the old article I have about Kelly’s String Band.  I’m glad I did, because B. D. shared an earlier newspaper article.

In that article from 1895, it talked about Alcee Landry giving an elegant supper at his residence.  I don’t know how many guests he had, but the table was “exquisitely arranged” in their “brilliantly illuminated” dining room.  Omer Patureau was one of the main entertainers for the evening.  He played the banjo!  He recited verse!  He even sang along with his pretty young cousins.  Wade played a “pleasing selection” on the guitar along with his cousin Ferdinand on the mandolin.  His sister Maude played a solo on the mandolin and later joined younger sister Edna and cousin Omer in singing a lively song.  It stated that “all who were present spent a most enjoyable evening. ” 

But alas, things did not remain idyllic for our Wade.  Sure, he got married and they soon had two young children together by 1907.  I’m not sure when that took place.  I haven’t found records for his children, yet.  But the article that I saw was from December 1907.  It talked about a group of six people including Wade Landry who were traveling on Bayou Plaquemine in a “gasoline launch.”  I guess you would now call it a motor boat.  Another boat came along and the two owners decided to test the speed of their boats.  The second boat got in front of the boat with Wade in it and capsized it.  The six people on the boat went in the water.  Only three of them came out alive.  Wade was not one of them.  He was only 30 years old.  It was a tragic day for the community of Plaquemine.

Sometimes it is not so pleasing to know the stories behind the photos.

Betty Lou and Her Younger Phenice Cousins

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I really didn’t have anything in mind for my blog post this week.  Sometimes I’ll see a story that needs to be told or find an amazing old photo that I just have to share.  But this week I just went looking back in some of my mom’s old photos.  It is my mom’s turn, after all.  I gotta keep it relatively even. 

I’ve been thinking of posting this photo for a few years now.  I had to look back at my old posts to make sure I hadn’t used the photo before.  This is my 350th post, so it’s getting harder and harder to remember which photos I’ve posted and which ones I have thought about posting over the years.  350 posts is a lot!  It’s almost enough for a post for every day of the year.  Of course some of those posts weren’t “official” posts.  Either they were lagniappe or documents supporting another post.

Phenice family cousins in Hathaway, Louisiana, circa April 1951.

This picture was taken around April of 1951 in Hathaway, Louisiana.  I estimated the date based on the youngest subject of the photo.  I can identify her as Carol Phenice.  She was born in the winter of 1950/51 and she looks like she is still quite young and the weather and plants looks like it is springtime.  The oldest subject of the photo is my dear sweet mom.  Her name was Betty Lou Bucklin and she was born on May 20, 1933.  Her parents’ names were Fred Bucklin and Myrtle Phenice.

I’m mentioning her parents so I can explain to you the connection between my mom and her younger companions.  And in this case, the connection comes from Myrtle Phenice AKA Grandma Bucklin or just Grandma.  Myrtle had a younger brother named Orville Phenice.  Orville and his wife Elta Whitman Phenice had five children, including their three youngest shown in this photo.

Holding little Carol is their third child Linda.  She would be about eight years old in this photo.  The boy in the photo is my mom’s cousin Paul.  He was the only son out of those five children.  That’s just like what Grandma and Grandpa had.   I wonder if he and my Uncle Austin ever got together to complain about living in a household of mostly girls.  I grew up in a household that was evenly divided and it seems to me like the best situation.  I’m probably biased.

I wonder where all the other siblings are from these two families?  It doesn’t really matter.  It would have been too crowded with everyone in it.  This is a nice little grouping of cousins.  I’ve always liked the photo.  It is such a good photo of all of them and the background is pleasing.  I’m pretty sure it is at my grandparents’ property in Hathaway.

And now I’ve finally used the photo in a post.  I’ll try to make sure I remember that fact!

Landry Sisters and Cousins

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Two months ago I was talking about my great great grandmother Marie Emma Landry (married to Ferdinand Patureau) and her four Landry first cousins that I descend from.  They all lived in Brusly, Louisiana, in the mid 1800s, so they probably were all pretty close to each other.  I’ve probably talked more about her cousins who were the sons of her Uncle Narcisse Landry (married to Marie Carmelite Hebert).  That would be brothers Trasimond and Alcide who both fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy.  I’ve shared photos of both of them.  I only have one photo of each of them.

The other cousins that I haven’t talked as much about were the daughters of Joseph Emmanuel “Manuel” Landry and his wife Clarice Celeste Bruneteau.  Those sisters would be Adele and Basalite.  I’ve had a photo of Basalite for a while.  I shared it a few years ago.  It’s the only one I had of her.  I don’t have any photos of Adele, even though she lived well into the time of photography.  So with five Landry cousins that I descend from, I only have one of each of four of them. 

Marguerite Basalite Landry (1821-1902)

At least that’s what I had before I discovered the Tyrrell Historical Library’s Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Collection in Beaumont, Texas.  Of course there was a photo of Emma Landry, she was married to a Patureau.  Actually there are two photos of Emma in that collection.  I’m still working on the other photo from that collection.  It will eventually be shared.  But today I am sharing a photo with you from that collection that might be one of the Landry cousins that I talked about.  Let’s talk more about that family.

Manuel and Celeste Landry had six children – Manuel Dorville, Rosalia, Jean Baptiste, Clarissa Doralise, Anna Adele, and Marguerite Basalite.  I don’t have a record of any children from the first three children.  Dorville and Rosalia lived to be adults, but I see no records of marriages or children.  Jean Baptiste only lived to the age of eleven.  Doralise was married to Joseph August Leveque and they had six children.  Now I descend from Joseph Auguste Leveque (another ancestor that I only have one photo of!) but from his second wife.  Those first six children of his were half aunts and uncles.  But they were also cousins because his second wife was none other than Doralise’s baby sister Basalite Landry. I descend from Joseph Auguste and Basalite’s daughter Marie Celeste.  She was married to her mother’s cousin Alcide Landry.

Marie Celeste Leveque Landry is daughter of Marguerite.

The other sister that I descend from is Adele Landry.  She was married to Joseph Hubert Amedee Bujol in 1839.  Over the next thirteen years Adele gave birth to ten daughters.  Finally they had a son in 1856.  Amedee died in 1857.  I’m not sure how he died, but it could have been that Adele strangled him when he mentioned that they should try to have one more son!  No!  I’m sure if that had been the case, we would have heard about it. But Amedee did die in 1857, which is why Adele is listed as a widow during the time of the Civil War.  It was shortly after the war that her daughter Marie Amelie “Belite” married one of the local heroes from the war.  She married Adele’s first cousin Trasimond Landry.

So the photo from the Patureau collection caught my eye because the older woman in it looks so much like Basalite Landry.  When I compare the two photos, I think they look the same.  Plus, the collection for the most part only has photos of family members in it.  When I showed the photo to Chuck, he thought the house looked like one that could be in old Baton Rouge.  I thought the same thing and there were family members living in Baton Rouge back then.  I shared the death notice for Adele Landry Bujol (Basalite’s sister) and that showed that she had died at her daughter Anaise’s house in Baton Rouge in 1899.

When I looked at the family of Anaise Bujol, I found some interesting things.  She was married to a man named Amedee Fourrier.  While the last name may not be familiar, his mother’s last name was Bujol.  Anaise or “Aunt Nye” and Amedee “Uncle Medee” were first cousins in the Bujol family.  They had eight children together and when you look at their four youngest children, you will see Julian (b. 1882), Charles (b.1886), Claude (b. 1888), and Maldetta (b. 1889).  Those four children would match those in this photo if the photo was taken around 1891.  The woman holding the little girl’s hand would be Aunt Nye and the older woman would most likely be a family member.  The woman reminds me of the photo of Marie Celeste that I’ve shared previously.  I think I see a family resemblance.

And like I always say, “Who else would it be?”  I guess it could be anybody.  But I’m thinking that it is either Basalite or possibly her sister Adele.  It looks like Basalite, but since I don’t have a photo of Adele to compare it to, it’s hard to know.  Then again, wouldn’t “Aunt Nye” (A designation that came from my paternal grandmother Erie Patureau’s line.  Her maternal grandmother was Nye’s sister Belite.  My grandfather’s line would have called her “Cousin Nye”) more likely have a photo of herself with her children and her own mother?  So I’m thinking that it is probably Adele in the photo.

So there you have it – an exploration of the Landry cousin connections and possibly a newly identified photo of one of them.