Month: May 2022

Sue & Jennie’s 20th Birthday Bash

Leave a comment

Birthday Celebration for Susan Stanbrough Hine and Edessa Jane Havenar on Oct. 3, 1926 in Raymond, Louisiana.

I have written a few posts that mention the 20th Annual Birthday Celebration of Mrs. Susan G. Hine and Mrs. W. E. Havenar.  My cousin Joseph shared some old photos from that event, so I shied away from writing about it before.  But I need to write about it.  There are some things I want to say.  First of all, the Sue mentioned in the title would be my great great grandmother Susan G. Stanbrough Hine.  I usually like to refer to her as Grandma Sue.   She was the mother of six children, and the oldest was her only daughter Addie May Hine Bucklin.  Addie was the mother of my grandfather Fred Bucklin.  He was the father of Betty Lou Bucklin, who was my mother.  The Jennie mentioned in the title was Edessa Jane “Jennie” Welton Havenar.  The two of them were friends who happened to share the same birthday:  October 3.

Newspaper article from 1926.

The newspaper article about the two women celebrating their birthday talk about how it was the 20th annual celebration.  Does that mean it was the 20th time they had the party?  I don’t really need to be that picky, but I also have an article from 1906 that describes that first celebration.  If they had it every year after that, the celebration in 1926 would be the 21st time they had it.  But it would also be the 20th anniversary of their first big bash.  Either way, Sue was celebrating her 75th birthday and Jennie was celebrating her 60th.  Grandma Sue is the older woman on the right side of the photo in the black dress.

Many of their family members and friends were also celebrating these two girls’ birthday.  And many of their family members and friends were relatives of mine.  There were family members from all of my mom’s side of the family.  There were many Keys, Hine, and Phenice family members mentioned in the newspaper article.  Both of my mom’s parents are in the photo, but it was before they were married.  My grandparents Fred Bucklin and Myrtle Phenice were married in 1930. 

I was going to say that even though they weren’t married yet, their families were already connected through the marriage of Fred’s sister Mary and Myrtle’s brother Sylvan earlier in 1926.  But the newspaper doesn’t list them together.  They list them separately as Mary Bucklin and Sylvan Phenice.  And newspapers were very particular about how they listed married people back then.  You see that Jennie is listed as Mrs. W. E. Havenar.  That’s because she was married to William Edward Havenar AND he was still alive.  Sue, on the other hand, was a widow.  So they use her given name of Susan and call her Mrs. Susan G. Hine.  If her husband had still been alive, they would have referred to her as Mrs. G. H. Hine – my great great grandfather was George Henry Hine.  I like my posts to be more personal, so I refer to them as Sue and Jennie.

But the newspaper article lists Mary and Sylvan separately, so it makes me question the information I have about their marriage date.  But I didn’t want to focus on them so much, I wanted to point out all of the family members that are in the photo.  Fred is the guy on the second row with the bow tie.  It might be his identical twin brother Clarence, but I think it is Fred.  You can find Myrtle by following the large branch that comes in from the right of the large tree trunk.  When it runs into the hat, the person in front of the hat is my grandmother. You can only see her head because she is directly behind two other women.  If you look to the left of Myrtle, there is a man in a straw hat.  That’s Myrtle’s brother Sylvan.  Between Myrtle and Sylvan is Mary Bucklin.  She is standing next to Daisy Keys Phenice, the mother of Myrtle.  Myrtle’s father Harry C. Phenice is standing next to Daisy and is wearing a white shirt.

I’m not going to list everyone.  I don’t even know them all.  I just wanted to show you the ones I descend from.  Even though Addie was at the event and is in several photos, I do not see her in this one.  Her husband Louis Bucklin was also alive at the time, but he avoided having his photo taken.  Part of that could be due to the fact that he lost an eye earlier on.  He had a glass eye that I believe is in a cousin’s possession.  I have never seen it – with either of my eyes.  Louis died the following year.  If you are interested in seeing more identified people, you can check out the post that Joseph wrote a few years ago.  There is a photo with the people numbered so they can be identified.  It is an ongoing project to identify as many of the people as possible. 

Or you can just enjoy looking at all of the faces of the people who helped Sue and Jennie celebrate their birthdays all those years ago.  It’s a great old photo.

Grampa Max’s Brother Uncle Oscar

Leave a comment

My great grandfather Max Patureau with some of my grand uncles circa 1920 in Lafayette, Louisiana.

I’ve decided to go ahead and make this a post on its own, even though I’ve shared this photo before.  It’s a Throwback to a Throwback from 2017:  Hats in Hand and a Fob to Boot.  Since I originally posted that photo, I have enhanced it and colorized it.  I think it is nicely improved.  Usually I don’t like colorized photos, but this one still maintains its old timey charm about it even with the color.

But the main reason that I’m doing a whole new post on it is that I misidentified someone in the photo.  How embarrassing is that?  I’ll also post some new photos of family members that led me to the realization that he was incorrectly identified.

So let me identify the men in this photo.  On the left is my great grandfather Max Patureau.  He was born in Mexico in 1865 and was named Vincent Maximilian Patureau.  His daughter was Germaine Erie Patureau, better known by my generation as Mee Maw.  She was married to Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. – Pee Paw to us grandchildren.  They were the parents of my dad Robert Joseph Landry, Jr.  Of those just listed, only Grampa Max is in the photo.  Next to him is his son Romuald Patureau.  He was known as Uncle Rome.  Though his name is spelled like the place in Italy, it rhymes with the word ‘foamy.’  I am always tempted to spell it Romy, but that’s just not the way they did it.

Grampa Max’s older sister Aline Patureau (1849-1926) was married to Omer Hebert (1849-1918).

The next person was known as Uncle Louie.  He was one of Pee Paw’s older brothers and his name was Louis Joseph Peter Landry.  He was married to Clemence Babin.  Aunt Clem was the half-sister of my great grandmother Marie Therese Landry (AKA Mrs. V. M. Patureau).  So that means that Pee Paw’s brother married Mee Maw’s aunt.  (Technically she was Mee Maw’s half aunt, though I doubt my grandmother thought of her that way.)

The person on the right is the one that needs to be identified correctly.  I had him identified as Omer Hebert, but from the photo of Omer Hebert with his wife Aline Patureau, you can see that the two men do not look alike.  The photos of Aline Patureau and her husband Omer Hebert come from the Pierre Ferdinand Patureau collection at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas. (Collection AC-824)  So the man in the group photo was not the brother-in-law of Grampa Max.  He was actually Pierre Oscar Patureau, the younger brother of Max.  He must have been called Uncle Oscar. 

Mary Domatille Dupuy married Joseph Oscar Patureau on Sept. 11, 1888, in Plaquemine, Louisiana.

I started questioning his identity when I got several photos from that collection in Beaumont.  Fortunately many of the photos were identified by Max’s older sister Zulma.  I think she may have been the one that pulled a lot of those old Patureau family photos together.  There were a few photos of their brother Pierre Oscar in the collection.  The best one was his wedding photo from 1888.  On September 11 of that year, he married Mary Domatille Dupuy.  They were third cousins through their common Dupuy line.

After working with the photos of Omer Hebert and Oscar Patureau, I began thinking that the man in the group photo was identified incorrectly.  I finally got around to checking into it further this week.  I found the old slide that I had scanned.  On one side I saw it was labeled “Uncle O**r.”  I couldn’t really make out the name, but I was more familiar with the name Omer from the photos I had seen of him.  So I must have gone with Omer.  But when I turned the slide over, there was written clear as day “Uncle Oscar.”  How did I miss that? 

Oh, well, now we know that it was Uncle Oscar Patureau on the right in that group photo.  I’ll change the original post to say the same thing.  I don’t want to perpetuate any false information.  I’m okay with a little embellished information, but false information just will not do.

Keys Reunion 2022

Leave a comment

I was asked/encouraged by a cousin to make sure that I reminded all of our Keys cousins about the Keys Family Reunion this year.  Since I was planning on doing that already, I had no problem at all with agreeing to the request.  I do enjoy getting ideas from cousins, but sometimes it doesn’t necessarily become a post for this blog.  I’m never exactly sure what I’m going to end up writing about from week to week.

But I did want to write about the Keys Family Reunion and invite all of the Keys relatives to attend.  It will be on Saturday, June 18th at the Raymond Methodist Church.  It will begin at 10:00.  And according to my reputable source, it is requested that you “bring a covered dish, cold drinks, and if possible, something to put in the door prize giveaway.”  In addition, per my personal request, bring any old family photo to share. 

June 10, 1973, in Iowa, Louisiana. This was the first Keys Family Reunion that I attended.

This is a photo that one of our Keys cousins shared with me.  One of the famed family historian Edith Keys Segraves’ daughters shared it with me a while back.  It is a photo from the first Keys family reunion that I ever went to.  It took place on June 10, 1973, in Iowa, Louisiana.  I was only twelve years old at the time.  That was long before I developed an interest in family history.  I’ve shared a few other photos from that day, but this one is a little different.  There were a lot of people taking pictures on that day.

The reunion was a gathering of all of the descendants of Martha Cook Keys, who brought her five children to America in 1887.  Her children were Henry Alfred “The Judge,” Leonard, Daisy, Ruth, and Mabel.  This group photo is of the descendants of Daisy Keys Phenice, which includes me and my siblings, my parents, my maternal grandmother, and many cousins.

My grandmother Myrtle Phenice Bucklin is sitting on a chair in a light green dress.  She is surrounded by a few people wearing pinkish/magenta clothing.  Sitting to the left of her is her sister Grace Phenice Sowder.  In front of her is her grandson John Bucklin.  Behind her are my older sisters Karen and Jodie in their dark blue tops.  Jodie is wearing the pinkish pants.  To the left of Karen is our 2nd cousin Patricia Sowder.  Next to her is our first cousin Keith Woolley.  To the left of him is my sister and I am standing on the other side of her in my striped brown shirt.

Keys Family Reunion from 1997 in Jennings, Louisiana.

Here is a more recent photo from a Keys Family Reunion.  I’m in this one, too.  And, no, that young boy is not me.  That’s my nephew James Fontenot.  This was taken in 1997 in Jennings, Louisiana.  I am sitting at the table eating on the far left of this photo.  My back is toward the camera, but that’s me.  I’m sitting at the table with my dad – Bob Landry, uncle Ernie Waldorf, George, and my mom’s sister Alma Bucklin Waldorf.  My sister Karen (mother of James) is all in pink and she is talking to our sister-in-law Tammy Tarsi Landry.  My brother Al is standing next to them, though you can’t see his face either.  I’m sure they were all discussing little Alex Landry who is not in the stroller.  I don’t see her, but she was just a year old at this time and we all gushed over her cute curls.

I hope these photos encourage you to attend.  I’m sure we’ll be taking photos and making new memories with all of our cousins.  So come join us on the 18th of June in Raymond.  We’ll treat you like family!

 

Betty Lou the Artist

One comment

“Cabin in the Mountains” by Betty Lou Bucklin in 1950. This was her first “real” painting.

I’ve been thinking of writing this post for about a year now.  In a few of the photos I’ve posted, there have been some paintings by my mom in the background.  I always took them for granted because they were always there.  But some people were surprised to hear that my mom painted.  When I heard that, I knew I had to write a post that featured some paintings by my mom.  The easiest way to do that is to share some photos of her paintings that I own.

Betty Lou Bucklin circa 1950 in Hathaway, Louisiana.

This first painting was the first painting that my mom painted.  At least that’s what is written on the back of the painting.  It was painted around 1950 when she was a junior or senior in high school.  I’m sure she must have dabbled with paints and colors when she was growing up.  Otherwise she wouldn’t have had the talent or skills to produce a painting like this that she considers her first real painting.

It’s hard for me to imagine that my mom was painting something so nice when I see some of the photos of her from that time.  She just seems like a young country girl having fun playing basketball, singing at church, and performing with the band.  She had a lot of interests and seemed to be pretty good at most of them.  I could say that she was the worst skier, but to be fair that wasn’t really an interest of hers.  My dad taught water skiing, so when his new girlfriend said she couldn’t ski, he got it in his head to teach her.  After she got tired of drinking lake water, he agreed to concede – water skiing was not a skill of Betty Lou’s.  She was his only failure.  A fact that never seemed to bother Mama in the least!

“Path to the Lake” was a painting my mom did around 1977.

And even though that painting was the first one that my mom painted, it wasn’t the first one that I obtained.  I got my first one around 1977 or 1978.  I call it “The Path to the Lake” and it was painted around 1977.  There’s a story about why it is mine.  After she painted it, she was always changing the little shrub in the foreground on the right of the painting.  For some reason it always bothered her.  She called it a “trash shrub” and nothing she did to fix it was acceptable.  So one day I saw her getting her gesso out while sitting in front of that painting.  Gesso is a thick white paint that artists use to make a canvas smoother for painting, or to give yourself a clean surface to start a new painting.

I asked her what she was doing, and she said that she was going to paint over that trash shrub and start something new.  I told her that this was one of my favorite paintings of hers, so she gave it to me then and there.  I have always liked this painting, even that sweet little shrub on the right in the foreground.  It reminds me of a place near where we lived in North Carolina. 

1992 painting by Betty Lou Bucklin Landry “Still Life with Flowers”

One of the last paintings I got of my mom’s was this “Still Life with Flowers.”   In January of 2016 – a few months after we had moved our parents into Brookdale Assisted Living in Lake Charles – we cleaned out their home in Jennings because someone wanted to buy the “happy little house on Lucy Street.”  One of the things we divvied up were the many paintings that my mom had done over the years.  I picked out a few of my favorites, then Chuck picked this one.  I had never really noticed it before.  I usually look at the landscapes.  But this one has grown on me.

I was talking to my dad a few months later and mentioned the painting.  I tried to describe it to him, but couldn’t.  So I sent him a photo of it.  He showed it to Mama, and she claimed that it wasn’t one of hers.  They were in Assisted Living because of her memory issues.  She definitely painted it.  Her standard signature is on the bottom right, just like on the other two photos I’ve posted.  For some reason, paintings were particularly confusing for her.  She thought some paintings by other people were hers.  She would say that they were stealing her paintings and claiming them as their own.  Then she didn’t know her own paintings when they were shown to her.  That’s what Alzheimer’s will do to a person.

But my mom outsmarted it in her way by writing messages on the back of many of her paintings.  That’s one of the reasons I know about her first painting.  But I knew that already because I had heard her talking about it through the years.  I never thought I would own it, but my mom gave it to me one day when I went to visit her.  I also know that the “Still Life with Flowers’ was painted in 1992.  I would never have known that if she hadn’t written it on the back.  That’s just one of the many things that I appreciate about my mom.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there.