Germaine, Bobbie, and Marie in 1933

I don’t think I’ve ever posted this photo before.  I know that I have sat down at the computer a few times and considered using it.  For some reason, I ruled it out previously.  But this week, I’m going for it.  Aren’t you glad about that?  Even though I ruled it out a few times, it wasn’t because I didn’t like the photo.  I kept thinking it was a bit blurry and I could somehow fix it.  But I’ve decided it doesn’t need fixing.  It is quite charming the way it is.

I think the first time I saw this photo was around four years ago.  It is part of the Secret Collection that is curated by my cousin Daphne.  She is the daughter of Germaine Landry Winn, the little blond-haired girl on the left in this photo.  When she was older, she had this photo and she wrote the names and ages of the subjects.  With those ages, I can tell that this photo was taken around 1933 or so.  Thanks, Aunt Germaine, for writing that information and saving this photo for all those years.

But little Germaine was only six years old in this photo.  She was born on April 6, 1927.  She was the fourth child of Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. and Germaine Erie Patureau Landry.  While Aunt Germaine was named after her mother Erie, her younger brother (my dad) was named after his father.  He was a Jr. and when he was young, they started calling him Bobbie.  He was known by that name for the rest of his life – mainly by family.  He was more often known as Bob or Pluto by his peers.  But in this photo, he was just little Bobbie with his two older sisters.  There were two brothers born between these two sisters, but somehow they did not make it into the photo.  Neither did younger sister Wana who was born in 1932.

The oldest of all of the siblings was Marie Therese.  We knew her as Aunt Marie.  She is the one standing a head taller than the other two in the photo.  She was born on April 23, 1923.  This was a year and a half after the marriage of Rob and Erie.  No short pregnancies for my Mee Maw!  This photo looks like they are standing next to a field of some type of produce.  Maybe it was before a long day of working in the fields.  Isn’t that what people did back in the day?  Work hard from sunup to sundown.  I don’t think so.  That was definitely not my dad’s style.  If he would have ever had to work the fields when he was a child, I’m sure we would have heard about it.

So I’m not sure what is going on in the photo.  I just know that it is a sweet looking photo of my dad with his older sisters.  Sure the photo is a bit overexposed, a bit blurry, and their feet aren’t showing.  But somehow, I think all of that adds to the charm.  It’s why I’m sharing it with you today.  Behold.