Patureau Brothers Circa 1917

Getting a late start tonight.  I just had an opportunity that I didn’t want to pass up.  But I still wanted to write this post.  I even thought about it off and on today.  Someone posted an article about one of the Patureau brothers on the Plaquemine Facebook group page and that’s what got me thinking about this topic.  I’ve written about Patureau brothers before.  I wrote one post called Patureau Brothers.  It would have been Part I if I had thought about it.  Then there are two other posts that could have been parts II and III.  But really, there are lots of stories about Patureau brothers – there have been so many of them through the years!  

But this one is about the brothers of my grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau Landry.  I knew her as my dear sweet Mee Maw.  I didn’t know either of them, because they died before I was born.  I’ve mentioned them in posts before, but I thought they deserved a post of their own.  Plus, I have a photo of each of them from the same year.  And in both photos, they are wearing a uniform.  

Max Patureau and Marie Therese Landry were married in 1888 and set up their home in Plaquemine, Louisiana.  They had nine children that lived to adulthood, including my grandmother Erie.  Their second of nine children was Romuald who was born on December 27, 1891.  He was called Rome (rhymes with homey).  Erie was number four of nine.  Number eight was Vincent Maximilian Patureau, Jr.  He was called Vincent and he was born on November 4, 1901.

The major event going on in 1917 was World War I.  That’s not what it was called at the time, though.  It wasn’t like they were planning on having the second World War twenty or so years later.  But there was conflict going on in Europe, and America joined in on the fight on April 7, 1917.  That meant that Americans would soon be going to military engagements in Europe.  Men between the ages of 21 and 31 were required to register for the draft.  Vincent was not required to register since he was only 15 at the time.  

But I do have this photo of him in what looks like a World War I uniform.  I saw somewhere that some young men could sign up for the military at the age of 16 with their parents’ permission.  That would have been Grampa Max at the time.  Their mother had died in 1909.  Some boys also lied about their age so they could go to war.  I don’t know the story behind this photo.  It says that it was taken on Dec. 4, 1918, when Vincent was almost 17 years old.  According to the birthdate that I told you, he would already be 17 on that Dec. 4.  Not only that, but the war would have been over by that time.  It ended on November 11, 1918, a day known as Armistice Day.

That brings us to the other Patureau brother.  Rome would have been in that first group of young men required to register for the draft.  He was the perfect age for war!  So off he went.  There is a very interesting article that was written by a Patureau cousin.  It was written by Mona Mel Mouton.  She was the daughter of Erie’s oldest sister Emma Patureau Mouton.  I actually edited this newspaper article.  It was longer than what I wanted and it had a picture of somebody else she talked about.  I wanted a photo of Rome to go with the article, so I found one and grouped it together with the part of the article about Rome.  

The topic of the complete article was Armistice Day, but I wanted this post to be about Patureau family history.  And this article says something really interesting about that.  Something that I haven’t been able to confirm or find anywhere else.

The part about Rome says that she (Mona Mel) first heard Taps at Uncle Rome’s funeral in Baton Rouge.  (He died in 1937 when Mona Mel was 15.)  I was listening to my brother Rob play that just the other day online.  He participated in Taps Across America on Memorial Day.  Mona Mel talks about how her Uncle Rome would tell stories about his war days in France in 1917 and 1918.  The photo of Rome was taken in Aix-les-Bains, France, during that time.

He was a motorcycle courier who delivered messages across the French countryside to military members.  Since the Patureau family originated in France, Rome decided to see if he could connect with some of the Patureau family.  His grandparents Pierre Ferdinand Patureau and Anne Rose Machet brought their family to America in 1840.

When Rome was in the Bordeaux area, it is reported that he was able to make contact with Patureau family members.  But the most intriguing part is that he stated that he visited the ancestral home of the Patureau family – a castle overlooking an expanse of land.  This made Rome wonder why the family moved away from that rich countryside.  He never found out more, because he had to get back to soldiering.  Fortunately for us, he told that story to someone who liked to listen and to write.

The article encourages me to explore the Patureau family even further.  Ou est le chateau de famille?