Happy Valentine’s Day!
A 1943 Valentine post card to Mary Bucklin Phenice from her sister Edna Bucklin Keys when Arlene was 2 years old.
Category: Bucklin
The Last Week of Bob and Betty
Two months ago I wrote a post titled “The Week of Bob and Betty” because they had had a rough week with medical problems and hospital stays. At the end of that week there was a happy ending because they were able to be together for their 64th wedding anniversary. I did not know then that in two months they would pass away within 5 days of each other. This past week was the last week of Bob and Betty.
Bob Landry married Betty Lou Bucklin on November 1, 1952, in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
This post is about when their lives ended, but also about their lives together. The photo I’m using is a photo of their wedding, which is when their lives together officially began. The date was November 1, 1952, and the place was the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Lake Charles, Louisiana. As you can tell from the photo, they were kinda happy.
I don’t know why I had never scanned this photo before. I thought that their wedding photos were blurry or eyes were closed. My siblings suggested I add this to the photo memorial, so I found the photo and scanned it. It’s a great photo of both of them! So why wasn’t there a large copy of it framed and hanging in their house?
Because their life was about their family. There were family photos on the walls at different times in their life. They also had photos of their children on top of their piano and TV. Then when the grandkids came along, the refrigerator was plastered with all of the events of their lives. Their house was so festive when the family all came together at the holidays. We were watching old videos the other night and the festivity is what struck me the most. Of course the Christmas after the death of my sister Jodie was a bit subdued, but the family recovered their joy. (As she wanted and knew we would.)
There was always a lot of love in their house. They made sure we knew that they loved each other by always calling each other “Honey” and always greeting each other with a loving kiss. They were not perfect and no one is. They were loving parents and always wanted the best for us. In different ways they let us know that they were confident in our abilities to succeed. They believed in us.
So this is about the last week of Bob and Betty. But not really. Every day is a day of Bob and Betty for me. I carry their genes in my cells everywhere I go. But more importantly I carry their love for me wherever I go. That will continue.
A Yuletide Story
I spend a lot of time doing research. I know that this does not surprise anyone who has been reading my posts. During this research I come across a lot of stories. Some stories are inspiring. Some stories are happy. Some are sad. It’s not that I go looking for stories, I just find them in my search for family history. And sometimes a story really strikes something in me that makes me want to share it with people. I found a story like that this week. It is a very tragic story that needs to be told.
But I’m not telling you that story this week. I already had a tragic story picked out to tell you this week. The odd thing about those two stories is that they both occurred on the same calendar date and both involved a young mother named Dolores. But there are even more commonalities in the story that I am telling this week. Plus there is a tie-in with Christmas and it definitely is more tragic. Isn’t that what everyone wants this week? A tragic Christmas-themed story? Well that’s what you are getting from yours truly.
This story is about two cousins. Actually those cousins are third cousins. Two girls were born a bit over eighty years ago and they were great granddaughters of two Stanbrough sisters. These two distant cousins never met. They grew up and they both found the man of their dreams. One of the girl’s names was Dolores Henke and she married her childhood sweetheart named Frank Yule. His name is our first Christmas connection. (You know like, “Yuletide carols being sung by a choir.”) The other girl was Betty Lou Bucklin, my mom. And we all know that she married the love of her life.
After these young women married their respective husbands, both of the families went to live in California. Not long after that, their families started to grow. Actually they started to grow at a remarkably similar pace. They each gave birth to their first child, a daughter with a “J” name, in California in October of 1953. Our Jodie was born on Oct 14th and their little Janice was born just eight days later.
Though my family moved to New Mexico, the similarities continued. Both of the families had their second child, a son, born in April of 1955. Their Scott was born on the 21st and our Rob was born just six days later. That’s amazingly close. Even though the families moved further away from each other geographically, a few more parallels took place. The next child born to each of these families was a girl with the given middle name of Jean.
Now you can see why I connected with this story. Their family started in much the same way that mine did. It seems like a rather happy story, too. And I suppose it probably was up to this point. But that wasn’t what initially got my attention to look at this family a little closer. You start looking at things in family trees and other documents. You have to make sure the birth and death dates are accurate and make sense. So you look at those dates closely. When you see children with similar year of birth, you think twins. But when you see the same year for the death of more than one or two people in a family, you think tragedy. And that is what I found.
The Landry family in 1961. Betty Lou Bucklin Landry with children Al, Karen, Rob, Van, and Jodie in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
There is one more similarity that I know of. In the later part of 1961, both of these families were involved in automobile accidents. Our family got into an accident in Lake Charles on our way to my mom’s family for Christmas. (This is the other Christmas connection.) We were thrown around a bit, Rob was ejected from the car, but for the most part we were fine. We were able to celebrate Christmas and a new year. The same cannot be said for the Yule family.
The Yule family was driving on Highway 399 in Ventura, California, on Sept. 17, 1961. They were traveling along in their station wagon when a truck made an illegal turn in front of their vehicle. That was the day that all similarities between these families ended. Because, you see, all five members of the family perished that day. The father was the oldest at 34 years of age and the youngest was three-year-old Barbara Jean. A truly tragic ending.
Safe travels this Christmas.
Sept. 13, 2017 – Addendum
Christmas 1961 in Lake Charles
I was going through a packet of papers that I had gotten from my parents’ home in Jennings in January of 2016 and came across this old newspaper article. My mom liked to save things. Sometimes that was a bad thing and sometimes it was a good thing. This time it was a good thing.
1919 – A Family Outing
Sometimes I wonder if people are unsure of what I’m talking about. I jump around from one side of the family to the next so I don’t leave anybody out. I guess if someone is interested enough about the connections, they will ask. Sometimes people just want to look at the pictures and move on to the next post. Well, stop that! I want you to read everything I write. Now that you know what I want, you will always do the right thing.
So to keep things from getting confused this week, I’ll start with me. My name is Van Landry and I was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr. and Betty Lou Bucklin Landry. My dad was born in 1929 in Lake Charles and my mom was born in 1933 in Raymond, Lousiana. Her father was Fred D. Bucklin, who was born in Roanoke, Louisiana, in 1907. This information sets you up for the photo this week.
Hine/Bucklin/Stanbrough family group in 1919
The photo was taken in 1919 somewhere around the Hathaway/China area. It was a Hine family get together. There are several photos taken that day with all of the family in different groups. This is a small group. The young girl in the photo (on the far right) is my grandfather Fred’s oldest sister Mary Bucklin, who was born in 1900. She would be 19 years old in this photo. Five years later she would marry Sylvan Phenice, the brother of Fred’s future wife Myrtle. (Sylvan and Mary were married in 1926. Fred and Myrtle were married in 1930.) Sylvan and Mary were together for 56 years until Sylvan’s death in 1982. They did not have any children. Mary died in 1987.
The woman in the middle of the photo is the mother of Fred and Mary (and ten other children) and was named Addie Mae Hine at birth. She was born in 1876 in Noblesville, Indiana, and moved with her family (mother and father and five younger brothers) to Louisiana in 1894. Four years later she married Louis Charles Bucklin and started her large family soon after. Louis did not show up in too many photos. They were married for 29 years at the time of Louis’s death in 1927 at the young age of 54. Addie lived until just 25 days after I was born. I do not have any memories of my great grandmother.
Addie’s mother and father are the other two individuals in this photo. Her mother was born Susan G. Stanbrough in Westfield, Indiana, in 1851. She was the sixth child of twelve children born to a family with strong Quaker roots. In 1873, at the age of 22, she was married to George Henry Hine who was five years her senior. He was born in 1846 in Hamilton County also. (Westfield and Noblesville are in Hamilton County.)
This is one of the last photos of George Hine. He died May 3, 1919. I don’t know how the photo setup came about. I’m thinking it must have been Mary’s idea. She wanted a photo of her with her parents and grandparents. She was probably a bit peeved with her dad for not wanting to be in the photo. His parents had already died, so they couldn’t be in the photo. So she settled for this photo with her mom and her mom’s parents. I like it. That’s my great grandmother and my great great grandparents.
Questions?
The Week of Bob and Betty
This week my focus has been on my mom and dad. They were both in the hospital with different medical problems. Mama fell and broke her left hip and shoulder. She had surgery to repair these problems and then my dad fell and scratched his arm. It wasn’t really his arm that was the main problem, it was the underlying medical conditions. The blood thinners he was on for his heart started to be counterproductive because of undiagnosed conditions. Add to that some internal bleeding and anemia and he was admitted to the hospital, too. Little to no energy makes for a slow recovery, but we are hoping for the best. There have been some signs of returning energy levels.
Bob Landry with Betty Lou Bucklin on Mar. 28, 1952.
But this post is not about their individual problems. Or their individual health. This post is about their relationship. Mainly about the start of their relationship. I’ve been wanting to post this picture since I found it a few months ago. This photo was taken on March 28, 1952. I know the date because mom is dressed in a costumer for an operetta at McNeese called “The Merry Widow.” She also saved the program for the event and wrote the information on the back of the photo. They were both in the production, but that is not where they met.
They actually met almost two years earlier at LSU. She was there for a state solo and ensemble competition and he was a student helper who just happened to be the one helping the sweet, cute girl from the country. It was a short encounter, but when my mom went to McNeese in the fall of 1951, my dad recognized her name and made sure to meet up with her again.
So this photo is from the first year of their courtship. Such a sweet and intimate photo. And who could have known the long history the two would share? They were married on November 1 later that year and started their married life on an Air Force base in California. That means that this coming Tuesday will be their 64th anniversary. It’s another reason that I wanted to post this photo now. Happy anniversary to the best parents I could have ever hoped for.
Old Photos
Old family photo from some time around 1880s.
This past summer I went to Hathaway to visit cousins – my mom’s first cousin Louise and her son (my 2nd cousin) Joseph. They have been into genealogy and old photos for a lot longer time than I have. They’ve been collecting old Bucklin and Hine photos for over ten years. So we share photos with each other. (I am usually on the receiving end of this!) When we were in Hathaway, they pulled out a small, tattered looking book-like object. It was an old photo album from well over 100 years ago. It was so amazing to see all of these small, yet sharp photos of people who have been long gone.
This photo of a pensive looking woman was one of those photos. The sad thing about this (beside the obvious one being that she is no longer alive) is that we don’t know who she is. There are a few hints. The photo was taken some time around the 1880s or so. Some of the photos around it have IDs that show they were taken in Iowa. The Bucklin family had lived in Iowa during that time, so it’s probable that the photo is of a Bucklin relative. Or a friend. Or a neighbor. Or who knows? The point is that we don’t know and probably will never know. I could do some revisionist history project and give her a name and tell a story about her and post it all over the internet. If it shows up enough times, it must be true! Right?
My mom was always good about writing people’s names on the back of photos and I picked up that habit myself. She said that she remembered seeing old photos when she was a young girl and nobody knew who the people were. It was probably these same old photos that her cousin was showing to me. Of course, back when these photos were taken, nobody ever had that problem before. Photography was new and there weren’t any unidentified photos lying around. Taking a photo was a luxury and you probably only had photos of people you knew. They didn’t think about the photos lasting for over a hundred years and someone posting it on the internet for everyone to see.
But now we know. So make sure to identify the people in your photos. Especially the old ones. And if any of you cousins of mine want to share any of those old photos with me, send them my way! (A good scan will do nicely.) I’ll edit them as best I can to make them look like new. I may even be able to identify a few of the people for you. It could become the subject of a good story. I’d definitely try to preserve them for generations to come.
PS – If any of you happen to know the identity of the woman in this photo, I would appreciate the information. (And I won’t let anybody know that you’re an immortal!)
From the City…
1880s- The Henry and Martha Cook Keys family lived in Hackney, Middlesex, England
This is one of the older photos that I have. But I don’t really ‘have’ it. All I have is this scan of a copy of a photo that was printed in a book from around 1980. It’s great to have that much because despite it being a copy of a copy (of a copy?), there are still some interesting details in it. It’s from Edith Keys Segraves’ book “Cook-Keys Family: Two Centuries in England and America.” One of these days I’m going to track down some of those old photos, get a good scan of them, retouch them, and share them with everyone. Til then, this is what you get!
The year is around 1880 or so. The country is England. The family is the the Cookie family. Not really. That’s the name I think of when I read the title of Edith Segraves’ book. But the Cook-Keys connection started here. At least for our family. When our ancestors Henry Keys married Martha Cook on Nov. 8, 1869, the Cook-Keys connection had already been started eight years earlier.
Martha’s sister Henrietta had married Henry’s brother William in 1861 and they had eight children together. Henry and Martha had five children by 1881 – Henry Alfred, Leonard, Daisy, Ruth, and Mabel. From the few examples I’ve seen, I would assume that these two families would have been close. All of their kids had the same grandparents, were double first cousins, and probably looked similar. And Martha and Henrietta were the only two children in the Cook family. Their father had died in 1840 when Martha was three years old and Henrietta was six months old, so that would likely have made them closer as well.
Yet that didn’t keep them together. When Martha’s husband Henry died in 1886, it wasn’t but a year later that she moved herself and her five young children to America. To be accurate, Martha didn’t break the families apart. One of Henrietta’s sons was already living in Delaware County, Iowa, at that time. (Funnily enough, the Bucklin family had lived in that same county earlier in the 1880s. A generation later, the Bucklin and Keys families connected as well.) And I’ve mentioned before that Martha’s uncle William Horsnell had recently moved from Iowa to the exotic locales of southern Louisiana.
Look at that photo again. It looks like a pretty nice place to live. Nice sturdy buildings and a charming little side patio enclosed with an iron fence. It was a civilized place to live. They had venetian blinds in the window! If that doesn’t say civilized, I don’t know what does! But Martha had heard of some criminal activities in nearby areas and decided it was time to move on. So in June of 1887, she brought her children to London during the week of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee and on the 27th boarded them onto the ship Aurania heading for the New World.
1887 – A page from the passenger list of arrivals in New York in July 1887. Top of the list starts with Martha A(nn) Keys, Henry A(lfred), Leonard J., Daisy H(enrietta), Rosetta R(uth), and Mabel O. Destination shown as Louisiana.
The Cows All Come a Runnin’ With a Moo!
1949 – Betty Lou charming the cows with Papi
For several years now, I’ve been sharing stories of the Adventures of Jacko. As everyone knows, they are stories about the travels of me and my wonderfully charming sock monkey Jacko. In the travelling song that Jacko and his mentor/grandfather Papi wrote, it mentions my mom and the fact that she used to play her baritone out in the fields of Hathaway until the cows would come.
I didn’t know that she had a photo of this until quite recently. She has talked about her serenading activity for as long as I can remember. I don’t know why she didn’t mention this photo or show it to me. I mentioned this to Papi and he said he couldn’t imagine why his old Buddiloo never showed me this photo.
“Of course,” he said, “back then we didn’t see photos as soon as we took them. But I do remember seeing it once. I titled it ‘Nature Girl.'”
“‘Nature Girl’?” I asked, “Why did you call it that?”
“Well,” he said, “it was around the same time that Nat King Cole’s song ‘Nature Boy’ was playing on the radio. That was really exciting. Radio was one of the rare conveniences that we had out in the country. There certainly wasn’t any air conditioner, so when Buddiloo would practice her horn, she liked to go outside. She played all kinds of songs, but the one that the cows liked best was ‘Nature Boy.’ And every time they showed up, they said the same thing.”
“Of course they did,” I said. “Mama always said they would moo at her when they showed up and it made her laugh.”
“Yes, sometimes she could be a silly girl. It’s what I love the most about her. But those cows kept trying to tell her something and she never listened. I, of course, listened to them attentively. I am a cow whisperer,” he said with more than a little pride.
“So what was it that they said?” I asked. “Were they making requests for different songs? Or maybe for a different instrument? Like a trombone? Surely not a clarinet?!”
“No, no, none of that,” he said with a scowl. “I see you inherited more than a little bit of silliness from your mom.”
“Whatever,” I said, “Just tell me what the cows said.”
“Okay, but it would be better if I sang it for you. Since ‘Nature Boy’ was the song that they were drawn to, I decided to put the message into my own words for the song,” he explained. “I call it ‘Nature Girl,’ hence the title of the photo. It goes like this.”
He then started singing the song with a haunting melody. It really was quite moving. Here are the words:
Nature Girl
There was a girl, a very sweet and charming girl.
She liked to play her baritone all alone in the fields each day.
Her monkey friend would give a grin.
When she’d start to play.
And then one morn, a magic morn she played that horn.
And all the cows they gathered round. Stood their ground.
This they said to her:
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
is grass tastes great, but when brown it can burn.”
After sitting a while stunned by his performance, I shook myself back to alertness and asked,”Wait, does that mean that brown grass burns in the stomach or that it can catch fire?”
“Silly boy,” he said, “what is hay?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said sheepishly.
“If there are still any doubts in your mind about the answer to your question,” he continued, “just mention the words ‘grass fire’ to a herd of cattle. It’s the quickest way to start a stampede. When they would say the same thing over and over to Buddiloo, there was always a look of fear in their eyes.
“Now if there are any more questions, they can wait. Jacko and I are going to the other room to watch a movie. You can join us if you like…as long as you bring popcorn.” At that he was off.
So that, my friends, is the story of this week’s photo. Straight from the monkey’s mouth.
Jennie to Louis on his trip to Ada
Jennie Bucklin sent this letter to her youngest brother Louis Charles Bucklin after he arrived at Ohio Normal University in Ada, Ohio.
I sign my name not for its beauty but if it should never reach you I want it back
Jennie
Jennings La Jan 19th 1893
Dear Brother
We all thanked you very much for your great promptness in keeping us posted along your Route & in letting us know of all the particulars of your arrival at Ada
Mother especially appreciated your thoughtfullness in your gift book and first letter being to her after arriving at your destination she says she will never part with the wrapping you so carefully sewed up with the kneedle & thread that she knows she gave you. By the way did you need to put so much postage on it? And tell me did you see the places that are pictured in it they are lovely.
We are glad you are well pleased in your location. And hope you will do well. Do not ape the strut you wrote about. And yet do not hold yourself too cheaply. Joe made that mistake in Dubuque.
There is enough at your back in far off Louisiana both in Family & landed property to warant you to carry your self just as you see fit and give you the respect of all. You must remember many of those long ones have just their clothes and are depending on what their schooling may bring to them here after. So you can easily allow the students & Faculty to see you are sure of your ground with out bragging or letting them feel that you are afraid of them.
2nd
There is that not a free lecture for nothing; but I do not believe in people making them selves cheaper than they are. Other people will try to do that for us quickly enough
Well I suppose Clarence has told you that the lat sack of the rice is down here Clarence went up with Ben Friday and brought down a load with them saturday and returned with the cattle sunday By the way if any of them are curious as to your social standing just inform them that you never travel here with out four spare to your Vehicle
Mother & Joe came down here day before yesterday Ben & Joe drove down to Lake Arthur and have not returned yet. Mother is with me me yet and will be for a few days Tom Lilt has stopped work to attend school at Andersons’ schooll house taught by a miss Avery.
The carpenters are to go up to start our house next week if nothing happens. Three of them, they will board with our folks and Martha Williams will go up at the same time to work for Mother. I think she will like Martha very well.
Had McFarlain sold out his store stock to Viterbo Bros before you left? I I suppose the K. girls are enjoying their rest greatly.
The pocket book of the Morse family only sufficed to carry Geroge to school I think. At any rate George was send to L. Charles & Chas is pitching into work like a good fellow. Well I am scribbling off this straggling letter late at night as all are in bed long ago, and I am getting in a few lines between the babys’ squalls so you must excuse Clarence was angry at me for because I kept his letter waiting these two or three day’s so I did it tonight. Mother would have written but was not feeling so well as to write as long a letter as she wished to so she send her dear love in this and will write later. I heard Clarence grumble that you’d be sure to direct your answer to Mama. So be sure you send the answer in his name.
P. S. Mother sends in this letter a Postal note for ten dollars ($10.00 I suppose you will need Arties there. Keep your self warmly clothed and comfortable any way. All send love and lots of it
from Sister
Jennie Taylor
1913 Was a Tough Year
Bills were piling up for Louis Charles Bucklin. He mortgaged 160 acres of land in March. I am not sure how much of the farm he personally owned at the time, but in total the family homesteaded 850 acres. One of those bills that wasn’t getting paid was at the Tupper Store. Thankfully W. H. Tupper continued to let the Bucklins buy on credit for months with no payment. By August 1, he owed $271 at the store and had only $99 in the bank.
