Category: Bucklin

A Letter From Pee Paw and Banns in 1952

Leave a comment

This post is another one in the series leading up to the 70th anniversary of my parents’ marriage.  I didn’t really think this all out ahead of time, I just post one here and there if something comes up.  I wasn’t planning on writing another one before the anniversary of their wedding, but I ran across these items when I was looking for something else.  I don’t even remember what I was looking for.  I think I may have been looking for a photo to add to a gift for a little cousin’s first birthday party.  I never found the photo I had originally thought of, but I found something appropriate.

Letter written on Oct. 13, 1952, to Robert Joseph “Bobby” Landry, Jr.

But when I found this old letter from exactly 70 years ago today, I knew I would have to include it in this week’s post.  When I first started reading it, I thought that it was from my grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau Landry – better known as Mee Maw.  Most of the letters that were from Lake Charles to my dad – Robert Joseph “Bob” or “Pluto” Landry, Jr. – were from his mother or sisters.  As I read the short little sentences – “Rec’d your letter – glad to hear from you… I was off last week – back to work this morning.” – it was a bit different. 

It also had a few references to ball games – “I wish I could have seen the games on TV… L.C. & Sulphur play on Thanksgiving. McNeese surely has a fine team – they are going places.”  I wondered who had written the letter, but Mee Maw liked to watch baseball and I think other sports as well.  There were also references to family members like Aunt Zim and Mildred who had been having medical issues at the time.  Aunt Zim was doing okay and Mildred was doing better.  “All are well at M. T. and Germaine’s.”  M. T. would have been my dad’s sister Marie Therese.  We knew her as Aunt Marie.  Germaine was his other older sister.

I was still wondering who wrote the letter as I got to the last page.  The handwriting reminds me of my dad’s writing, but I knew the letter was to him.  I was pleasantly surprised when the letter was ended with “Will sign off now.  Love from all to you.  I am your Devoted Father – R. J. Landry”  It was from Pee Paw and I don’t remember ever seeing his writing before.  I should have guessed who it was earlier.  Maybe when he talked about watching a series of games and he said, ” I won $5 from Joe Shimimi.”  I’m not sure of that last name, but he must have been a betting man.  My grandmother never mentioned betting money and she also never talked about the beginning of squirrel season.  My grandfather was a hunter and fisherman.

Wedding banns for Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. and Betty Lou Bucklin were published in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on Oct. 19, 1952. Obviously no objections were made.

I had a group of letters that I wasn’t familiar with, so I had to look to see what the other letters were about.  There was a letter from Mee Maw that talked about some of the plans for my parents’ wedding.  Aunt Marie was going to have the wedding cake and reception after the wedding at their house.  While it is an interesting letter to read, I was more excited to see the other side of the letter.  Mee Maw had written the letter on a church bulletin because they had posted the wedding banns for Robert Jos. Landry and Betty Lou Bucklin – mom and dad to me and my siblings.  Their names are on the bottom line on the page.

Wedding banns is an old tradition.  An announcement is read or posted for three weeks in a row at the parish church of the couple intending to get married.  It is to let people know about the approaching marriage and it gives everyone an opportunity to state any objections they have to the marriage.  As my mom would say, “Speak now or forever hold your peaceables.”  When I look through old church documents, I’ve seen wedding banns back in the 18th and 19th centuries.  I don’t know if they still call it that or not.  I just looked it up and I see that the Catholic Church requirement for the banns was removed in 1983, but some places still maintain the tradition.

So Bob and Betty Lou would get married at the Immaculate Conception Church.  It doesn’t give a date, so I guess it wasn’t an open invitation to the wedding.  But it wasn’t far off.  The date quickly approaches.

The Godmothers’ Godmothers of 1952

One comment

I’m not so sure I like the title of my post this week, but it’s the best thing I could come up with for the unusual situation that it refers to.  1952 was the year that my parents were married, and I’ve posted stories related to that during the past two months.  (Meeting the Parents in 1952 and A Letter From Home in 1952)  Seventy years is an important milestone and even though my parents are no longer alive, I think it is appropriate to acknowledge such an important part of my own family history.

The other two posts talked about  the earlier part of 1952.  My parents – Bob Landry and Betty Lou Bucklin – got engaged and they went to their parents’ homes to meet their future in-laws.  My dad also joined the Air Force and went to basic training in Texas.  He would later be stationed at Edwards Air Force base in California.  They wrote letters to each other that they saved until some of their nosy children (my sister Jamie and I) found them and read them.  And we laughed and laughed at the sweet messages that they sent to each other.  This led to the letters disappearing, and for the most part never to be seen again.  I’ve shared the letters that we were able to find. (Love Letters Lost)

Well, one of the other things that happened that year was that my mom decided to become a Catholic.  I don’t know that this was a prerequisite for Daddy to marry her or not.  He had stopped dating her a while because she was a Methodist and the Landry family were devout Catholics.  But she was too irresistible to him and they started dating again and became engaged.  Maybe she decided to become Catholic because it was so important to him and he wanted to get married in the Catholic Church.

Sisters (and godmothers) Sylvia and Betty Lou Bucklin in the early 1950s.

So she went through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) or whatever the process was back then.  But she did not go through it alone.  Her older sister Sylvia had married Ronald Pilcher in February of 1951 and he was a Catholic also.  She must have decided to become Catholic as well, because my mom always talked about them going through the classes together.  Sylvia was married with a child in Lafayette at the time and mom was living at home with her parents in Hathaway. At least it looks like that from the pictures she sent her beau when he was away.  The photos of Betty Lou show her with her younger siblings on their parents’ property in Hathaway.

My mom must have gone to Lafayette to go through the process.  It’s the only thing that makes sense.  One of the things that happens is that those in the class are baptized if they have not been previously baptized.  Those who have been baptized in other faith (such as Methodist) are not rebaptized.  But they do make some of the same professions that are made during a baptism.  Usually there are godparents present who also profess to be an encouragement in the faith.  So in an unusual turn of events, Sylvia and Betty Lou were allowed to be each other’s godmother.  I never heard anything about godfathers when my mom talked about this part of her life.  She was always so tickled with the fact that Sylvia was her godmother and she was Sylvia’s.

This picture may have nothing to do with the RCIA or the process they went through.  I like it because they look so chummy in the photo.  Sisterly love.  I always think of the story of the mutual godmothers when I see it.  Now maybe you will too.

Betty Lou: Pretty in Green

Leave a comment

Last week I mentioned that my mom and our next door neighbor were in the same graduating class from Hathaway.  I looked through my posts to find the photo of their Hathaway High School graduating Class of 1951.  But I didn’t find it.  I’ve never posted the photo before.  The group photo that I did post with both of them in it was a photo of the Hathaway Hornets basketball team from 1948.  So I thought I might post their graduation photo this week.

Betty Lou Bucklin (later Landry) in 1948 in Hathaway, Louisiana.

But then I came across this old photo.  I posted a similar photo of her two years ago.  She was wearing the same dress and her hair was similar, so I’m thinking it was from the same time.  The one I posted before was definitely a school photo that was taken in 1946.  So little Betty Lou Bucklin would have only been thirteen years old when this photo was taken.  She looks much more mature than that.  My mom in her later years wrote on the back of this photo that she was fifteen years old at the time. 

Oh, wait.  I just realized something.  I have a black and white version of this photo and it looks like it came from a textured photo.  My mom is actually wearing this same dress in a photo with her siblings that I’ve posted before.  The date of that photo was 1948, so that goes along with Mama’s writing on the back of the photo.  So she either took an individual photo with the photographer on the same day they took the family photo, or there is another version of that family photo out there.  Because it is not a crop of the family photo I have.  She has her head turned in that photo.

My mom must have liked this photo, too.  She had an 8 x 10 enlargement made of it.  I think she did that in the 70s when she was hand-tinting black and white photos.  There are two enlargements of her that I think she used to practice her skills.  So when I came across those photos last weekend, I thought it was time to make the dramatic combination of them and hopefully come up with something I could use as a post.  I liked the colors she used in the tinting, but it was cropped too much for my taste.  So I used the cropping from the black and white photo and the coloring from the hand-tinted photo.  I tried to stay true to the colors that she used.  But I also wanted to darken the background to give it a more dramatic look.

Of course I cleaned up the photo and sharpened it a little.  And Voila!  Here is the final result.  I am very pleased with it.  She looks so striking in the photo.  It’s a keeper.

Bucklin Brothers Coming and Going in 1925

Leave a comment

Clarence Bucklin, Myrtle Moon, unknown, and Fred Bucklin circa 1925 in southern Louisiana.

I like this pair of photos.  I got them from cousin Carla in 2019.  She let me borrow a whole stack of these old photos so I could scan them.  I’ve shared a few of them with you before.  Many of those photos had my grandfather Fred Bucklin and his identical twin brother Clarence Bucklin – father of Carla – in them.  In many of them I am unable to tell who is who since they were identical.  I keep thinking that at some point I’ll be able to tell them apart.  Because in some of the photos – like this one – you can tell which twin is which by who they are standing next to.

The person that is recognizable in those photos is Myrtle Moon.  Do not confuse her with my grandmother who was also a Myrtle.  My grandmother was Myrtle Phenice.  I have always found it interesting that both of the twins dated and married a woman named Myrtle.  So when I see a photo of the twins with Myrtle Moon, I’m pretty sure that she was likely standing next to Clarence in the photo.  That’s how I identified Clarence and Fred in this photo.  Myrtle Moon had a thin frame and curly hair and I recognize her standing with her arms crossed in front of her.

The other woman who is standing closer to my grandfather Fred is not my grandmother Myrtle.  I don’t know her name and I don’t know if it was a girlfriend or just a friend of the twins.  They took several photos with different friends and family members.  So it could be a friend of Myrtle Moon or a friend of one of their sisters.  At this point it’s not likely to be found out, though  I have found out things about photos from unlikely sources at unexpected times.  I post these photos and never know what kind of information I can get in return.

The foursome suddenly found something really interesting behind them.

The other part of this pair of photos is this one with the same four people with their backs turned toward the camera.  It’s an unusual pose to see in an old photo, yet it shows a playfulness that they must have had.  I really don’t think they were distracted by anything behind them.  And the photo only makes sense if you have the first photo.  If you only found this old photo, it would leave you mostly puzzled.  It might even leave you frustrated because you know they’ll never turn around to show you their faces.

Now that I look at these photos more, I am getting a bit puzzled and frustrated.  It’s like there is an inside joke and somehow I’m missing something.  And why are they hugging those pine branches?  Is that a clue?  Perhaps I am overthinking it.  It’s just a fun front and back set of photos.  Like a before and after photo.

Fred Bucklin with unidentified female in 1925 in southern Louisiana.

While I’m at it, I might as well post this other photo of my grandfather Fred on the same day.  I’m pretty sure it is the same day.  He is wearing the same thing, he is with the unidentified female from the other  photos, and she is wearing the same thing as well.  I’m not exactly sure where the photo was taken.  My grandfather and his brother lived in Hathaway, Louisiana, which is a small town in southern Louisiana in Jefferson Davis Parish.  When we visited my grandparents in Hathaway, we used to go the “Myrie” and play.  That was actually the Bayou Grand Marais, but it was more of a drainage ditch.  It looks like they were near a more substantial body of water.  It could be the Mermentau River near Jennings, but that didn’t have a beach like you see in the third photo.  I’m thinking it is most likely the Ouiska Chitto Creek.  It’s a waterway a few miles west of Hathaway where you can canoe and swim.

Or you can just go there with friends and take fun photos for people to think about 100 years later.  That’s what my grandfather did.  I, for one, am glad he did.

Meeting the Parents in 1952

Leave a comment

Betty Lou Bucklin and Bob Landry at the Landry home in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in May of 1952.

Later this year we will honor the 70th anniversary of my parents’ first wedding.   It was their one and only wedding, so don’t think you’ve  missed out on some information.  My mom talked about how they went on a few dates when she first started school.  Then my dad broke it off for a while because they weren’t the same religion.  My mom was a English/Irish/German Methodist and my dad was a Cajun Catholic.  But when Bob Landry realized he couldn’t get Miss Betty Lou Bucklin out of his head, they started dating again.  By the spring semester of 1952 at McNeese State College, they had decided that they were going to get married.

Betty Lou Bucklin in May 1952 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. She turned 19 on the 20th of that month.

One of the things that couples usually do is go back to their childhood homes and meet their partner’s parent or parents.  In their case, all of their parents were alive at that time.  They even took a few photos with some family members at the Landry home.  This must have been when Mama met Mee Maw and Pee Paw.  For those not in the know, that would be Betty Lou Bucklin meeting Erie Patureau Landry and Robert Joseph “Rob” Landry, Sr. at their home in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  I don’t remember these photos when I was growing up.  My mom may have told me that they were from that fateful visit, but I probably wasn’t paying attention.  It’s a good thing she realized this and wrote the information on the back of the photos.  Thanks, Mom.

But I do remember the story she told me about the first time she met the Landry family.  The thing that was the most striking to my mom was the affection that his parents had toward their children.  Her family was a little more staid.  The English culture is more known for having a more reserved manner.  But it was more than that.  When Pee Paw came home from work, he greeted each member of his family with a kiss.  And it was not just the womenfolk. He also greeted his sons with a kiss.  On the lips. 

Marie Therese “Sis” Schafer (my dad’s maternal cousin), Wana Lydwin Landry (my dad’s younger sister), and Betty Lou Bucklin at the Landry home in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in May of 1952.

Now there was nothing wrong with this action, but my mom was definitely not used to it.  Like she would say to me, “I don’t want anyone kissing my lips but my honey!”  Of course her honey was my dad.  I must have heard this story when I was quite young, because I think it might have influenced my own behavior.  I remember discreetly avoiding my Landry aunts who would kiss us kids in greeting.  And we definitely avoided those dreaded kisses from our cousin Tez – she of the bumps.  As I’ve gotten older and have lost those aunts, I sometimes miss those sweet greetings. 

It’s interesting that this was the day that my mom met her future in-laws, but there is not a photo of her with them or of the two couples together.  At least we have the one of mom and dad.  I’ve shared the photo of my mom before, but it is worth sharing again.  It is such a striking photo of her.  I also like the photo of her with Dad’s cousin Sis and his sister Wana.   I asked Sis about the day of the meeting, but she didn’t remember it.  It wasn’t as monumental for her as it was for my mom.

Sadly, we don’t have any photos of the visit to my mom’s parents.  Her parents were Fred Bucklin and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin and they lived in Hathaway, Louisiana.  And again with this story, it is from my mom’s point of view.  The only thing I remember her telling me about was the meal that they had.  I don’t remember what it was that was served.  My grandmother cooked things like chicken-fried steak with white gravy or red beans and sausage.  It was probably something like that.  Something that my mom never fixed because my dad didn’t like them.  I like that kind of food, but we would only have it when Daddy was out of town.

So what happened was this.  When it was time for dinner, my grandmother probably called the family to the table.  I imagine she had tried her best to provide a good meal for her future son-in-law.  But when Bob Landry sat down at the dinner table and looked at the food provided, all he said was, “I can’t eat that.”  He didn’t make up some story about being allergic or something, he just matter of factly said he wasn’t going to eat it.  And he didn’t.  I don’t know what he did for dinner that night.  It was a bit shocking to my mom at the time.  Otherwise you wouldn’t be hearing the story. 

My dad always stood by his behavior and was glad he wasn’t stuck eating something he didn’t like for years to come.  I never heard my grandmother’s view of the story.  It must not have been a deal breaker, because they always seemed to get along fine.  She cooked things he liked from time to time.  She even let him have some of her divinity.

Mary Ann Writes to Her Son Louie in 1893

Leave a comment

Letter from Mary Ann McGrath Bucklin to her son Louis Charles Bucklin in 1893. Louis Bucklin was in school in Ada, Ohio, during this time.

I can’t remember when I took this photo.  I was visiting with my mom’s Bucklin cousin Louise in Hathaway and we were talking about family history and looking at old family photos.  I tend to do that from time to time, so I can’t remember the exact date.  I should be able to tell, because I keep such good track of all of the photos I take.  At least I thought I did.  I’ve found many photos I took when I was younger that don’t have a date on them.  Why would anyone listen to my recommendation to label all of their photos when I don’t do so myself?  Because they shouldn’t follow my bad example!  Do as I say, not as I do.  Label all of your photos!!

Ok.  I got that out of my system.  That wasn’t planned, but none of this post was planned.  I just knew I was going to write something and it was likely going to be about my mom’s side of the family because it’s their turn.  So this old letter caught my attention when I was looking through the folders on my computer about my maternal side.

As you can see from the letter itself, it was written on April 11, 1893.  What you probably do not know is that it was written by my great great grandmother Mary Ann McGrath.   She was the mother of Louis Bucklin.  He was the father of Fred Bucklin, who was my maternal grandfather.

Mary Ann is my closest link to Ireland.  She was born in 1834 in Roscommon, Ireland.  Her youngest sibling was born in Ireland in 1838.  That would mean that Mary Ann was 11 years old when the Great Famine began in Ireland in  1845.  That’s when a blight caused the destruction of a large majority of the potato crop in the country. Since potatoes were a large part of the Irish diet, it caused widespread famine.

James Bucklin and Mary Ann McGrath were married in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1854.

During the six years of the Great Potato Famine an estimated million people died from starvation and hunger-related diseases.  Mary Ann and her family were part of the million Irish people who emigrated during that time.  I have not been able to identify the date of their move to the United States, but know that they settled in Palmer, Massachusetts.  Mary Ann met a local man named James Bucklin and they were married in 1854 in Springfield, Massachusetts.  So we know they were in the US by 1854, but they probably came over around 1850 or so.  I hope to be able to find that information one day.  I will definitely let you all know when I do.

So Mary Ann and James went on to have Jennie in 1855 and Joseph in 1861.  Those two were born in Massachusetts.  The family then moved to Iowa at some point, because they had Edd in 1864 in Sand Springs, Iowa.  They were still in Iowa when our Louis was born in 1873.  But the family moved south to Louisiana and began homesteading in Hathaway, Louisiana, in 1884.  Then in 1893, it was decided that Louis needed a good education and that was going to be done in Ada, Ohio.  So he went off to Ohio Normal University.  He kept a journal about some of the things that were happening when he was there.  He must have also kept some of the letters that he got from home, because the family still has some of them.

In this one, his mother Mary Ann talks about a dream that she had.  In the dream her son “Louie” came to her crying because he had broken his arm.  This caused Mary Ann to worry about her son and she says, “I cannot wrest untile I hear from you that you are alright.”  I’m sure she was missing her youngest son and was concerned about his well being.  I wonder how Louis took this.  He was 19 years old and probably didn’t want to see himself as a child who goes crying to his mother when he gets hurt.  And yet he probably appreciated his mother’s concern and he still kept the letter all through the years.

The big Cry Baby!

 

Baby Betty Lou

Leave a comment

Betty Lou Bucklin lived in Hathaway, Louisiana, in 1933.

I can’t believe I’ve never posted a photo of my mom as a young child before.  There aren’t that many of them, but it seems like I would have posted one before.  I know I have mentioned photos of my mom as a baby before.   In 2017 I posted a photo of my grandmother Myrtle Phenice – my mom’s mom.  I mentioned a baby photo of my mom that was from a contest she won.  Then in 2019 I mentioned in a post about her mom that they had both been cute babies and that Mama had won a Gerber’s Cutest Baby Contest. 

My mom used to say that she won a cutest baby contest, and this is the photo that she would show.  But on the back of this photo it says that this is the photo that she won honorable mention in a national Sears contest.  What?  Did she or did she not win the Gerber’s Cutest Baby award?   That would have been in 1933, and the first contest was just two years earlier.  I looked up that information just now and realized that the first winner of that contest died this week.  What a coincidence!

But I don’t think my mom was the winner in 1933.  Maybe she got honorable mention in that.  Or maybe she just got honorable mention in the Sears contest.  Either way, she did pretty well for a national contest for cute babies.  But really, just look at that cute little face of hers.  She was adorable.

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.

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.

Easter Memories in Hathaway

Leave a comment

When I think about my childhood Easter memories, I always think of Hathaway, Louisiana.  That is where my maternal grandparents Fred and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin (Grandpa and Grandma) lived.  It’s also where my mom grew up.  Since Easter is coming up soon, I thought I’d do a post about those memories at Grandpa and Grandma’s house.  I wanted to find a picture that showed the fun of finding eggs at their house when they had the Great Bucklin Egg Hunt of Hathaway every year.  That was not the name of it – I just made it up.  But it fits the epicness of it in my head.

Van Landry hunting Easter eggs in Hathaway, Louisiana, in 1963.

I didn’t think I had a photo of us hunting Easter eggs, but then I noticed this photo and realized it was from Easter, it was in Hathaway, and I had some colored eggs in my hand!  How have I never noticed this before?  I worked on this photo several times, but never noticed it.  I was just thinking that it was a cute photo of me when I was about three years old.  But it is me during the Great Bucklin Egg Hunt of 1963.

I wasn’t even looking for this photo when I sat down to write this post.  I was looking for some other photos that showed the layout of the Bucklin house back then.  But I have a stupidly slow computer (maybe my thousands of photos bog it down!) that doesn’t show previews to all of my photos.  But this photo showed up and when I clicked on it, I realized the photo showed that I had eggs in my hand.  It was meant to be!

What I remember was that all of the kids (or just the little ones?) would be confined to the house while the adults would go outside to hide the eggs.  Of course they had someone inside with us to monitor that we didn’t look through the windows to see where the eggs were being hid.  There were lots of colored eggs hidden (like the ones in my hand), but there were also some plastic ones with prizes inside.  But the best one of all was a golden egg with all sorts of goodies inside.  I don’t know if I ever found that one, but I seem to recall one hidden in the electric box on the side of the house. 

Photos in Hathaway from 1967. 1) Brent Woolley & Karen Landry 2) Jodie, Rob, and Al Landry 3) Jamie Landry & Rhonda Seal

I’m posting these other photos to show some of the layout of the house on the property “out in the country.”  We always referred to it that way, because we lived in the big city of Jennings.  Ha!  I think the population was only around ten thousand back then.  I got these photos from Aunt Loris a few years ago, but they include all of my siblings. The side of the house facing the road didn’t really seem like the front of the house.  There was no door there.  I don’t even think there was a walkway to the door.  Could that be right?  When you walked to the right side of the house from the road, you would come to the first picture. 

Sitting on the steps to the “front” of the house are my cousin Brent Woolley and my sister Karen.  It looks like they were having a fun time eating watermelon on a warm summer day.  That was always enjoyable.  Those steps took you into the living area of the house.  I think there was a room closer to the road, but there was no access to outside.  Toward the back of the house, you would go to the dining room.  I’ve shared photos of that before.  Then at the back of the house was the kitchen.  The kitchen had a door to outside.  That’s the steps that are shown in the second photo.  At the top of the steps you see my sister Jodie, then my brothers Rob and Al. 

The third photo has my sister Jamie and cousin Rhonda.  All of these photos were taken the same day.  If you look at that first photo, you can see the other photo areas in the background.  Just above Karen’s head you can see Jodie, who is now sitting closer to Jamie and Rhonda.  Standing up back there is Aunt Alma (my mom Betty Lou Bucklin Landry’s younger sister and Rhonda’s mom).  She is standing near the back steps.  Comparing these to the photo of me, I was in the area behind Jamie and Rhonda. 

Landry family at their Bucklin grandparents’ home in Hathaway, Louisiana, in 1961.

But that was just the right side of the house.  There were two large bottlebrush bushes between the two sets of steps at the house.  Past that was a planting area that Grandpa used for his plant nursery.  That’s where we made mud pies when we were kids.  This photo shows the front of the house.  It was just a large circle of grass with trees and shrubs in different areas.  I wish I had more photos of the area so I could see exactly how it was laid out.

The other side of the house had some green space and then a driveway that went back to the old barn. That was another fun place to explore, though I’m sure they never hid any Easter eggs there.  It was mainly confined to the areas around the house.  So, as I was saying, us young kids were confined to the inside while the adults hid the eggs. 

Then it was time for the hunt!  We all rushed out down the front steps and ran around frantically finding those wonderful colored eggs, hoping to be the one that found the golden egg and be proclaimed the Ruler of the Great Bucklin Egg Hunt.  Yeah, yeah.  I made that up, too.  But the memories are real.  Can you feel it?

April 17, 2022 – Update

April 14, 1963

Found another photo from that long, long ago Easter of 1963. The date was April 14, 1963. The place was Hathaway, Louisiana, at the home of my grandparents Fred and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin. This is in the front of their house and it includes Rob Landry, cousin Rhonda (I think), Pilcher cousins Larry, Toni, and Paul, and myself – Van Landry. I’m not sure what I’m holding in this photo. It looks like most of us have taken a break from Easter egg hunting. Yet Rhonda looks like she is skedaddling past Rob to find some hidden treasure! I think there’s someone else behind him as well.

 

1 … 4 5 6 7 8 … 21