Category: Landry

Bobbie in 1941

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Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. in 1941 in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Since I shared a photo of my mom from the early forties last week, I thought I’d do the same thing this week for my dad.  So I found this old school photo of him from 1941.  I remember this photo from way back when.  I put it in an old photo album for the family when I was in junior high school.  I’m so glad all those old photos were saved. 

I think I may be a little spoiled.  Some people talk like they don’t have so many old family photos.  Either they didn’t take photos for one reason or another, or the photos were destroyed or thrown away.  Things happen.  Fires, flood, and hurricane winds happen and can destroy entire homes.  Fortunately, my family has fared well through the years.  At least where photos are concerned.  So I do my best to share them with the rest of the family.  

My dad was Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. and he was known as Bobbie at this time.  People might have started calling him Pluto by then.  He was born to Rob and Erie Patureau Landry in 1929 in Lake Charles.  He was the 3rd son and the fifth child.  I was also the 3rd son and the fifth child in my family.  He had three younger siblings, while I only had one.  I don’t know much about the school that he attended.  The school year 1941-42 was spent at First Ward.  Was that considered an elementary school or junior high school? 

I know that he would spend the next four years at Landry Memorial High School.  They graduated in the 11th grade back then, so I think that puts this photo as a 7th grade portrait.  The year 1941 was a notable one.  That was the year that the United States became involved with World War II.  It was only a couple of years since the ending of the Great Depression.  It must have been a scary time, but young Bobbie didn’t have to worry too much about it.  He was too young to fight in that war.  Nobody would have known it at the time because it was just starting for them.  He might have been worried for his older brothers, but they all survived the turmoil.

Nubian man AKA Pluto ManThe school photo also reminds me of when I did a DNA test on my dad.  When I told the family about the ethnicity results, some of my nieces were surprised that he was 100% European.  “Really?” they asked, “He doesn’t have any sub–Saharan African?”  I told them that there was never any suggestion of that in the family tree that my dad had worked on.  It all pointed back to France.  And they responded, “But those pictures of him when he was younger (seemed to point to a mixed heritage).” They may have got the idea from a photo in an encyclopedia or Book of Knowledge in my parents’ house.  It showed an African man and my mom had labeled it “Pluto man.”  She thought the man resembled Daddy.  They seemed a little disappointed. 

We are what we are.

The Mother of US Patureaus

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As you all know, I take a lot of time to work out the best title for my posts.  Maybe you don’t know that, and maybe I don’t really spend all that much time doing it.  But I do put some thought into it.  I’m not exactly pleased with this title, but it does have the message that I wanted to say.  Marie Emma Landry Patureau is the matriarch of the Patureau family in the United States.  I usually make sure to not word it this way so I can avoid the use of the plural form for Patureau.  But I wanted a short title, and technically Patureaus is correct.  I thought of using the French manner of pluralizing words ending in -eau.  They add an -x to the word, so we would end up with Patureaux.  But like I said, we’re talking about the American Patureau family.  

Marie Emma Landry Patureau circa 1880.

More important than the title is the fact that I’m posting another photo of Marie Emma Landry Patureau.  I think I’ll just refer to her as Maman Emma.  That’s what I called her when I shared that first photo of her back in 2021.  That photo was a crop of her from a family photo from 1864.  She was younger in that photo, which means that she had given birth to fewer children and had experienced fewer deaths of her children.  Those things can definitely change a person.

I’ve estimated that the photo was taken around 1880, which would mean that she was a widow.  Her husband Ferdinand Pierre Patureau died in 1877 after having an accident in the family sawmill business.  I’m pretty sure she was a witness to this accident, though I can’t find that bit of information presently.  What I did find in my search was a news report that a storm blew through Plaquemine in August of 1879 – The Great Storm of 1879 – and the Patureau sawmill was leveled.  That Maman Emma went through a lot.  I won’t talk about the attempted burglary of her home – that happened a few years after this photo was taken.

Framed print of Emma Patureau (unedited)

In 1880 she was 50 years old, and she had ten living children.   She had given birth to six more children who had died at various ages.   She also had the first three of her many grandchildren.  I descend from her second oldest surviving son Vincent Maximilian Patureau.  We call him Grampa Max.  His daughter Germaine Erie Patureau Landry was the mother of my father Robert Joseph Landry, Jr.

I got this photo in November of 2021.  That’s the same time that I got the other photo of Maman Emma.  It’s from the Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Papers at the Tyrrell Historic Library in Beaumont, Texas.  I had seen the other one before, but this one was new to me.  I was very excited for both of the photos.  This one looks like an original photo, but it is in poor shape.  There is a lot of cracking all over the photo.  I worked on it a bit when I first got the photo but wasn’t too pleased with it.  I finally got around to doing a bit more tonight.   

It’s not perfect, but it’s better.  I’m posting the unedited version of it so you can see what it looked like.  I also like the matt they used for the photo.  Another great thing about it is that someone labeled the photo, so we know with absolute certainty that it is Maman Emma.  Since the Collection in Beaumont was started by Emma’s daughter Victorine and continued by Victorine’s daughter Katherine Winnie “Kitty” Cropper, I would think that Kitty was the one that we can thank for that.

So her name was Emma Landry Patureau.  Her husband Ferdinand Patureau was a French immigrant that came to America with his family.  He had one brother who came here also, but Abel had no children.  Ferdinand was the only one to carry on the Patureau name here in the United States.  And he did that with his Landry wife.  As I once said, “I Am a Patureau,” since my grandmother was a Patureau.  In the same manner, any Patureau in the US can say, “I Am a Landry.”  Isn’t that something that everyone wished they could say?  Well, maybe they don’t.  But a Patureau descendant can.  I’d like all of you to say it at least once, in honor of Maman Emma.

Here, I’ll get you started.  I am a Landry!

Bob and Betty Began The Band

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Bob and Betty Landry playing for an event circa 1975.

Of course I’m talking about the Landry Family Band.  The band consisted of my parents, Bob and Betty Landry, and all of their kids – Jodie, Rob, Karen, Al, Van (me), and Jamie.  But it didn’t really begin that way.  The germ of it started in 1950, when young Betty Lou Bucklin went to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for Solo and Ensemble Festival.  She was a junior in high school, and she was a baritone player.  She was from the small town of Hathaway, Louisiana, and was unfamiliar with her new surroundings. She decided to ask someone for directions, and that someone was Bob Landry from Lake Charles, Louisiana.

My dad was in college at LSU at the time.  He was four years older than my mom.  When Betty Lou graduated from high school the following year, she went to McNeese in Lake Charles.  It just so happened that Bob had decided to return to McNeese because it had become a four-year university.  So they met again and went out on a date almost immediately.  They both played baritone in the band, so they started playing music together then.  They were married in 1952 and children followed.

My dad was a band director and chorus instructor.  He taught at LaGrange in Lake Charles, at Elton High School, and at Northside Junior High in Jennings.  We grew up with music all around us.  We all learned how to play the ukulele at a very young age and then transitioned over to the guitar when we were older.  My mom was a piano player, and we always had a piano in the house.  One of the songs that she’d play for us when we were small is “Boop Boop Did’m Dad’m Waddam Choo!”  She went to town singing about those three little fishies swimming over that dam!  It is a crying shame that there is not a recording of her singing that song.  She played it for all of her grandchildren, as well.  Surely they must have fond memories of that.  What say you, niblings?

In the early to mid 1970s Mama and Daddy started playing together at events.  I suppose part of the reason was to make some extra money, but for some reason I always thought that they were mainly doing it because they liked to sing and entertain people.  Our family would sometimes sing together at mass at the big Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church in Jennings.  But we kids didn’t sing with them when they had those first gigs.  Jodie went off to college in 1971 and got married in 1973.  She and her husband lived in Lake Charles at the married student housing.  Rob was off to Louisiana Tech in 1973, and Karen was graduating from Jennings High School in 1975.  The rest of us were in high school and junior high.

That’s about the time that this photo was taken.  I don’t know where it was taken or who took it.  I don’t think any of us kids were there.  I don’t know how people knew about my parents being available to hire for events.  It’s not like they were able to post this photo online anywhere.  That wouldn’t come around for several years.  It must have been by word of mouth.  Then somehow my dad connected with Bill Spreafico, who was the manager for the Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Lake Charles.  That led to the family becoming the entertainment there beginning in June of 1976.  At first we played Wednesday through Saturday nights every week.  After about a year, it was changed to just Friday and Saturday nights.  We had a lot of pizzas that first year!  They were pepperoni and mushroom for me.  We also had the Super Spuds pretty often, too.

But we didn’t all sing along at first.  We started out a bit shy.  My mom coaxed me into singing “I’ve Got Spurs that Jingle, Jangle, Jingle” by offering me a one-dollar bill.  That was in addition to the five dollars they would give us for playing along and helping to set things up.  It wasn’t too long before we all had our own repertoire of songs that we’d sing.  We all got along really well, so there was no fighting over who gets to sing when.  We would take our turns when we could.  It was all for fun anyway!  At least that’s the way I remember it.

I can’t go without commenting about the additional creatures in this photo.  Are those real squirrels that I see climbing in that tree to the left?  And what are they doing?  It looks like they’re trying to carry away the cords for the microphone that Daddy is singing in.  I don’t even think he noticed them.  Or maybe they are just decorations in the tree?  I’ve never heard of such a thing.  

There was another thing I wanted to say about this photo.  It was taken in 1975.  It’s amazing that that was fifty years ago!  When I think about that, I always tell myself that I’m living in the future.  Am I right?

 

A Fortunate Young Gentleman

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Congratulatory letter from 1921 sent to Erie Patureau before her marriage later that month.

The main thing I’m sharing today is a letter that I saw for the first time last year.  It was in Box 301 in my Aunt Wana’s attic.  I’ve shared a few wonderful photos that were hiding away in that box, and there are still a few more to come.  There were a few other documents in there as well.  They mostly were associated with the Patureau family name, which is the family of my paternal grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau.  This is a letter that was addressed to her, but in some way it was directed to my grandfather Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.

If you look at the head of the letter (which I just did), you’ll see that it is from the desk of Edwin L. Stephens, who was the president of Southwestern Louisiana Institute in Lafayette, Louisiana, at the time.  He addressed her as Erie and identified himself as her friend.  Young Erie had left Plaquemine, Louisiana, in 1912 after finishing high school.  Her father Max Patureau moved the whole family to Lafayette that year because he was starting a veterinarian practice in the Lafayette area.  Her maternal grandmother had moved there a few years previous.

That worked out well for Erie because she started at SLI that year.  I think she took three years to get her teaching certificate and started teaching in Lafayette subsequently.  She was teaching elementary school children, so I don’t think she was associated with SLI in any professional way.  In the 1920 Census she is shown in the household of her aunt Clemence Babin Landry.  Clemence was the half-sister of Erie’s mother Marie Therese Landry Patureau, who had died in 1909.  Clemence and Marie Therese were two of the daughters of Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol Landry Babin.  Grandma Belite was also in this 1920 household.  Her second husband had died the year before.  I descend from her and her first husband, who was Trasimond Landry.  Her second husband was Magloire Babin.

I don’t know why my grandmother was in the household of Clemence and her husband Louis Landry.  I think her dad was living in Lafayette at the time, but I have yet to be able to find Max Patureau in the 1920 Census.  Where was he?  Maybe I haven’t searched with all the possible ways of spelling the name Patureau by various people over the years:  Pattero, Paturo, Pacherou, Patterow, Pattercan, Pastureau.  Sometimes you have to get really creative with your spelling to find someone.

Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. circa 1918 during World War I

If I didn’t know my family, I would think that she might have met her husband-to-be because Rob Landry was the youngest brother of Louis Landry.  But he wasn’t just her aunt’s brother-in-law, he was the first cousin of Erie’s deceased mother.  So she didn’t meet him during that time, but she may have seen him more and heard about his comings and goings from his brother.  

During her time in Lafayette, Rob had been involved with semi-professional baseball and also joined the military.  He went off to training in Virginia.  He never actually saw any action because the war ended and he was discharged.  I don’t know when their courtship began or when they decided to get married.  I have some photos from July 1921 that look like they might be engagement photos, but they could have been engaged for a while.

But when the president of SLI heard about the engagement, he felt a need to send Erie a note of congratulations to the fortunate young gentleman in winning such a fine girl.  I’ve always heard that it was improper to congratulate a woman on hearing of an engagement.  It is appropriate, however, to offer her best wishes.  And that’s what he did – he wished them both long life and happiness. 

So they tried with the best of their abilities to make his wish come true.

Valentine Jodie in 1955

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Jodie Lou Landry on Feb. 14, 1955, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I like to have posts associated with family get togethers for various holidays.  I’ve done several posts about Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving.  It’s usually pretty easy because there were photos taken at these occasions.  Other holidays were not as big and didn’t get much photographic documentation.  Valentine’s Day is one of those.  I did write a post about it six years ago with a weird fishy Valentine card from 80 years ago.

So today when I was going through my photos to look for something to write about, I came across this sweet old photo.  It’s perfect!  This was taken on Valentine’s Day in 1955 when my family was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  It was from before I was born.  I was the fifth child and at the time of this photo, there was only one child and another on the way.

My parents were Bob Landry and Betty Lou Bucklin.  They got married on All Saint’s Day in 1952.  Just under a year later, they welcomed into the world little Jodie Lou on October 14, 1953, in California.  My dad was in the Air Force at the time, and he was stationed at Edwards Air Force Base.  It was at or near the Mojave Desert.  After living there two years, they moved to Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque.

This setup looks like something my mom would have done to surprise my dad.  It’s such a cute photo of Jodie with her little heart and Cupid’s arrow.  I’m sure my dad really appreciated it.  I’m not embarrassing anyone by posting this photo.  Jodie is no longer with us, but I don’t think she would have minded me using this photo to for a Valentine blog.

So with a ‘card’ that is 70 years in the making, my mom, my sister, and I wish you a happy Valentine’s Day!

 

Erie Patureau Circa 1910

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Germaine Erie Patureau circa 1910 in Plaquemine, Louisiana.

Here is a photo of my paternal grandmother when she was around 14 or 15 years old.  You remember her, right?  Her grandchildren all knew her as Mee Maw and they all think that they’re her favorite.  I found something my dad wrote years ago, and it said that she tried to make sure that we all felt that way.  It must have worked.

Her name was Germaine Erie Patureau and she was born on August 6, 1895, in Crescent, Louisiana.  That is a small community just west of Plaquemine, Louisiana, along the Bayou Road.  She was the second generation of the French Patureau family that was born in the United States.  Her grandfather Ferdinand Patureau was born in France, but he died in 1877 after a tragic accident in his sawmill.

Her father was Max Patureau who was born in Mexico in 1865 when the family moved there temporarily during the American Civil War.  The family came back to Plaquemine later in 1865 and that’s where Max grew up.  It was a large family, and they spoke both English and French.  Max’s mother was Marie Emma Landry.  When he got married in 1888, he married Marie Therese Landry.  Marie Therese’s father was Trasimond Landry, who was a first cousin of Max’s mother Emma.

Max and Therese had a large family as well, and Erie was the fourth child.  After her birth, Therese gave birth to ten more children over the next fourteen years.  Her mom didn’t have much of a break during that time.  On top of that, not all of those children survived.  A set of twins born in 1900 only lived for a few days.  In 1904 Therese’s sister Manette died after giving birth to a daughter with the same name.  Therese and Max’s last three children were born in 1906, 1907, and 1909.  Then they died in 1908, 1908, and 1909, respectively.  Sadly, Therese died in 1909 as well.  She gave birth to a daughter on September 28th, she died on October 4th, and the newborn daughter died on October 9th.

This must have been a really tough time for our Erie.  This photo was taken some time around then.  She was a young high school girl growing up in a Cajun/French household in southern Louisiana and she just lost her mother.  If you think of that when you look at this photo, you might see some sadness in her eyes.  Or that could just be the characteristic shape of her eyes that has been passed down to many of her grandchildren. (I’ve always thought of them as droopy eyes.)

My line of the family didn’t stay in Plaquemine much longer.  Erie would finish high school in 1912.  At around the same time, Max decided to move the family to Lafayette to build a larger veterinarian practice.  Erie would enter higher education at Southwest Louisiana Institute (SLI) to study to become a teacher.  She taught first grade in Lafayette a few years but then decided to marry a Landry of her own.  She married Rob Landry on November 12, 1921, at St. John’s Cathedral in Lafayette.  They then made their home in Lake Charles and lived happily ever after.

Sans Parents for Eight Years

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I’m pretty good at math.  But sometimes when I figure things out, they just don’t seem right.  This year is one of those times.  Can it really be eight years since both of my parents passed away within a week of each other?  As the Magic 8 Ball would say, “All signs point to yes.”  Where did that come from?  I must have just had the number 8 on my mind.  Time sure flies by.

I’ve been thinking of them – and the fact that I’d write a post about this – all week.  I always have to have a great picture of them to go with the post, right?  I was thinking that since this is the 8th anniversary of their deaths, I might coordinate that with a photo from around their 8th wedding anniversary.  When would that have been?  Let me tell you.  Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr. married Betty Lou Bucklin on November 1, 1952, in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  That would put their 8th anniversary on November 1, 1960, which happens to be the day after I was born. 

They didn’t take an anniversary photo that year, because my mom was still in the hospital with me.  I was the fifth child, and I have A+ blood.  My mom was 0- and had built up antibodies from previous pregnancies with A+ children.  Her immune system fought my blood, and it resulted in me having to have a blood transfusion a few days after I was born.  Thank you, Methodist men’s group in Lake Charles!  So, I messed up my parents’ anniversary and I didn’t want to use my own baby photo for the post today.

Betty Bucklin and Bob Landry on their 2nd wedding anniversary in 1954 in Albuquerque, New Mexico

I thought I’d look back on the past posts to make sure I didn’t repeat a photo.  Last year I stated that I wasn’t going to use the 2nd anniversary photo of my parents because I would post it later in the year for the 70th anniversary of the photo.  And guess what I forgot to do in November?  That’s right, I forgot about using that photo.  So that settled it.  I’m using the photo of my mom and dad from their 2nd wedding anniversary.

Look how sweet it is.  My mom is wearing the dress that she made and got married in.  I’ve described the color of it before, which is difficult to do, but I resisted showing the photo before because I wanted to wait until the photo was 70 years old.  Like I said, I was going to post it in November 2024.  So now you can see it in full color.  Reddish brown?  Brownish red?  It’s not easy to say for sure.

As far as their deaths are concerned, my mom died on January 19, 2017, and my dad died five days later (January 24, 2017).  We had a joint funeral for them on January 28, 2017, at the Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church in Jennings, Louisiana.  Jennings was where they lived most of their lives and it’s where they’re buried.

Those that loved them miss them.

The Man in Black Part 2

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My grandfather Rob Landry with friends and relatives at the family property in Westlake, Louisiana, in January of 1912.

Can you believe it?!  There’s a part 2 to the Man in Black photo that I posted over eight years ago.  I still am partial to the first photo that I posted.  In fact I have a copy of it hanging in my cubicle at work.  I ‘ve only had the second photo for a few months.  I got it from Box 301 that came from my Aunt Wana’s attic.  I knew I would have to do a Man in Black Part 2 as soon as I saw it.  It’s always interesting to see a second view of an old photo that you really like.

It’s not exactly the same view.  For one thing, the man on the left in this photo is not in the previous photo.  Fortunately for us, the back of this photo was labeled, too.  Though the date given on this one says that it was taken in January of 1912, and the previous one said it was taken in December of 1912.  Knowing how I have confused dates when dating photos at the beginning of the year, I’m thinking that the previous one should have said December 1911.  I’m going to go with the January 1912 for both photos.  They were clearly taken on the same occasion.

back of the Jan. 1912 photo

The back of this photo says that the guy on the left is a Cambrige.  Some of the text is cut off on the back of the photo.  His first name doesn’t show.  Maybe he was the one that took the first photo.  Estelle Myhand was in his place for the first photo.  She probably took this photo.  The next person is Tom Bird.  His name was clearly written in the previous photo.  He was my grandfather’s cousin.  Their mothers were Leveque half-sisters.  He was also closely related to one of my current coworkers.  My grandfather Robert Joseph Landry Sr. is the next one in the photo.  He was called Rob back then.  He turned 19 on January 9, 1912.  Maybe this was a gathering for his birthday?

The woman standing adjacent to my grandfather was Beulah Myhand.  She was the sister of Estelle. I’m not related to them.  I am related to the little girl sitting on the stump.  I knew her as Manette Bouquet and she was an old woman when I was a kid.  She was my dad’s first cousin.  Her father was Sebastian Landry, the brother of Pee Paw.  Her mother died when she was born, so Sebastien and little Manette went to live with Seb and Rob’s parents Alcide and Celeste Leveque Landry.  So Manette was like a little sister to my grandfather.  She’s got her hand over her eyes in the photo, and she’s looking over to the next group of people.

According to the writing on the back of the photo, the person standing next to the stump is Mrs. Joe Landry.   That’s not how these people would have addressed her.  They would have been calling her Zim.  Her given name was Azema Landry.  She was the great aunt to another one of my coworkers.  Now you can see why I keep a copy of the Man in Black at work.  It shows a group of people together over 100 years ago, and now some of their relatives are working together.  It’s a small world sometimes. 

Azema was married to Joe Landry, obviously.  He is the man standing next to her and he was the brother of Rob and Seb.  Rob, Seb, and Joe were three of the sons of Alcide Landry.  Alcide had a brother named Trasimond Landry.  He had died in 1879 after fathering five children.  His youngest was Marie Manette, who married Seb Landry.  They were the parents of the little girl Manette in this photo.  Trasimond’s son Mose Landry was married to Claire Landry, the sister of Azema from this photo.  The connections can get confusing, especially when a Landry marries a Landry.  Trasimond’s oldest daughter was Marie Therese Landry, who was married to Max Patureau. 

Though I am extremely partial to their daughter Erie, who would later marry Rob Landry, I’m talking about their daughter Emma.  She is the person on the far right in the photo.  She was unmarried at the time.  She married Toby Mouton in 1919 and her first child was Therese Wynhoven Mouton.  I knew her as Tez and some knew her as Therese or Wynie (sounds like whiney).  Tez was renowned among the cousins, or should I say notorious?  Probably something in the middle, but that was later.

The photo, like I said, was taken in January of 1912 – possibly on Rob’s birthday on the 9th.  Both photos say that they were taken at the Landry property/homestead in Westlake, Louisiana.  I suppose the house to the far right might be the Landry home, but I’m not really sure.  It looks more like a neighborhood than a farming area.  That’s usually what I think of when I hear the word homestead.

I think that will be it for the Man in Black.  There is not a third photo from that day, at least none that I know of.  So it’s two and done.  See you next time.

The Landry Family in 1967

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The Landry family in 1967 in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Usually when I’m sharing a photo of a Landry family from the 1960s, it is of me and my siblings.  But this time it is of my dad, his siblings, and their mom.  There are several photos of my dad and his siblings, and I don’t think that I’ve shared enough of them.  I think they deserve more recognition.  They were a great group of siblings that remained close throughout their whole lives.  

This is actually the first year in over 100 years that there won’t be one of these siblings around.  The first one – Marie Therese Landry – was born in 1923.  The last one – John Alfred Xavier Landry – was born in 1936 and he died last year on July 28, 2024.  From beginning to end was 101 years.  This photo was taken close to the middle of that time period.

In this photo, the last is the first.  Uncle Johnny is the one furthest to the left.  He was my parrain or godfather.  Next to him is the first.  She was the oldest, and she wore that role well.  She was the leader of the pack.  If she didn’t approve of something, she’d let you know.  She didn’t really look much older.  In fact in this photo, it would be difficult to distinguish who was older than who.  They were all pretty close in age and they’re all dressed so formally.  That’s due to Uncle Hubert, who is next in the photo.  He’s wearing a boutonniere because he was the father of the bride on this special day.

It was the wedding day of his daughter Shirley, who is my godmother.  She married Dudley Shaw on June 24, 1967.  (At least that’s what my Ancestry information tells me.  I had the photo incorrectly dated as 1968.  So sue me, it was a long time ago!)  I was looking through some of those wedding photos a few weeks ago and I think I may have spied myself at the reception.  I’m sure I must have been there, even though I don’t really remember anything about it.  It was an important event.  It was the first wedding of my generation of the family.  Uncle Hubert looks pretty pleased in the photo.

He should be, he’s standing by our dear Mee Maw!  Her name was Germaine Erie Patureau Landry and she was my paternal grandmother.  But before that, she was mother of these eight Landry siblings.  She gave birth to all of them in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and most of them lived out their lives there.  She was a wonderful mother and grandmother.  She was also very involved with her own family history and was already researching the family and collecting old photos and family documents.  Her collection was divided in 1973 after her death, but recently the cousins have gotten together a few times to share what they have.  A lot of my posts have been fueled by the passion that my grandmother had for her family.  Thank you, Mee Maw!

On the other side of Mee Maw is Uncle A. J.  He is the oldest son, even though he had more hair than Hubert at the time.  I always thought the two of them resembled one another.  In some photos I have to look really close to make sure I don’t have them confused.  Uncle A. J. was the only one that didn’t stay in Louisiana.  He was in Houston for a long time, then he and Aunt Margie moved to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, at some point.  That’s where her family was from.  After A. J., we next see Aunt Germaine and Aunt Wana.  I always thought that these two looked similar to each other.  They didn’t act the same.  Wana was very talkative and casual, while Germaine was more reserved and somewhat formal. They were both very kind and generous women, but their styles were decidedly different.

The youngest daughter was Aunt Frances.  I sometimes think of her as the heart of the family.  Love was her superpower.  It was demonstrated particularly at funerals through the years.  She was such a supportive presence to the family.  She also had some feistiness mixed in there.  And last, but not least we have my dad.  He was known to people as Bob or Pluto to his friends.  But his family knew him as Uncle Bobbie, Daddy, or Pappy.  He always appreciated his family.  It’s not something he ever said, though.  He was like his mom and spent several decades studying his family’s history.  You wouldn’t do that unless you appreciated your family.  He also provided a safe and stable place for our family to grow.  That leaves a lasting impression.

This is my family.

Seesawing in ’64

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Van, Jamie, and Al Landry playing in 1964.

I hope this works out.  I’m trying a new feature on the MyHeritage website that I’m a member of.  I use their software for sharpening lots of my photos and I’ve also used it a few times to animate old photos.  Their new feature is called LiveMemory and it creates a short video from any old photo that you download to the site.  I’ve seen some that look interesting but have not been successful with it yet.

I’ve only tried it on the photo of the Patureau brothers before they were doctors in 1881.  But that was a formal setting, so there really wasn’t any movement involved that could be acted on.  So it was rather boring.  It made me look through my old photos to see if there was one that showed some movement involved.  That’s kind of tricky, though.  The most common thing you do in photos is to stay still.  There aren’t that many photos showing people in action.  Oh, wait, I just thought of a good one that I hadn’t thought of before.  That’s the one I should have tried.  I even posted the photo in one of my blog posts.  It’s a photo of my grandfather and his friends playing basketball.  

But it’s too late.  Way too late.  I’m already two days behind on starting this post.  How did I forget about writing this on Thursday?  Christmas week can be so busy.  I was actually working on a photo during that time, but didn’t think that I would ever use it for a blog post.  I had also ruled it out for the LiveMemory as well.  I’m not really sure what reason I had at the time.  It wasn’t old enough?  It’s only 60 years old.  Also the photo only features me and my two siblings who are closest to me in age.  But it’s such a great old photo and I cleaned it up really nicely.  It’s never looked so good.  I’m sure you’ll just love it.

I downloaded the photo to be processed, and it takes a while before they email the results.  It’s probably on its way now.  Oh, yes, there it is now!  Can’t wait to see what it looks like.  Maybe you’ll be able to see.

I can’t stop laughing!  I was hoping to see Jamie and Al moving up and down as they seesawed on the concrete strip.  Maybe the puppies would play with me on the wagon.  Wouldn’t that be fun?!  What I got was a hilarious fail!  Jamie and Al are moving up and down and the puppy moved, but not in the way I had hoped.  See for yourself.

 

I hope you enjoy the original photo.

 

 

 

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