Month: November 2023

Hubert, AJ, and Bobbie Landry in Lake Charles, Louisiana, circa 1943

I thought I would share a photo of my dad tonight.  This picture caught my interest when I saw it.  I got it in 2019 when some of the cousins got together to share photos and dinner.  I can’t believe it’s been four years already.  Time sure does fly.  There were lots of great photos that I saw then that I had never seen before.  This is one of them.  It was in the Secret Collection that my cousin Daphne is the curator of.  Thanks, Daphne, for sharing those treasures with us.

What’s interesting about this photo is how it shows the changes that a few years can make when you look at photos of a family.  My dad was part of the Landry family in Lake Charles, Louisiana, during the early thirties and forties.  His father was Robert Joseph “Rob” Landry, Sr. who had grown up in Westlake, Louisiana.  His mother was Germaine Erie Patureau, and she had grown up in Crescent (Plaquemine), Louisiana.  Erie’s mother was Marie Therese Landry Patureau.  She had died when Erie was just a young girl of 14.  That’s about the same age as my dad in this photo.  Marie Therese was also the first cousin of Rob Landry.

So, yes, my dad’s parents were first cousins once removed.  But that was a long time ago, and that’s what everyone did back then.  In fact, all four of my dad’s grandparents were related to each other through the Landry family.  That’s probably why I feel so connected to the Landry name.  That, and it is my last name!  So Rob and Erie were married and they started a family.

My dad and I were both the fifth child of our families and the third son, as well.  We both had two older brothers and two older sisters.  But his older brothers were only a year apart in age, and they were 3 and 4 years older than he was.  That bit of difference is very noticeable in this photo.  Hubert on the far left and AJ in the middle look almost like adults while Bobbie (Robert Joseph Landry, Jr., my dad) still looks like a kid.  I think it’s one of a few that shows this time period.  Before long, he would catch up and become the tallest of the four brothers.  He remained the tallest even when younger brother Johnny reached his full height.  I was not like my dad in this.  My dad was 6’1 and I was only 6′.  My older brothers are taller, or at least I always thought so.  I’ve measured lately and found that I’m 6’1, so I may not be the shortest after all.  Either way is fine with me.

So there you have it.  A photo of my dad as a young teen.  A discussion of family make-up.  And a discussion of growing up.  I thought about saying something about how pleased my dad looked or how handsome they were, but I didn’t.  If you would like to address that, feel free.  I’m pretty sure the photo was taken around 1943 at my grandparents’ house in Lake Charles.

The Landry family in 1964 in Jennings, Louisiana.  Bob, Rob, Jamie, Al, Van, Jodie, and Karen.

That’s right! In 1964 the Landry family had a pony.  Actually, it wasn’t a pony and there was more than one.  What we had were two horses when we lived out in the country.  For the longest time I thought that the horses were just on the property that we rented in 1963 when we first moved to Jennings.  I didn’t think that we actually owned two horses.  That’s what rich kids had and we were definitely not rich.

It always reminds me of a Seinfeld episode.  In the episode Jerry and Elaine are with Jerry’s parents and they’re eating at an older Polish woman’s home.  They both are a little uncomfortable, so they’re talking to keep the conversation going.  Somehow the topic of horses comes up.  Elaine then said that ponies reminded her of overgrown dogs.  She goes on to say, “and those kids who had their own ponies.”  “I know,” Jerry chimed in, “I hated those kids.  In fact, I hate anyone that ever had a pony when they were growing up.”  The Polish woman gives a stern, startled look and says, “I had a pony!  When I was a little girl in Poland, we all had ponies.”  I find the scene hilarious, but I never thought of myself as one of those kids who had their own pony.

But I didn’t really.  There were two horses for our family of eight.  And they certainly weren’t thoroughbreds!  One of them was in pretty good shape.  Her name was Topsy.  The other one was rather old and had a sway back.  We called that one Old Bald.  When we were living in that location, there was a two-story house that we lived in.  In the back of the property (which was next to a canal) there was an old red barn.  There was a fenced-in area around the barn where there were some cows and I’m pretty sure that’s where the horses were kept as well.  One day after what must have been a rainy period, Old Bald fell and broke a hip or something and got stuck in the mud behind the barn.  Somebody came by to try to get him out, but I don’t think it was successful.  They were going to have to put him down.  I remember looking out the back kitchen window toward the barn and asking my mom if I could go out to see what was going on.  She told me that I didn’t want to see all that.  But I DID want to see what was going on.  I minded my Mama.

Rob on Topsy in 1965 with our dog Princess and one of the cats that were around.

In a previous post “The Old Swing Set” that I wrote in 2019, I talked about an old sand box that we had.  I described it as a round brick building with a ceiling, and it seemed like a favorite place for wasps to build their nests.  I thought it was an unusual sand box from my memory and asked my siblings if they remembered the same thing.  Obviously I did not have access to this second photo at the time.  It’s the only photo that shows that old sand box, and sure enough it is a round brick building behind our two-story house. 

That house, which we rented from a Mr. Sonnier, was situated just north of the I-10 in Jennings, Louisiana.  It is no longer there.  The only way I know to tell where it used to be is by looking for the canal that ran along the north property line.  That’s my brother Rob on the horse.  I think I got the photo from him.  I colorized it.  You can see our old van in the driveway and on the right side of the photo, you can see the eaves of the old barn that I talked about.  It had a framework of a plane in it.  We would peek in on it from time to time.  The photo must have been taken in the fenced-in area that I talked about.  There was a separate fenced-in area on the other side of the barn for the cows.  That’s where I recall them being when Al reached through the fence and attempted to touch one.  “I almost touched a cow feather!” he excitedly exclaimed.  

It’s amazing to think that all of this happened 60 years ago.  I have memories from 60 years ago!  And I have photos that verify that some of those memories are accurate!  But I’m still just that kid in the first photo who is too busy playing with the dog to notice that my mom was taking a photo.  I was probably trying to make her bark!  It’s what I do.

Update:  My brother Rob informed me that Topsy, in fact, was a female horse.  It’s funny how you can know something (Topsy was a male.) ever since you were a child and never stop to question if it is accurate.  So I went back to the story and corrected the pronouns so no one will be offended.  He also informed me that she was a quarter horse with good lines.  The person we sold (or gave) Topsy to entered her into several competitions, which she won.  She became more valuable, and her offspring were desirable as well.  Our Topsy did good.

My great grandmother Marie Therese Landry Patureau circa 1888 in Louisiana.

I suppose my title isn’t really very informative.  Most of my recent ancestors have attended school, so the same thing could be said of them.  I thought about putting the word “Here” at the end of the title, but I decided against it.  You may not be here, and you may not know where my here is.  So, just to make sure that you do know, I am here in Baton Rouge.  And, yes, my great grandmother Marie Therese Landry was a schoolgirl here.

I’ve known that she came to school in Baton Rouge for a while.  Two years ago I wrote a post titled “Death of a Noble Woman.”  I shared her death notice and the obituary that was written up in the newspaper.  The title of the post came from the newspaper article.  But in that article, it talked about Marie Therese having attended St. Joseph’s Academy of Baton Rouge.  I remember thinking it was interesting that she went to school here.  I’m familiar with the present location of the Academy and wondered if she had gone there.  I was curious to know if the students at that time would live on the campus.  

I thought maybe I’d go by the school and see if they had any records from back then.  But I didn’t.  I have no excuse.  It’s not that far from here.  But come to find out, the old location of the school is even closer to where I live.  I could walk there from here.  In fact, I have been walking there every day when I go to work for the past six years!

I work at GIS, an engineering firm that is presently located in II Rivermark Centre.  When I first started working there, it was the north tower of the Chase buildings.  But the buildings changed ownership and the names changed.  For the past year or two, I Rivermark Centre has been undergoing renovations.  I’ve had to change my path to work a few times to find the safest and most manageable way to the building I work in.  I’ve seen all the progress along the way.  They’ve done a nice job.

Plaque located in I Rivermark Centre in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

When they had a grand opening the other day, we thought we’d go.  So we walked there and stood around waiting for the ceremonies to begin.  As I stood there, I read a plaque that was on the wall of the lobby.  And look what it said!  The location of the building was the original location of St. Joseph’s Academy from 1869 to 1941.  The plaque was to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the opening of the school.  So the school opened around October 22, 1868.  And now it has been 155 years since that date.

And how does that date compare to the life of my great grandmother?  Well, Marie Therese Landry was the first child of Trasimond Landry and Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol.  She was born on September 25, 1868.  The school was started less than a month after she was born.  The family lived in Brusly, Louisiana, which is just across the river from Baton Rouge.  I still don’t know when she started attending school there or whether she boarded there.

But just a few weeks ago, my post was about her father Trasimond’s death.  He died in 1879 when Marie Therese was just eleven years old.  According to family history, this left the family destitute.  How did they afford to send her to a private school in Baton Rouge?  Her Landry grandfather Narcisse Landry had died in 1876.  He had been living with the family because he had lost everything after the Civil War.  Marie Carmelite Hebert Landry (his wife) had died before the Civil War.  Belite’s father Joseph Hubert Amedee Bujol had died before that, so Anna Adele Landry Bujol (his wife) was a widow for over 40 years.  But she was a planter with a Leveque cousin, so maybe she had some money to help the family out.

1880 Census with Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol Landry Babin and her family.

 After Trasimond died, Belite remarried not much later.  She was married to Pierre Magloire Babin within the year.  They show up on the 1880 Census in Brusly with all five of her Landry children and a new little Babin daughter.  The daughter was only three days old, and they hadn’t even named her yet.  I don’t know how long she lived, because there is no further record of her.  Also living in the household was Belite’s mother Adele.  It shows for Marie Therese that she was “at school.”  I think this just means she was attending school.  It doesn’t specifically state that she was going away for school.

Maybe she didn’t start going to the Academy until after her father’s death.  There are still a lot of unanswered questions.  Maybe this plaque will give me the motivation to look into it a bit more.  I’m glad I found out about this location for the school at this time.  I can still enjoy knowing that I’m walking the paths that my great grandmother did.  Our work is relocating, so I won’t be walking to work beginning next year.  But I’ll still be able to walk by from time to time and think about my great grandmother when she was just a schoolgirl.