Category: Landry

Grampa Max and AJ

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Grampa Max and AJ

Vincent Maximilian Patureau with his grandson Alcide Joseph Landry

This is another photo that I got from my visit with my Uncle A. J. a few months ago.  Obviously most of those photos were focused on A. J.  They were photos for him after all.  But they also included photos of the family.  I had never seen most of those photos.  Some of them were similar to others that I already had.  All of them (well, maybe not all of them) were treasures to keep and share.

I really like this one.  In the front of the photo is my dad’s mom’s dad.  He was my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian Patureau.  Of course we all know him as Grampa Max.  (You say the ‘grampa’ part to kinda rhyme with Santa.  Accent on first syllable and and short -puh at the end.)  The little boy on the hood of the car is little A. J. in 1925.  At least that’s what I estimated.  He was born in June of 1924 and looks about a year or so old.  He looks a little fascinated with the car.  And he got to sit right on top of it.  Grandparents are just great!

As I mentioned previously, my dad and his siblings didn’t know all of their grandparents.  And the two that they had didn’t live long after my dad was born.  Poor little Johnny, the youngest, was born after all four grandparents had passed.  A. J. was the oldest son (Aunt Marie was the oldest), so he had them until he was about ten years old.  When I visited and asked him about some of the photos, he talked about Grampa Max and Grandma Celeste like he had just seen them a few days earlier.  He definitely had some fond memories of them.  I’m glad that he was willing to share them with us.  Enjoy.

Pappy Baby

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Pappy Baby

Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. circa 1893

This week I’m taking you way, way back. Not just back to the 20th century, but to the 19th. This photo was taken over 120 years ago. It’s not quite as old as the some of the other photos that I’ve posted on here, but it is older than most. I’m not really sure where it comes from. It’s either from the Tin Can Collection or the Secret Collection. It is definitely not from the Fort Knox or A.J. collections. Those are the names that my Landry cousins have come up for the various collections that have been discovered or revealed.

Whatever collection it came from, it is definitely a treasure. It is a photo of my father’s father Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. He was born on January 9, 1893, in Westlake, Louisiana. He was the youngest of 10 children born to Simon Alcide Joseph Landry and Marie Celeste Leveque Landry. The family was from the West Baton Rouge Parish, but resettled in the Lake Charles area some time during the 1880s.  I’m guessing that this photo was taken in is his first year of life, so some time in 1893.

I actually just had a snapshot of the photo to work with, but I’m not sure if a scan would improve the quality of the resulting photo.  It looks like the original is faded and monotone, but not every old photo is going to be crisp with great contrast.  I’m just glad to have a photo of Pee Paw when he was just a petite babe.

The other thing I was thinking about when I selected this photo was the family he was born into.  Cousins marrying cousins.  But I was curious about those cousins and when they lived and died.  Last week I talked about the death of the last of my maternal grandmother’s first cousins from her Phenice side.  There is actually still a surviving first cousin from her Keys side.  When I looked a Pee Paw’s first cousins, there haven’t been any around for fifty years or so.  In fact, from the Landry side of the family my dad doesn’t have any surviving first cousins.  He does have some first cousins from the Patureau side of the family.

Of course, with cousins marrying cousins, you can’t really distinguish one side from the other very easily.  This makes things particularly confusing when dealing with DNA.  I’ve been thinking about checking with my dad’s siblings to see if they would be willing to do a DNA test.  Even if I’m confused now about the DNA sources from an entwined family tree, one day I may be able to figure something out.  It’s always best to DNA test the oldest generation.

A few of us have already taken some DNA tests and I was surprised with the results.  First cousin Kenny and I share less DNA than most first cousins.  Yet first cousin Scott’s daughter and son have tested and I share more with them than I do with Kenny. What’s up with that?  Did daddy and aunt Frances share a lot more in common than most siblings?  Only a DNA test would tell.

Celeste and the Cistern

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Marie Celest Leveque Landry

Grandma Celeste visiting Lake Charles in the late 1920s.

Here is another photo that I got from the AJ Collection.  It is from around the late 1920s and was taken in Lake Charles.  That is my dad’s paternal grandmother. (Van’s dad is Bob, Bob’s dad is Rob, Rob’s mom is this woman.)  Her name was Marie Celeste Leveque Landry and she lived her whole life in Louisiana.  Let me give you some background facts about her.

Celeste was born in 1847 in Brusly, Louisiana.  Her parents were Joseph Auguste Leveque and Marie Basalite Landry Leveque.  She was the 2nd of 9 children by her father’s second wife.  Since the first wife was her mother’s sister, the children from that union were Celeste’s half siblings and half cousins – 3/4 siblings.

When she was born, the family owned a plantation in the Brusly area where they had 60 individuals enslaved and forced to work for them.  Since she was born in 1847, her whole childhood would have been in that environment.  And when the Civil War came along, many of her siblings and cousins fought for the Confederacy.  Would she have considered her childhood happy?  I wonder.

She married one of those cousins that fought in the Civil War.  She married Simon Alcide Joseph Landry on November 24, 1868, in West Baton Rouge Parish.  They had ten children together including my grandfather Robert Joseph Landry who was born in 1893.  That means that Celeste was 47 years old when she gave birth to him!  That’s pretty old.

But it’s not as old as she was when this photo was taken.  She was around 80 years old at the time of this photo.  Yet she still has a little vanity left.  Why do I say this?  Because you can see that she has taken her glasses off for the photo and is holding them in her hand.  Trying to look her best for the photo.  I can just imagine a conversation with her about this photo:

Grandma Celeste asks me, “Why are you putting that old photo on the Facebook?  I look so old in it.  You could at least remove that bump on my neck with all your fancy gadgetry.”

I tell her, “I already removed a possible bump on your cheek.  I want it to look as good as it can, but I also want it to reflect what you actually looked like then without too many changes.  I posted a photo that showed you when you were young and pretty.  Now I’m showing one of when you were older and more dignified.”

“Hmmph!” she snorts, “Old and decrepit is more like it.  At least I’m not wearing my bed clothes like you’ve done to other family members!  I wouldn’t mind if you fixed my blouse to make it straight across the bottom.”

“Like I said,” I patiently explain to her, “I like to keep it as real as possible.”

“You and your ‘really real’ shenanigans,” she says with exasperation, “If only you would treat your ancestors as well as that darned sock monkey of yours!  Now I’m making an edit of the photo myself.  There.”

“Hey,” I say as I notice her smile is gone from the photo,  “You put a scowl on your face!”

She just scowls at me and disappears with a shake of her head.

Back in Time to ’69

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Robert J. Landry, Jr. family

The Robert J. Landry, Jr. family in 1969

I’m posting this photo because Siblings Day was this week and I’ve been missing my parents recently.  I was looking for a family photo that I hadn’t posted before and thought about this one.  How is it that this photo has not been online before?  It is so quintessential Landry Family.  It was taken in 1969 and that fact caused me to reminisce about that year.  So many transitional things were happening that year beside just the obvious one of changing from the 60s to the 70s.

In January of 1969 the music group the Beatles had their last live gig together shortly before Richard Nixon became the nation’s president.  In February the population of the USA broke 200 million and it witnessed the first flight of those infamous flying machines – the 747 – that would become commercial the following year.  In March tensions about the Vietnam War lead Nixon to promise that the US would end their involvement by the following year.  April showers bring May flowers.  In this case, two computers at universities in California were able to send messages to one another and now we have the interweb.

In May of 1969 people were able to see themselves in a different way.  They were able to see color photos of the Earth taken from space.  And I’m sure as a direct correlation to that, Disney World began construction.  June was the saddest month of all to me.  The last episode of “Star Trek” was aired.  What?  No more views of that glorious Enterprise soaring through the cosmos?  (An Enterprise that I recently found out was built by my mom’s first cousin.  A mind-blowing fact for a Trekkie like me!)  Sure there was a new TV show called “Hee Haw” and the Stonewall riots were that month, but those events did not soothe me at the time.  I was a bit soothed in July when the Apollo 11 crew landed on the moon and traipsed around with their dusty footprints.  I remember getting stickers of the different space missions from cereal boxes and putting them on a shelving unit in our bedroom.

August of 69 was the month of Woodstock and the Manson “family” murders.  More on that later.  In September the first ATM was introduced and in October PBS was begun.  Yes, there was a time before ATM machines and PBS.  In November “Sesame Street” was introduced to the world.  On the science front Harvard researchers were able to isolate a single gene, which is particularly notable since I am involved in genetic genealogy.  To end the year, December called for the first draft lottery since World War II.

Yet in a small town in the Deep South, there was a nuclear family that went about its daily business almost as if in a protective bubble.  I’m talking about the Robert J. Landry, Jr. family in Jennings, Louisiana.  It consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Landry, Jr. and their six children.  (That was her name!  She got letters addressed that way and she signed our report cards the same way.)  In 1969 our ages were from 7 to 16.  It was the prime time for our little nuclear family.

Daddy turned 40 at the beginning of the year and Mom was still in her 30s.  None of us had started wearing glasses nor dating anyone seriously.  It was just Mom and Dad and six kids in a three bedroom house.  That’s right.  Three boys in two beds in one room and three girls in one bed in the other.  It was as cozy as could be until one brother decided to light a match with a bunch of fuses next to him!

By the way, on the back row is Jodie, Rob, Karen and Al.  In the front is Bob, Betty, Van (me), and Jamie.  A moment frozen in time.  So different than the events in the outside world in August of that year.  When I thought of posting this photo before, it was always with the idea of posting a photo from Woodstock along with it.  And the Manson “family” was not like the family that I experienced.  As I said at the beginning, the 60s were ending and the 70s were beginning.  Change is inevitable.

Eenie Meenie Mee Maw Mo

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Mrs. Robert J. Landry Jr. and mother-in-law

Germaine Erie Patureau Landry, little Landry children, and Marie Celeste Leveque Landry circa 1930.

Here is a photo that I got from uncle A. J. last month.  I think it is from the earlier 1930s.  The person with the child in her lap is my paternal grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau Landry.  When I got those photos from A. J., I realized there were more photos of my dad’s siblings when they were children than I had ever known.  I had seen a few of them ever since I was a youngster.  I remember seeing some of my dad when he was just a toddler wearing a dress and thinking that was strange.  Other people in my generation must have thought the same thing, because nowadays most people dress their children to match their gender.

After I got home with the photos and scanned them all, I shared a few previews with some of my cousins.  This always leads to them sharing some of their photos as well.  Yet more childhood photos of those Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. family members!  We are going to have to get together and study these photos thoroughly, because they are not all dated and labeled.  Like this one.  No names, years, or locations.  I’m sure none of you neglect to label your photos, especially after I have encouraged you to label them.  (On a side note – I could have sworn that I labeled every photo that went into my photo albums.  But I would have been lying!  I thought I did, but several times I have gone to one photo album or another and looked on the back of a photo to find a date.  And I found nothing.  Well, not nothing.  I did put the frame number from the roll of film that I took.  But what good is that if I don’t know when it was taken???  I digress.)

So this photo is of my wonderful Mee Maw who definitely knew who she was holding in this photo!  But she’s not talking.  I don’t think it’s Marie, since there is an older child showing in the photo.  Maybe it is A. J. and that is Marie sticking her foot into the photo.  Of course it could be Hubert, Germaine, Bobbie (my dad, Robert Joseph Landry, Jr.), or Wana.  They were all born pretty close in age to one another.  It couldn’t have been the younger ones, because of who else is in the photo.

On the far right of the photo is Mee Maw’s mother-in-law (and double half 2nd cousin once removed) Marie Celeste Leveque Landry who died February 10, 1934.  Though she lived in Lake Charles from about 1890 to 1925, she was living in Lafayette with uncle Seb in 1930 (according to the census;  She was buried in Lake Charles.)  But I’m sure she had to come visit her little darlings in Lake Charles.  I’m sure she knew their names as well.

But we don’t.  For me, I like to think that it was my daddy.  It looks like some of the photos I’ve seen of him at that age.  But my cousin Shirley might think that it looks like her dad.  Tricia would say that it was definitely Wana.  Daphne will pull out her copy of the same photo and will show that it was labeled as Germaine.  Whichever one it was, it was a Landry child being cared for by their loving mother.  And that represents all of her children.

I still say it’s Bobbie.  (And that cool stroller was his as well!)

Meet the Patureaus of Patureau Lane

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Last week I collected a few new old photos, so we won’t be running out of Throwback Thursday fuel for an additional few months.  I know you are as excited about this as I am!  A few of you already know that I went to visit my dad’s older brother A. J. last week with some family members.  We had a nice visit with him.  It was good to see him because I hadn’t seen him in a while.  He seemed to be in good spirits despite the challenges of a weakening body from many years of wear.  It was also good to see aunt Margie.  She’s such a sweet lady.

But one of the other good things about this visit is that they gave me some of the old photos of the family that uncle A. J. had.  A nice one of Pee Paw from World War I, a really sharp one of Pee Paw’s mother from around 1930, and a few other family photos from when my dad and his siblings were just kids growing up in southern Louisiana.  But the photo this week comes from my cousin Wade.  Actually he is my second cousin because his grandmother was Mee Maw’s sister.

I’ve never met Wade, even though I’ve known about him for almost 30 years.  (Have I really been in Baton Rouge that long?)  I met my other second cousin Kim at that time and she talked about getting together with him.  I met with other cousins, but not him.  I know he was at my dad’s cousin Patricia’s funeral last year, but I didn’t meet him then either.  But I do know that he has a strong interest in genealogy and he knows that I do as well.  So he shared this photo with me.  He doesn’t remember where he and Kim got the photo years ago, but we are all thankful to that family member whoever they may be.

Patureaus of Patureau Lane in Plaquemine

The Patureau family of Patureau Lane circa 1904.

The photo is of our Patureau grandmothers when they were children growing up in Crescent, Louisiana.  They were the Patureau family of Patureau Lane.  When Vincent Maximilian Patureau married Marie Therese Landry in October of 1888, they soon started expanding their family in the Plaquemine area.  Just ten months later came their first daughter Marie Emma.  That’s her on the far left of the photo.  It’s kind of obvious that she’s the oldest since she is so much taller than the rest.  She would be sixteen in this photo and likely was close to her full height.  Her brother on the far right was two years younger than her and would probably be catching up to her height shortly.  His name was Romuald Sylvester, but we like to call him “Romy.”

Next up is Marie Lydwin who was born in 1893.  That’s got to be her standing straight and tall next to her big sister Emma.  And standing next to Lydwin is our very own Germaine Erie who was born in 1895.  (Not 1885 like her grave marker shows.)  She’s looking kinda cute with that dark ribbon in her hair!  The next in line (according to age) is the girl with the light ribbon in her hair standing next to Romy.  Her name was Frances Lorena, though everyone knows her as Lorena.  Next to her (in age and in the photo) is yet another little girl and I think she is Zita Amelie, who was born in 1897.  Those girls were showing up fast and furious approaching the new century.

In 1899 Marie Therese was born.  That’s her standing in front of her father.  Was she a Daddy’s Girl?  One can wonder.  The last child in the front row of the photo was not a little girl this time.  I know that he looks like he could be a girl.  He is wearing a dress after all.  That was a tradition at the time, or maybe the family just thought it was easier to dress him up in hand-me-downs.  But he was definitely a boy and his name was Vincent Maximilian Patureau, Jr.  Since his father went by the name of Max, he could use his first name.

The youngest child in the photo is being held by her mom.  Her name was Sylvie Albine Patureau and she was born in 1903.  She was my cousin Wade’s grandmother.  But she wasn’t the last child born to Marie Emma and Max.  It wasn’t long after this photo that the family suffered a few tragedies.  Actually they had experienced a few already.  After their first child they lost a child at birth.  This happened again in 1900 with a set of twins named Alta and Alva.  In 1906 a daughter named Yve Lyn was born and lived for two years. In 1907 a son named Ray Hugh was born and lived for a year and a half.  Then in 1909 a daughter named Hedwidge was born and only lived a month.  But before she could finish out her month long life, her mother died as well.

It was a tough time for the Patureaus of Patureau Lane, but they made it through with strength and determination.  He also had help from his family.  In the 1910 Census it shows that Max’s older sister Zulma was staying with them.  I’m sure the older girls in the family helped Max with those youngsters he was rearing “alone.”  But that was years later.  This photo was the calm before the storm.  If you can maintain your calm when you have nine children under 17 years of age in your house at the same time!  At least they all look calm for the photo.

I’m glad I have this wonderful photo.  Thanks Wade.

Bender’s Reach – A Sportsman’s Paradise

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Bender's Reach

My father rowing while my grandfather is fishing at Bender’s Reach on the Calcasieu River in 1942.

I’ve always liked this photo of my father and his father – Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. and Sr. This was taken in 1942 on the Calcasieu River. It was my grandfather’s favorite (and evidently secret – according to my cousin Kenny) fishing spot that is called Bender’s Reach.

My first thought when I look at this photo is, “Aw, Daddy and Pee Paw were fishing alone one early Saturday morning.”  But then I remember that it is a photo that had to have been taken by someone in another boat.  I don’t know who the photographer was, but I’ll go ahead and make another assumption and say that it was probably one of my uncles.  Okay, I won’t be sexist and agree that it could also have been one of my aunts or my grandmother.

Either way, it’s a cool photo from almost eighty years ago.  Another thought that runs through my mind is that the photo is reminiscent of many of the paintings that my mom did.  In particular, it reminds me of a painting that was in our family home all through the years.  I wonder if the painting ever reminded my dad of his long ago fishing trips with his dad?  Too bad the original photo was so small that it didn’t come into my mom’s notice.  It would have made a nice painting.

I’m glad that these rather small photos scanned so well.  You can see that my grandfather was right in the middle of casting his line in that first photo.  His hand and fishing pole are just a blur.  These other photos show the pole a little better.

 

Or is that a crease in the photo?  I’m not really sure, but I thought I’d post all of the photos I had from the fishing expedition.  I’m surprised there are three photos of that day.  Nowadays there would not only be photos of the fishing expedition, there would also be photos of the fish being cleaned.  And to top it all off there would be a few photos of it being served: Fresh!  Local!  Organically grown!  Caught just today in the waters of the Sportsman’s Paradise – otherwise known as Bender’s Reach.

Hats in Hand and a Fob to Boot

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Southern gentlemen from 100 years ago.  Note the fob on my great grandfather Max Patureau on the left. This photo has been edited and colorized.

This photo has a bit of Southern charm about it.  Don’t you think?  The men are dressed nicely with their jackets and hats.  I guess hats on your head were not for  indoors or for photos.  I’m not really sure about hat etiquette from 100 years ago.  The setting is very nice as well.  It looks like these men are standing around old live oaks with Spanish moss hanging from them.

I’m pretty sure this was taken in Lafayette, Louisiana.  I’ll tell you why I think this.  The man on the left is my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian Patureau, who we all like to call “Grampa Max.”  He lived in Plaquemine until 1912 and then moved to Lafayette with his family.  Part of the family was his son Romuald or Rome (rhymes with foamy) who is standing next to him in this photo.  Next in the photo is Louis Joseph Peter Landry who was the brother of Robert Joseph Landry, Sr., otherwise known as my grandfather Pee Paw aka Pappy.  So Louis was my grand uncle.

Louis and his wife had moved to Lafayette by the time their first child was born in 1906.  And since his wife was Clemence Babin, aunt of my grandmother Erie Patureau (Mee Maw), the families would have associated with each other.  They were pretty close according to Tommy Landry’s account of the family.  In fact my grandmother was living in Louis and Clemence’s household at the 1920 Census.  And with family get-togethers like the one in this photo, there would be chances for her to get to know her mother’s first cousin Rob Landry quite well.  Well enough that they were married in November of 1921.  (Which makes me wonder:  Is there a photo of Mee Maw and Pee Paw’s wedding?  If so, someone is holding out big time on me!)

Getting back to the photo.  The man on the far right is Pierre Oscar Patureau.  He was Grampa Max’s younger brother.  He was a dentist and he lived in New Orleans.  That doesn’t help my theory that this photo was taken in Lafayette, but it still points to southern Louisiana.   And since Uncle Oscar died in 1926, this photo was taken earlier.  I estimate the date as around 1920.

The main inspiration for posting this photo was DNA related.  On 23andMe daddy had a match with someone that showed as his 2nd or 3rd cousin.  This is not unusual because everybody with a good amount of Cajun DNA shows up at this predicted level of relationship.  Even the fact that the match had the last name of Landry wasn’t too significant.  But his name showed up on my tree, so I checked to make sure he was the same person in my tree.  And sure enough he is.  He even has a son named Van Landry!  The DNA match is the great great grandson of Louis Joseph Peter Landry, the man in this photo.  But this DNA match didn’t know it.  He only knew that his grandfather’s name was Dickie Landry.  With the great legacy of family tree information and old photos that my dad left behind, I have been able to share lots of family history with him.  I hope he appreciates it as much as I do.

Patureau Lane Properties

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Circa 1905 Patureau Lane in Crescent, Louisiana

 

I came into possession of this photo a little over a year ago.  I had seen it in the book “Trasimond Landry: Soldier and Public Servant” by Thomas R. Landry (my Mee Maw’s first cousin) and was on the lookout for a good copy of it.  That book is one of two books that I have about my great great grandfather Trasimond Landry.  It has some history of the Landry family and also lists all of the descendants of Trasimond Landry.  But this post is technically a Patureau post since he was my grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau’s maternal grandfather.

When I started writing these posts, I knew I was going to have to track down more photos because I really didn’t have that many to begin with.  So I referred to this book to see what photos I wanted and this was one of the top ones I wanted.

Then we moved my parents out of their home in Jennings when they moved to assisted living in Lake Charles in August 2015.  Someone saw the “happy house” at 758 Lucy Street and decided they wanted it, so my siblings, nieces, nephews, in-laws and I cleared out their home in January 2016.  As you may have guessed, this photo was discovered while clearing out the house.  My brother-in-law Allen found it with some other old photos that I had never seen before.  I’ve already posted some of the others, but now it’s time for Patureau Lane Properties.

I called it that because this is a south-facing view of Patureau Lane in Crescent, Louisiana, around 1905.  It was named Crescent because of the crescent shaped bend in Bayou Plaquemine about 4.5 miles west of Plaquemine proper.  For a period of time it was a central portage area for travelers in that area of Louisiana.  This led to a community in Crescent in the early 1900s that consisted of many members of the Landry and Patureau extended families.  (Which made it easy to find and marry your not too distant cousins!)

One part of that community was the Star Club.  This was long before social media, so people had to have some place to get together to share news with their neighbors.  It was a social club, but it also performed services for the community.  But the big event was a ball that they had at the end of the year.  The ball was held in the Star Club Hall, which is shown on the right in this photo.

But another important fact about the Star Club was that the secretary for the year of 1902 was my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian Patureau and the treasurer was my great great uncle Thomas B. Landry (Thomas R.’s father).  In the photo V. M. Patureau’s home is the house that is to the left (across from the Star Club Hall).  The home on the right belonged to the Leobon Patureau family.  The Thomas B. Landry family lived across the bayou road from V. M. Patureau. (The horse and carriage in the full-frame photo was in front of that home.  This photo was taken at the intersection of Patureau Lane and the bayou road.)

The main problem with this photo is not really a problem with the photo.  It’s a problem with my knowledge.  I don’t know who all of these people are!  Even though there are several little girls in the photo and they look similar to old photos of the Patureau family, I can’t definitely identify anyone.  But I’m sure they must be family.  Why else would we have the photo and the photo was used in the book about descendants of Trasimond Landry?  I sure would like to know who they were.  Does anyone know?  There may be other copies of this photo out there.  If anyone knows more or finds out more, I would appreciate being kept in the loop.  Inquiring minds want to know!

Patureau Lane circa 1905

Full-frame photo of Patureau Lane looking south from the bayou road. Behind to the left would be Thomas B. Landry’s home, to the left is V. M. Patureau’s home, Star Club Hall is in the middle to the right, and to the right is the home of Leobon Patureau. Circa 1905.

The Last Week of Bob and Betty

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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.

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