Category: Landry

Hebert and Breaux Connections

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I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while now.  I wrote a post about my five connections to my great great great grandfather Joseph Ignace (Ignatius) Landry back in March of 2019.  In that post I showed a chart that demonstrated the five lines between my dad Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry and his great great grandfather.  I’m using the same chart this time, but I’ve added a few things to show how the Breau/Breaux/Braud and Hebert family lines come into the mix.  I’ve also fixed the spelling of the name of Narcisse Landry.  There are only 2 esses in his name, not 3.  How did that get past everyone for so long.  At least it has been remedied, and we can now move on.

Let’s start at the top with Ignace Landry.  Ever since I started studying French, I’ve taken to spelling his name with the French way of spelling it – Ignace.  If you see it spelled Joseph Ignatius, know that I’m talking about the same person.  The name is spelled both ways in the various records.  He was born in Pisiquit, Acadie, around 1753.  His family was Exiled to Maryland in 1755, where they spent twelve long years in Upper Marlboro.  The Acadians began to find places in Louisiana that welcomed them.  The Landry family made it to New Orleans in July of 1767 and settled in St. Gabriel, Louisiana.

Another family that made it to St. Gabriel was the family of Scholastique Breaux.  She was also born in Acadie, but her family spent their years of Exile in Port Tobacco, Maryland.  Her parents were Antoine Breaux and Marguerite Landry.  The fact that her mother was a Landry did not deter her from marrying Joseph Ignace Landry in 1776.  They had five children together, but the one that we’re concerned with is their son Joseph Emmanuel Landry who was born in 1781.  Manuel is the oldest of Joseph Ignace’s sons that I descend from.

Ignace and Scholastique probably would have had more children, but she died in 1785.  She could possibly have died in childbirth.  Her last recorded child was known to be in 1783, so the standard practice was to have another child after two years.  Whatever the cause of her death, she left Ignace a widowed father with five children in November of 1785.

Another event happening in 1785 was the influx of another group of Acadians to Louisiana.  These families had spent thirty years in Exile with most of their time in France.  Seven separate ships made their way from France to Louisiana.  One of those ships was the Bergere and we are looking at one family in particular.  That was the family of Honore Braud and Elizabeth LeBlanc.  They were both born in Acadie, but they were married in France during their Exile.  All of their children were born in France, except for their last one.  The youngest daughter was born aboard the Bergere as it made its way to Louisiana.  What an exciting time for our ancestors!

But the daughter we are concerned with is Olive Elizabeth who was born in 1769.  The family also settled in St. Gabriel.  I wonder if she knew her second cousin Scholastique.  She might have connected or reconnected with her before she died.  They arrived in Louisiana a few months before Scholastique’s death.  We’ll never know whether that happened.  We do know that two years later Olive Elizabeth married Scholastique’s widowed husband Ignace.  When they were married in 1787, he was 34 and she was 18.  We’re not gonna say anything about that, because they were also related to each other through the Landry and Babin family lines.

Ignace and Olive Elizabeth had six children together.  The ones we’re concerned with are Narcisse Landry born in 1796 and Elie Onezime Landry born in 1800.  Those are the other two sons that I descend from.  Like I said at the beginning, there are five lines to Ignace Landry.  That’s because Manuel and Narcisse each had two children that descend down to me.  I descend from two of Manuel’s daughters and two of Narcisse’s sons.  Since both of Ignace’s wives had the name Breau and they were second cousins, I have five lines that lead back to their great grandfather Antoine Breau.

So that takes care of the Breau connections, right?  I hope you can follow my chart.  I’ve mostly talked about the top name – Ignace Landry – and his two wives Scholastique Breaux and Olive Elizabeth Braud.  Those two are mentioned in the blue text on the top right of the chart.  I also mention their great grandfather Antoine Breau.  Their great grandmother (Antoine’s wife) was Marguerite Babin (1670-1730).  I wouldn’t want to leave her out, even though it complicates things a little.  Ignace’s mother was Marie Madeleine Babin.  The common ancestor was further back, but they were definitely the same family.

Now I’ll show how the Hebert family ties into the mix.  Manuel, the oldest brother I descend from, was married in 1808 to Clarice Celeste Bruneteau.  She has such a pretty French name.  Yet she is not only descended from French ancestors, because her mother was Acadian Anne Marie Hebert.  Anne Marie had married fellow Acadian Joseph Dupuis soon after her family had come to Louisiana.  They, too, had settled in St. Gabriel.  After having six children together, Joseph died.  Anne Marie then married Frenchman Pierre Bruneteau in 1785.  Anne Marie then had two more children, with the youngest being Clarice Celeste.  Anne Marie was 44 when she had her.

The left side of the chart shows Manuel with the blue text talking about his marriage to Celeste.  They had six children together, but the only ones I show are the ones I descend from – Marguerite and Adele.  Marguerite is shown on the left side of the graph.  She married Joseph Auguste Leveque, the widowed husband of her older sister Clarissa.  There are a lot of descendants of these couples and many of them still carry the Leveque last name.  If you follow the line down from Manuel and veer to the right, you find Adele’s name.  Adele married Amede Bujol.  There are a lot of descendants of this couple also, but not many carry the Bujol name.  They had ten daughters and one son, and only the daughters had children.

The next oldest brother that I descend from is Narcisse.  He married Marie Carmelite Hebert in 1819.  Carmelite was the granddaughter of Pierre Paul Hebert, the oldest sibling of Anne Marie Hebert.  (She also had two Babin grandparents and one Landry grandparent.)  Narcisse and Carmelite had eight children.  Their youngest two were sons and I descend from both of them – Trasimond and Alcide.  Trasimond married Belite Bujol and Alcide married Marie Celeste Leveque.  The lines in the graph are coming together!  Pierre Paul and Anne Marie are children of Paul Gascon Hebert and Marguerite Josephe Melanson.

The youngest of the sons that I descend from is Elie Onezime Landry.  He married Zerbine Dupuy in 1825.  Zerbine was the granddaughter of Anne Marie Hebert thru her first husband Joseph Dupuis.  You’ll probably notice that I spell some of these names differently.  The spelling of Breau is what you see in documents from Acadia, while in Louisiana it is spelled Breaux and Braud.  Dupuis is the Acadian spelling of the name.  In Louisiana you’ll see both Dupuis and Dupuy, and they usually are from the same ancestors.  Onezime and Zerbine’s daughter Emma is the one with the most descendants.  She married Frenchman Ferdinand Pierre Patureau and gave birth to sixteen children.  Not all of them lived to adulthood, but many of them did and they had large families of their own.  There are at least a thousand descendants.  Count ’em!  A thousand!

These lines come together at the bottom of the graph.  On the left is a blue box labeled Rob.  That would be Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.  He was my grandfather and he was known by Bob, Rob, Pappy, Papa, and Pee Paw.  I never called him anything because he died before I was born.  On the bottom right is a pink box labeled Erie.  That would be Germaine Erie Patureau Landry.  She was my grandmother and she was known as Erie, Mama, and Mee Maw.  I got to enjoy her as my dear sweet grandmother until I was almost thirteen years old.  They are my dad’s parents, and I think that’s all I have to say for now.

Isn’t that enough?

 

Amedee Bujol’s Tragic Death

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Marie Amelie Belite Bujol was the daughter of Amedee Bujol.

I came across something this week that I had never noticed before.  On the profile for Amedee Bujol on FindaGrave, there was a photo attached of a newspaper article.  It had been there for four years, but I hadn’t noticed it.  I don’t examine every little detail of those profiles on a regular basis, so it can be easy to overlook something.  But this thing wasn’t insignificant!  It was information about how one of my ancestors had died in a rather tragic way.  That always makes a good story, right?

I shouldn’t talk about his death so flippantly, should I?  It’s serious business, especially when the circumstances are tragic.  It’s not the first time that I’ve been flippant about his death, either.  I’ve done it at least twice already.  But before I tell you about those, let me tell you of my connection to Amedee Bujol.  My father’s name was Bob Landry, and he was the son of Erie Patureau Landry.  She was my beloved Mee Maw, and her mother was Marie Therese Landry Patureau.  Marie Therese died at the age of 41 when Mee Maw was just 14 years old.  She was the oldest child of Trasimond Landry and Belite Bujol.  Belite was the daughter of Joseph Hubert Amedee Bujol and Anna Adele Landry.  She was born in 1843 in Brusly, Louisiana.

Selfie I took with Amedee’s grave in December of 2017 in the Brusly cemetery.

But Belite wasn’t the only daughter of Amedee and Adele.  Not by a long shot.  She was the third daughter.  She had no older brothers, and it wasn’t until she already had seven more younger sisters when she finally had a brother.  That son was born in May of 1856 and their father died in June of 1857.  I didn’t know how Amedee died, but I did know he died after having eleven children over a period of sixteen years.  So in a previous post I joked that he died the following year from exhaustion.   Anything for laugh at the expense of poor old Amedee.

Then a couple of years later I talked about him in another post.  In that one I suggested that Adele had strangled him when he suggested they try for another son!  She could have blamed it on postpartum depression.  Not really.  That wasn’t a thing back then and if she had killed him, surely we would have heard about that.  Two weeks after that post, someone on FindaGrave shared the information that talked about Amedee’s death.  It’s like they were trying to help me out, but I just didn’t notice.

July 8, 1857, newspaper article about Amedee’s death. The Daily Advocate of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

And now I have.  No more jokes in bad taste about his death.  You can see from the article that he had a tragic death.  It says that he is an old citizen of the parish, but he was only 41 years old at the time of his death.  That’s not old at all.

He lived in Brusly on a plantation on the Mississippi River at the time of his death.  He didn’t own much land, but he worked in combination with Joseph Auguste Leveque, who owned a considerable amount more.  Joseph Auguste was his mother’s (Marie Francoise Leveque) younger brother.  Not only that, at the time he was married to Adele’s younger sister Marguerite Landry.  His first wife had been Adele and Marguerite’s older sister Doralise.  Marguerite married Josephe Auguste after Doralise’s death.  I descend from the second marriage.

The plantation he lived on was to the west of the Mississippi River, and on the other side it led into a marshy area that was formed by Bayou Choctaw.  According to the article, Amedee had gone hunting one Saturday trying to score a deer.  It was probably something he had done all his life.  He was a Cajun living along the bayous of Southern Louisiana.  And usually when you find a deer hunter, they started hunting at a young age and have a passion for it.  They know about guns and ammunition, and in the place that he was living, they would know about boats as well.

But this time something different had happened.  The article doesn’t exactly say all of the details of what went wrong, yet we know that something went tragically wrong.  The 41-year-old father of ten young children drowned in Bayou Choctaw.  Was he alone when it happened?  Were there any hints of foul play?  It doesn’t say.  It just says that his body was recovered the following day and brought to Brusly for interment.  Traditionally that means burying somebody in the ground, but that last statement makes me question that assumption.  “Peace to his ashes.”  Does that mean he was cremated?  I don’t think so.  I think he was buried in that grave in Brusly.

That must have been a terrible shock for Adele, Belite, and the rest of the family.  Belite was a young teenage girl of 13 at the time of her father’s death.  The only grandfather she knew – Emmanuel Landry – had died three years earlier.  She had never known her Bujol grandfather.  Joseph Sylvestre Bujol had died in 1824 at the age of 36.  I don’t know how he died, and I will refrain from saying anything flippant about his death.  I’ll have to see if I can find anything more about any details. 

Belite still had her mom and her grandmother Francoise Leveque Bujol.  I suppose she also had her grandmother’s brother who was her uncle Joseph Auguste and her neighbor as well.  He seemed to play a big part in their lives.  He helped Adele with settling Amedee’s succession.  Their extended family was nearby and I’m sure they were supportive of one another.  It was a Landry family after all!

1850 Brusly Census page shows some family. It starts in the middle of the page with Adele’s parents Emmanuel and Celeste Landry, followed by Amedee and Adele’s family, then the family of Joseph Auguste Leveque and (Marguerite) Basilde Landry Leveque, and lastly Manette Bujol’s household. Manette was another name for Marie Francoise Leveque Bujol.

 

Pappy Was a Pitcher

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March 1915 – tryouts for the Texas League Beaumont Oilers. Rob Landry is standing on the right in a dark sweater.

I shared this photo ten years ago, but I think it’s time to look at it again.  It’s such a great old baseball photo and it happens to also be a great photo of my grandfather Robert Joseph “Rob” Landry, Sr.  Of course, he hadn’t acquired the Sr. addition to his name.  He wasn’t even married yet!  He turned 22 in January of 1915, and at the time he must have been quite interested in baseball.

I remember hearing that my Pee Paw had been a semi-professional baseball player when he was young.  He died before I was born, so it was one of the things I knew about a man I had never met.  I remember seeing photos of him during World War I.  Those were taken in 1917 and 1918.  But I don’t remember seeing any of the photos of him during his baseball playing days.

The back of the photo shows names and a date. Next to that are the rosters of the 1914 and 1915 teams of the Beaumont Oilers.

In 1915 it looks like he was trying to see if he could get into more serious baseball playing.  He lived in Westlake, Louisiana, at the time.  Maybe Beaumont, Texas, was the closest place with a serious baseball team.  All I know is that I got this photo from my dad back in 2016 and it was a great photo of a young Rob with a baseball team.  Best of all was that it had the date, the group name, and the names of the players written on the back of it!

Actually, it has just the initials for the first name and their last names.  Wait!  No, it doesn’t. LOL It just has their last names, and after that are abbreviations for their positions.  Now, after 10 years I finally figured it out.  I was thinking the P. after Landry was verification that he had been called Pappy back in 1915.  No!  It stands for pitcher!  I was wondering why the initials didn’t match the first names given on the rosters.

As you can see, some of the names on the back of the photo are a match to the team rosters from 1914 and/or 1915.  Those are the ones who successfully made it through the tryouts and played on the team.  If you read the text on the roster, there is an asterisk * to indicate those people on the roster that played in the majors. Then there are some names that aren’t on either list.  Those are the ones that didn’t make it onto the team.  The semi-professional team.  

The only photo I have of Pee Paw with a semi-professional baseball team is a photo from a 1915 tryout for the Beaumont Oilers.  He wasn’t on the team in 1914, 1915, or any other year as far as I can tell.  If he had been on some other semi-professional baseball team, wouldn’t we have a photo of that?  I never met my grandfather, so I don’t know if he ever said that he was a semi-professional baseball player.  Maybe it was other family members who slightly exaggerated a minor detail.  

There are several photos of him playing baseball through those early years.  There is even a newspaper article about him playing for the Sawdust Baseball Circuit.  I don’t think that was considered semi-professional, but it was something.  They said he was a great pitcher until his arm went dead.  But even after that, he was able to pitch a winning game in 1920 for a Marksville vs Lake Charles game.  It was the end of his baseball glory days.  He then became a husband, father, and grandfather.  From what I can tell, he was pretty good at that, too.

50 Years Ago at Shakey’s

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Bob, Karen, Van, Al, Jamie, and Betty Lou Landry at Shakey’s on June 17, 1976, in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Can it really be fifty years ago that our family started playing at the Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Lake Charles, Louisiana?  The numbers add up, but it doesn’t feel that way.  Our first night there was on June 16, 1976.  We don’t have a photo from that first night we played, but we did take a few photos on the second night.  

I’ve shared this photo before and I have it dated from June 17, 1976.  I also said that the song we were playing is “(I Like) Mountain Music.”  That makes sense, because it was one of the few songs that Jamie would play on the jug.  No, she was not taking a swig of whiskey while we played a song.  She was blowing or puffing or whatever she did to make that jug sing.

But that first night at Shakey’s followed years of “preparation” in the Landry household.  My dad – Bob Landry – was a band director and choral instructor from before I was born.  And my mom loved music, too.  I think it was her desire to have a family band that led to us singing at ye old pizza joint.  She would play the piano often and sing along.  Of course, we would always follow suit.  If we weren’t singing it quite right, she would correct us and encourage us to match the pitch that she would repeat for us.

Bob, Jodie, and Rob Landry at Shakey’s in December of 1978.

When you grow up in a family with music, you just go along with it and learn how to play musical instruments as well.  I never questioned it.  It seemed like the natural thing to do.  We went to my dad’s summer band program every year and sang and played with the older kids.  We thought we were special!  We’d learn the ukulele first, then move on to guitar and bass.  Then when we were in junior high school, it was time to learn a wind instrument. 

Jodie was first and she chose the flute. In college she played the flute and the bass.  Rob was next.  He played trumpet. I remember him playing along with those old Chicago albums in the living room at home.  Karen got stuck on the ukulele.  Not really.  She really liked the uke and played guitar, bass, and clarinet as well.  Al went along the same path as Rob – guitar, bass, and trumpet.  To help you tell them apart, remember that Al is taller than Rob.  He’s taller than me, too.  Speaking of me, I (Van) was next.  I went with the trombone.  We already had a trombone, so we needed someone to play it.  Not really, I just thought it looked more fun than the other instruments.  It had a slide instead of valves.  Way more fun.  Jamie played the flute.  Of course, you already know that she also supplemented that with her jug skills.

First sign that we used when playing at Shakey’s in 1976.

My dad could play all of the instruments, and he liked to sing as well.  My mom – Betty Lou Bucklin Landry – was a musician as well.  She had been playing piano and singing since she was young.  In the 70s they started playing at parties and receptions and such.  It was just the two of them at that time.  Mom was playing the piano and singing, while Daddy was playing bass or guitar and singing.  On some songs he would play verse or more on the trombone.  They played a lot of old standards from the 40s and 50s.

Then, somehow, the gig at Shakey’s came up.  I think there had been a band there before.  The stage was there with an old piano.  The Shakey’s owner was Gene Fontenot, and the manager was Bill Spreafico.  Daddy had talked to one or both of them, and it was decided that we would be the entertainment on Wednesday through Saturday evenings.  It was exciting and a little scary.  We all sang and played instruments, but we weren’t used to performing like that.  And when I think about it now, we were just kids!  

When we started, Momma made a sign that said that “ye old notes” were to be played by Bob and Betty Landry “and sometimes Karen, Al, Van, and Jamie.”  Momma and Daddy would be the ones there on a regular basis, and us kids would show up when we could.  The oldest three were in college, while the younger three were in high school.  It was the youngest four who were there more often.  Since Rob and Jodie weren’t living in Lake Charles, they would only show up at special occasions.

Opening Night.   All of the years of “preparation” were finally paying off.  As the curtain rose and the spotlight focused on the stage, the Landry Family Band was ready for the big time!  No, no, no.  There was no “opening night,” no curtain, and no spotlight.  We did have a small stage that was lit up.  We set up our instruments, turned on our microphones, and started making memories.

6 Kids at 6 Flags in ’66

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The Landry family at Six Flags Over Texas in 1966.

I was planning on calling this post “On Vacation” or as the French would say, “En Vacances.”  But then I was looking at those six singing siblings sitting on shiny seats at Six Flags in 1966, and I had to change it.  I’ve been thinking of a big vacation trip lately, and the big trip for the Landry family back then was Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, Texas.

We would all pile into the station wagon we had at the time and drive west toward a completely different state.  Of course, we’d play games like I Spy or Stink Pink.  Or we’d make up stupid jokes about tunas or elephants.  Sometimes we’d make the peace sign for the people in the cars behind us.  Then if they would do it back, we’d turn the peace sign into an imaginary slingshot.  We thought we were so funny.

It seemed like such a long drive back then, but it was only a few hours.  After we arrived, we’d find the campground and set up the tents.  That’s right!  We camped on the grounds at Six Flags.  We weren’t the only ones.  It’s not like we were camping on the parking lot.  I’m pretty sure it was campgrounds located at the park.  I could be wrong and it was just nearby.  Whatever the case, we’d set up two tents for the family.  One for the boys and one for the girls.  There were public restrooms where we could shower and get ready for a fun day at the theme park.

We did that camping thing at Six Flags for a few years.  Not continuously, of course.  We had to be in Jennings (Louisiana) for most of the summer so we could go to our dad’s summer band program at Northside Junior High.  Besides the grand excursions to Texas for the summers, the summer band program was the highlight.  I need to identify everyone in the photo for you in case you don’t know.  I don’t know who the person in the front seat is.  We just sat behind her and minded our own business.  The second seat has the oldest and youngest of the six siblings.  Jodie is on the left and Jamie is on the right.  On the next seat is me (Van), my mom Betty Lou Bucklin Landry, and sister Karen.  At the back of the train are Al and Rob.

So off on vacation I go.  Besides taking a break from work, I’ll be taking a break from this weekly blog.  I’m not going to Six Flags, but there will be different flags to represent the places I’m going.  A bientôt!

Marie Celeste Circa 1926

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Marie Celeste Leveque (on the right) with her niece Amanda Leveque circa 1926

I figure it’s time to write about my Landry paternal line of the family.  I can’t go back as many generations with this line because the generations are spread out further than my other family lines.  In all of the other lines I have photos of my great great grandparents.  But in this line, I don’t have photos of Narcisse Landry and Marie Carmelite Hebert Landry.  Carmelite died in 1856 at the age of 54, and Narcisse died in 1876 at the age of 80.  I haven’t given up hope that there is a photo of Narcisse, but I haven’t been able to locate one.  Photos were being taken by 1876.

Narcisse and Carmelite were married in St. Gabriel in 1819, but soon after moved to Brusly to live.  I descend from two of their sons.  They had eight children in total.  Let me go ahead and name them for you.  Their oldest child was Marie Irma Landry who was born in 1821.  She married Francois Joseph Bujol in 1845.  His mother was Marie Francoise Leveque. The second child of Narcisse and Carmelite was Pierre Belisaire Landry, born in 1824.  In 1851 he married Marie Marguerite “Lise” Leveque, daughter of Joseph August Leveque.  Joseph August and Marie Francoise were Leveque siblings.

The third child of Narcisse and Carmelite was born in 1826 and her name was Victorine.  She married Jacques Molaison in 1843.  He had mostly French ancestry with some Acadian ancestry as well. Joseph Amedee Landry was the fourth child of Narcisse and Carmelite.  He was born in 1828, and in 1850 he married Desire Landry.  I’m not sure if her maiden name was Landry or not.  After Amedee came Elizabeth Adele Landry born in 1831.  She married Sylvanie Bourg in 1851.  Their descendants show up as strong DNA matches to me.  Following Elizabeth Adele is Marguerite Josephine who was born in 1834.  She married Simon Octave Rivet in 1860.  For some reason, I have no DNA matches from their descendants.

The last two children of Narcisse and Carmelite are the ones that I descend from.  Jean Trasimond Landry was born in 1839, and he married Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol in 1867.  She was the niece of Francois Joseph Bujol, the husband of Trasimond’s sister.  But more importantly, she was the daughter of Anna Adele Landry, who was a half first cousin of Trasimond.  Adele and Trasimond had a common grandfather – Joseph Ignace Landry.  And lastly, Simon Joseph Alcide Landry was born in 1845.  Carmelite was twice as old as she was when she had her first child.  She became a grandmother that same year when daughter Victorine gave birth that December.  Alcide married Marie Celeste Leveque in 1868.  Marie Celeste was the half-sister of Lise Leveque through their father.  Their mothers – Clarissa and Marguerite Basilite Landry were sisters of Anna Adele Landry.

I wasn’t planning on writing all of this information when I picked out this photo of Marie Celeste tonight.  I ended up talking about Alcide’s family.  Like I said, I don’t have photos of his parents.  On top of that, I only have two photos of Alcide.  He must have avoided the camera.  But Celeste was not as put off by it.  I’m glad of that.  I have many photos of her.  As a matter of fact, I have three photos of her with the other person in this photo.  Her name was Amanda Leveque, and she was the daughter of Celeste’s sister Evaline. 

Evaline was married to Jean Baptiste Andre Leveque.  According to notes given by Mee Maw (Germaine Erie Patureau Landry), Evaline and J.B.A Leveque were cousins.  My ancestors may have married their cousins, but at least they never married one with the same last name.  The relationship I have for Evaline and J.B.A Leveque is questionable.  If they were first cousins, their fathers would be brothers that were born the same year.  That seems unlikely.  Plus I haven’t found official records proving the relationship.  But that’s okay.  We’re just looking at Celeste with one of her favorite nieces.  Why else would she have three photos showing them together?   I’m calling it.  This is Celeste Leveque Landry with her favorite niece Amanda Leveque.  And I’m sure that Celeste was Amanda’s favorite aunt.  What’s not to love about Grandma Celeste?

A Clearer Photo of Belite

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I couldn’t think of anything to write about tonight.  Earlier I had an idea about posting a second photo of our family at NASA in 1969, since they just launched a manned spaceship to fly around the moon for the first time in over fifty years.  But when I got back home, I realized I had already posted that second photo.  So I jettisoned that idea.  When Chuck saw me struggling for an idea, he suggested I revisit a post from ten years ago.  That sounded fine to me.  I looked back ten years ago to the beginning of April, and I saw an old photo of my great great grandmother Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol Landry Babin.

I couldn’t use that one, because I had only recently updated that photo with a newer version that I got from Box 301 in June of 2024.  At least I thought I had.  When I searched through the photos of Belite on my blog, there wasn’t a post with the new photo.  I had already edited the photo nicely and thought about posting it many times.  But evidently, I never did post it.  It’s a good thing I can search through my posts rather easily, because obviously I can’t remember every detail of every post I’ve written.  That’s actually one of the main reasons I write them, because I know I can’t remember all of the details that I discover.  And soon I need to get serious about putting some books together.

Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol circa 1915.

This is the new and improved version of the old photo of Grandma Belite.  I’ve had three versions of the photo.  The first one I had must have been a Xerox copy of the old photo.  The second version was a washed-out looking scan with small, splattered spots across part of her face.  Those are hard to remove and keep the face looking accurate.  The end result was pretty good, but there weren’t as many details as there are on the newest version.

The newest version is so much better because I was able to scan an original old photo from Box 301.  That was an old box full of treasures stored in my Aunt Wana’s house.  Look at the details on this one.  You can see the wrinkles around her eyes and on her forehead.  The shape of her mouth is much clearer as well.  Both of her shoulders show up on this version of the cropped photo.  I had created a shoulder on the left side of the old photo to try to balance it.  It always looked fake to me, but the photo was unbalanced without it.  

You can also tell that she has either buttons or pinheads on her collar.  With all of the scratches and spots on the older photos, I got rid of them because I thought they didn’t belong there.  This photo shows that they did belong there.  It also shows her hair clearer.  You can see the gray hairs mixed in with the darker ones.  You can also see that her hair is not draping down her back.  It must be up in a bun, and behind her there is a shadow on the wall that at first glance looks like hair on her shoulder and back.  You can also see more details in the cloth of her clothes.  It is a much better photo all around.

Trasimond Landry circa 1861 in Brusly, Louisiana.

I still wonder what she looked like when she was younger.  In a description in a book about the Civil War, she was referred to as one of the beautiful daughters of the Veuve Bujol.  That would be Anne Adele Landry, the widow of Amedee Bujol.  Amedee had died in 1857, and Adele died in 1899.  Soon after the Civil War, Belite married the Brusly war hero Trasimond Landry.  Trasimond and Adele were half first cousins.  They had a common grandfather – Joseph Ignace Landry.  I only have one photo of Trasimond, and it is from 1861 when he joined the military.  He was just a young man.  He and Belite were married in1867 and I have never seen a photo of the wedding.  

So, I have several photos of Belite when she was older and only one of Trasimond when he was young.  But the technology of reverse-aging photos is just starting.  Now, it usually takes one photo and shows an interpretation of that photo with the person at a younger age.  Soon, it will take into account several photos of the person to get more accurate estimate of what that person would have looked like at a younger age.  Then I would be able to create a wedding photo of Trasimond and Belite!  Would that be wrong?  My answer is, “Yes, it is, but I’d still like to see it!”  

In the meantime, I’d prefer it if an old forgotten photo of that wedding would be discovered in someone’s attic.  It could happen.  Just look at this photo.

Emmanuel & Celeste Landry

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Emmanuel and Celeste Landry’s tombs are in the St. John the Baptist Catholic Cemetery in Brusly, Louisiana.

Sometimes I tend to overlook some ancestors who I don’t have photos of.  That’s not good.  Everybody deserves a mention.  When I do mention Emmanuel Landry, many times it is only in reference to his father Joseph Ignatius Landry.  I descend from Joseph Ignatius (or as the French would have said the name – Ignace.  And this family was definitely French.) five different ways.  And two of those ways are through Emmanuel Landry and Clarice Celeste Bruneteau Landry.

Both Emmanuel and Celeste were born in St. Gabriel, Louisiana.  Emmanuel was born in 1781 and he was in the first generation of Landrys in my line born in the United States.  All of his ancestors were Acadians.  And though he married someone with a French name – not Acadian, he was related to her.  That’s because Celeste’s mother was Anne Marie Hebert.  Anne Marie was born in Acadie and as a girl, she and her family and fellow Acadians were Exiled from their homeland.  The Hebert family spent their time of Exile in Georgetown, Maryland, while the Landry family spent their time in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

But Celeste’s father was not an Acadian.  His name was Pierre Bruneteau and he was born in Ardennes, France.  He was the second husband of Anne Marie Hebert.  Her first husband was fellow Acadian Joseph Dupuis.  Anne Marie and Joseph had six children together.  I descend from their fourth child – Magloire Dupuy.  Anne Marie and Pierre married after the death of Joseph.  They only had two children together.  Celeste was born in 1790, and she was the baby of the whole bunch.

And like I said earlier, she would grow up and marry her cousin Emmanuel Landry.  I really shouldn’t call them cousins.  They were only 4th cousins.  Their common great great great grandparents were Rene Landry and Marie Bernard, some of the founders of Acadie.  Celeste and Emmanuel were probably not even aware of their common ancestors.  They probably just considered themselves husband and wife.  They were married February 5, 1808, in St. Gabriel, Louisiana.  The only surviving parent of the two was Anne Marie Hebert.  Yet two of their grandparents were still alive.  Anne Marie’s 89-year-old mother Marguerite Melanson was alive, as was Joseph Ignace’s 82-year-old mother Marie Magdeleine Babin.  They both lived in St. Gabriel at the time, so they likely were at the celebration.  Laissez les bons temps rouler.

1844 map of Brusly, Louisiana, along the Mississippi River.

Celeste and Emmanuel continued to live in St. Gabriel as their family grew.  Their first child was Manuel Dorville Landry in 1809.  Next came Rosalia and Jean Baptiste in 1811.  Then Clarissa Doralise was born in 1812, Anna Adele in 1817, and Marguerite Basalite in 1821.  I descend from Anna Adele (and her husband Amedee Bujol) and Marguerite Basalite (and her husband Joseph Auguste Leveque). (See family tree below.) Jean Baptiste died in 1823 at the age of 11.  A few years later the family relocated to Brusly in West Baton Rouge Parish, as did other Landry family members.

By 1844 Emmanuel and his brothers Elie and Narcisse had plantations along the Mississippi River.  You can see their names on this map of the river and some of the landowners of the area.  If you look at the names, you’ll see a lot of Acadian names that are familiar – Hebert, Babin, Dupuis, Daigre, and Forest.  They were all first-generation Acadians born in the US, after their parents had everything taken away from them when they were Exiled from Acadie.  From that perspective, they were making progress in their new home.

Here is my dad’s tree showing the connections to Emmanuel and Celeste. Along his maternal line, you can see Anna Adele. His paternal grandmother was Marie Celeste Leveque, who was the daughter of Marguerite Basalite.

 

Patureau and Landry Families in 1921

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The Landry and Patureau family in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1921.

I got this photo from Box 301 in June of 2024.  Box 301 Collection was a box that was in my Aunt Wana’s attic for many years.  We don’t know how many years, because it was discovered about ten years after her death.  Some attics are just dusty with nothing of value in them.  Aunt Wana’s attic was a treasure trove for old photos.  Both Box 301 Collection and the Tin Can Collection are from that.  I’m hoping more treasures will be found in other cousin’s attics and/or homes.  And of course, I hope they would be willing to share them with me.  I would be sharing with them if the reverse were true.

I recognize this event in the history of my dad’s family.  Other photos were taken on the same day with various groupings of family members.  Since they were all wearing the same clothes, it’s pretty easy to determine that it was the same event.  That event was the baptism of my dad’s first cousin in 1921 in Lafayette, Louisiana.  My dad was Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. and his first cousin was Therese Wynhoven Mouton.  They were known by various names.  My dad was known as Bob, Bobbie, Pluto, and Pappy.  His cousin was known as Therese, Tez, or Wynie. 

They were cousins because their mothers were sisters.  Those sisters are sitting in the forefront of this photo with little Tez.  Tez was the first grandchild of the Patureau family.  She was the daughter of Emma Patureau Mouton who is holding her here.  Her father was Toby Mouton.  He is the tallest person in this photo.  Emma was the oldest child of Vincent Maximilian Patureau and Marie Therese Landry Patureau.  Max is on the right edge of the photo.  Not that you would be able to tell, but that looks like him and the suit he was wearing that day.  I’m not sure if I took a bad photo of this photo.  He might be showing up in the original photo, and I didn’t get it all.  Maybe my cousin can help me out with that.  Marie Therese Landry Patureau is not in the photo because she passed away in 1909.

My wonderful grandmother is sitting next to her sister Emma.  Her name was Germaine Erie Patureau, but she usually went by Erie.  But she was known to us cousins as Mee Maw.  She was the best.  Of course we could be a bit prejudiced.  I’m sure all of her sisters and brothers were wonderful people as well.  This was the year that my grandparents got married.  Erie Patureau married Rob Landry in November of 1921.  All the rest of the people in the photo are relatives of theirs.

Standing on the left in the photo is Zim Landry Landry.  She’s a Landry that married another Landry, but she was around a 3rd cousin to my grandfather.  She’s in the photo because she was married to my grandfather’s older brother Joe Landry.  He’s standing next to Zim and a little behind her.  Another Landry brother is in the background in the middle of the photo.  That was Louis or Louie Landry.  He was married to Clemence Babin, who was Marie Therese Landry Patureau’s half-sister.  Clem is in front of him and she is looking around the head of one of the Patureau sisters.  That sister is the youngest one that survived to adulthood.  Her name was Sylvie Patureau and she married Son Marionneaux from Plaquemine.  They lived in Plaquemine and many family members still live in that area.  I don’t know what that big round thing on her dress is.  When I look at it, it makes me think a child is standing in front of her.

The next Patureau sister (with a noticeable necklace on) is Marie Therese Patureau.  That is a popular name in the Landry and Patureau families.  To differentiate her, she was always known as Bee.  To the right of Bee is one of the older sisters Lydwin.  She was known as Win and she never married.  Everyone always seemed to say really nice things about her.  I think she was very giving and loving with the family.  And finally we get to one of the Patureau brothers.  I know that younger brother Vincent was at this event because he was in another photo.  He may be the person cut off on the left edge of the photo.  Again, I hope I didn’t leave off someone inadvertently.  I must be more careful.  But you can see older brother Rome on the right with the thin tie.  He was younger than Emma, but older than Win.  He’s standing next to one of the most important family members of the group.

When I’m looking at her now with her arms crossed, I get the feeling that she’s saying, “Don’t forget about me, young man!  I’ve been waiting patiently for you to acknowledge that I’m even in this photo.”  Sorry, Grandma Belite, we definitely don’t want to forget about you.  Grandma Belite is my great great grandmother Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol Landry Babin.  Her maiden name is the not-so-common Acadian name of Bujol.  She was known as one of the beautiful daughters of the Widow Bujol.  She was married twice.  Her first marriage occurred shortly after the Civil War in Brusly, Louisiana, when she married the local war hero Trasimond Landry.  Their first daughter was Marie Therese Landry, later known as Patureau.  After Trasimond died at a somewhat young age, Belite married her second husband Magloire Babin.  They were the parents of Clemence Babin, later known as Landry.

I think that ties everyone together quite nicely.  It’s a nice photo of the combined Landry and Patureau families.

 

Bob Landry Circa 1945

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Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr circa 1945 probably in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

I wasn’t sure what to write about this week until this photo of my dad caught my attention.  I wasn’t sure about it, because I don’t really have much to say about it.  But it kept calling to me, so I’m going along with it.  It’s not a photo that I am overly familiar with.  I don’t remember where it came from and I don’t remember seeing it when I was younger.  It was a photo of my dad that he must have liked.  Otherwise, he wouldn’t have kept it.

I estimate that it was taken around 1945.  Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr. was born on January 31, 1929.  I’m thinking he looks around 16 years old based on other photos of him through the years.  That would put him as about a junior in high school.  His family lived in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and he went to school at Landry Memorial Senior High School. 

His junior high and high school years occurred during World War II.  He graduated from high school less than a year after the war ended.  My dad was in ROTC from 1942-1944.  I commented once that I didn’t know why he had done that, but it must have been because of the war.  The ROTC program was instrumental in training officers for the war effort.  

Another influence of the war was that there was a shortage of teachers at the schools.  It was the time that young Bob Landry became really interested in band music.  He learned how to play the baritone and several other instruments.  He taught himself for the most part and at some point, he began teaching other students at his school.  He continued teaching music to people for the rest of his life.  He always said that anybody could learn music.  He never changed his mind about that even when rock and roll became popular.  He would call a lot of it “trash,” so he really didn’t consider it music.  He would say that they might sound good if they sang instead of all of that yelling.

I often wonder what it was like during World War II at the time this photo was taken.  The fighting was pretty intense in several places and the outcome was uncertain.  Things could have turned out so differently.  When I think of that backstory for this photo, it gives it a different look.  Context is important.

 

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