Category: Landry

The Landry family Christmas Eve Party in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 1965.

It’s that time of year again.  I can’t let the year finish up without a recollection of a Christmas from the past.  I looked back to the 1960s for some inspiration and it didn’t take long to settle on this wonderful Christmas photo from 1965.

It would be even more wonderful if my face showed in the photo.  I’m in the photo, as are all of my siblings and my mom, but my head is eclipsed by my oldest brother Rob’s head.  My younger sister Jamie could be equally disappointed in the photo, because her face is blocked by Rob’s toy airplane.  But at least you can see one of her eyes!

I still think it is a wonderful photo.  It captures the closeness that our family had when we got together for these large family gatherings.  I think my dad took the photo and he did a good job of getting all the rest of us in the photo.  It’s really good of my mom (Betty Lou Bucklin Landry) and my grandmother (Germaine Erie Patureau Landry – aka Mee Maw).

Mee Maw was the mother of my dad (Bob Landry).  My grandfather (Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.) died in 1957.  I think they hosted the family get together at their home in Goosport (a section of Lake Charles) when he was alive.  Mee Maw carried on this tradition for several more years.  I have photos from 1961 and those were taken in the home in Goosport.  Then Mee Maw moved at some point.  I don’t have Christmas photos from 1962, 1963, or 1964, so I don’t know when she moved.  Can you believe that?  I don’t have photos from these three big events in my youth.  Maybe one of my cousins or siblings has one and can share it with me.  Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

But this photo is from 1965, and it is in the house that I remember her living in.  I think it was on 14th Street.  An early memory from Christmas might have been from this year.  I remember some of the older siblings and cousins saying that Santa would be passing over soon and we could probably see Rudolph’s shiny red nose.  I could just imagine a tiny red light high up in the sky drifting over us.  I remember peering up at the sky expectantly.  But then I got distracted by gifts that needed to be opened.

Let me identify everyone in the photo.  The girl in the lavender sweater with blond hair is my cousin Phyllis.  She was the youngest child of Ross Winn and Germaine Landry Winn.  They can be seen across the room under the double conical lights.  My mom is in the center of the left side of the photo looking toward the camera and smiling.  Coming down across the front of the photo there is Jamie with blond hair and only one eye showing, Rob with his fascinating toy jet that he is showing off, and behind him in the yellow and brown striped shirt is little Van – that would be me.  Stealing the spotlight front and center is cousin Greg Raley. Al is next to him, but he seems more interested in Rob’s jet at the moment.  In front of Al is cousin Lauren Duffy. In the red dress is Karen.  Behind her is our oldest sister Jodie.  She seems to be excited about something.  Next to her is Mee Maw, who has a very nice smile on her face in this photo.  She looks to be very content having her family around her like this.  

On the right side of the photo in front are two more Raley siblings – Jeanne and Scott.  The Raleys are the children of Aunt Frances Landry Raley and Uncle Joe Raley.  Aunt Frances can be seen in the back to the right in the white blouse.  To the left of her is my godmother Shirley Landry.  This was a year or so before she was married.  She was the oldest of all of us cousins.  Her mother is to the left of her.  Her name was Mildred Sutherlin Landry.  The last three people are my dad’s youngest brother’s family at the time.  Johnny is in the back left in the photo.  He was my godfather.  Next to him is his wife Sondra.  Uncle Johnny and Aunt Sondra were Karen’s godparents.  They were also the mother of Mona Landry, who can be seen in Sondra’s lap.

They were such idyllic times.  It was such a warm feeling to be part of this large family.  The comfort that it brought is long lasting.  Looking back to these seemingly simpler times makes you long for those members that we’ve lost along the way.  But at least we had them for a time.

Bobbie, Johnny, Wana, and their mother Erie Patureau Landry in 1936 in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

It was pretty easy to pick out a photo for this week’s post.  I wanted one of my dad when he was a young boy.  When I saw this one of him with his younger brother Johnny when he was just a baby, I knew it was the one.  But then coming up with a name for the post was trickier.  While the main focus of the photo are the two boys, there is also a sister and their mother in the photo as well.  I don’t want to slight them!  I stuck with the focus of the photo.  Plus it is somewhat of a continuation of the post I did a few months ago when Uncle Johnny died.  

Actually it is a prequel to all of the photos that I’ve posted that include Uncle Johnny.  This is a photo of when he was a fresh little infant.  Isn’t that the sweetest little photo?  I kept the border on it, because it has a charm about it, and it points to the period of time when it was popular.   His full name was John Alfred Xavier Landry and he was born August 2, 1936.  I estimated that the photo was taken shortly after that.  He was the last of eight children.

On the left is my dad.  He was born on January 31, 1929, and was given the name Robert Joseph Landry, Jr.  He was named after his dad, obviously!  He was called Bobbie back then.  That name carried on, but he acquired more through the years.  Standing in the background, you can easily see their sister Wana.  She was four years old.  It’s surprising to see her with her hand covering her mouth.  That wasn’t typical in her later years.  She was a talker!  There is another sister standing in the background.  I’m not sure if that was Germaine or Marie.  I can’t really make out her face.  Too bad.

On the right edge of the photo, you can make out part of the profile of my dear sweet Mee Maw.  She was the mother of the children in the photo.  Her name was Germaine Erie Patureau Landry, but at the time she was just known as Erie or Mama.  She had been a teacher in Lafayette, Louisiana, in her early 20s, but gave that all up to get married and raise a family in Lake Charles.  I think she made the right choice.  She looks so content looking down at her youngest son.  She loved her children and later on, she loved all of her grandchildren.

Mon Pere et Mon Parrain en 1936.  I only have one negative thing to say about my grandmother.  But it’s not really something negative about her.  It’s about the situation that led her to make a decision.  There was a movement back then that led some educators in different parts of the state to punish children who grew up speaking French in the home.  The children would mainly speak French and that was frowned upon in some parts.  I’m pretty sure MeeMaw grew up speaking both French and English.  All of her ancestors spoke French.  She might have seen as a teacher the difficulty the French-speaking children had at school. 

She decided to only teach her children how to speak English.  I think she spoke French with Pee Paw or her sisters when she wanted to say something in private, but she didn’t speak it enough for her children to learn how to speak it.  So just like that, the family went from French-speaking and bilingual to English-speaking.  I am of two minds on the subject.  Part of it is the inevitable assimilation into a culture whose primary language is English.  Resistance is futile!  On the other side is the maintaining of different cultures within the large group. 

Her decision to teach her children only English led to another change:  they also married outside of the cultural (Cajun or French) group. (Or outside the family as I sometimes say!)  So I never wanted to speak French when I was growing up.  Actually, when we heard it on the local radio, it sounded funny to us.  We would just listen to the Cajun songs and laugh.  It wasn’t until I looked into our family history and saw so much French documentation that I started to regret the loss of something. 

If only we could have maintained both English and French.  There is a movement in southern Louisiana to preserve some of that Cajun and French heritage.  I, for my part, am learning French. Veut-tu faire quelque chose?

That title really deserves an exclamation point at the end of it.  It’s not like I have several photos of my great grandfather Alcide Landry.  With some of my other ancestors, I have several photos of them and I don’t get as excited about finding new photos of them.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m always glad to find another photo of my ancestors.  That is especially true when the photo is over 100 years old.  That’s true about this photo, plus there is only one other photo of Alcide that I know of.  So to find a second one after all this time is very exciting.  It is exclamation point worthy!

Alcide Landry with railroad coworkers circa 1900

This is another photo from Box 301.  It was a box in my Aunt Wana’s attic that was recently rediscovered and shared with me.  I wasn’t really that excited when I got this photo, because it wasn’t labeled with any names or dates.  I didn’t look at it closely, because we were rushing through the photos so I could decide which ones I could take home with me to scan.  

I found this photo interesting because one of the reasons my Landry family moved from West Baton Rouge Parish to Calcasieu Parish around 1889 was for the railroad industry.  Those definitely look like railroad wheels in the photo.  My great grandfather Simon Alcide Joseph Landry moved their family to Westlake and began work at the railyards.  Some of his sons also worked in the industry.

Great grandpa Alcide was born in Brusly, Louisiana, on August 16, 1845.  Once he reached the age of 18, he joined the Confederate Army to fight in the Civil War.  A few years after the war ended, he married Marie Celeste Leveque.  I’ve written much more about her because she lived longer, and I have more photos of her.  My dad and his siblings had a few memories of her and spoke fondly of our Grandma Celeste.  Their first eight children were born in Brusly, and the last two were born in Westlake.  My grandfather Robert Joseph Landry was their last child born in 1893.

When I first started examining this photo to see if I recognized anyone, my focus was on the younger men.  I was wondering if my grandfather or one of his brothers was in the photo.  I have several photos of my grandfather and his brothers when they were young men, and they definitely had a look to them.  None of the young men in this photo had that look.  That’s when I looked closer at the older man in the dark overalls and the dark moustache.  There was something about him that looked familiar.

Alcide Landry circa 1890

Alcide went to work in Westlake at the age of 44, so he wasn’t exactly a young man.  When I compared the man in the photo to the only photo that I have of Alcide, I was surprised.  The hat in the group photo threw me off and I didn’t see the resemblance as much.  But it’s got to be him.  I think his nose looks somewhat wider in the individual photo of him, but that could be from the lighting.  The narrower bridge of the nose is a trait that all of his sons had.  The moustache looks the same in both photos.  I estimate the photo to be from around 1900.

You also have to consider where the photo came from.  It was in a box of old photos from my grandmother, but it had more photos of my grandfather’s younger days than any other collection.  So the photo is likely from my grandfather’s family.  Given that it is a photo of people at a railyard, that makes it even more likely that it is from his family.  It looks just like great grandpa Alcide, so who else would it be?

So I say yes, it is another photo of Alcide.  Behold!

The Landry Family arriving at Thunderbird Beach in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 22, 1961.

I’ve been thinking about posting about Thunderbird Beach for a while.  I finally got around to cleaning up the photos from the time that our family visited “The Baton Rouge Riviera.”  These are some photos from early in my life.  This was way before our family was the entertainment at Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  It was before I got my first pair of contact lenses.  In fact, it was before I even wore glasses.  It was several years before our visits to Six Flags Over Texas and Astroworld.  We hadn’t yet visited NASA after the first moon landing.  It was even before we had our baby sister Jamie.  That’s a long time ago!

I have some vague memories from way back then.  I remember sitting in the back of that Volkswagen van when it was in the driveway of the house we lived in back then at 1317 Clover Drive in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  I don’t remember the curtains that are in the back that you can see in this photo.  My brother Rob said that my mom made them and put them up back there so we could change clothes after swimming and such. 

The Landry family entering Thunderbird Beach. The rides! The train! The slide!

These photos were taken on July 22, 1961.  I don’t know where that date comes from, but I don’t think I made it up.  My mom and dad were pretty good about putting that kind of information on photos from back then, but I can’t find the source of that date right now.  But it looks right from the ages of us kids in the first photo.  I was the little boy in the arms of my mom.  My name is Van, and my mom was Betty Lou Bucklin Landry.  I would have been nine months old at the time.  My older siblings from left to right are Karen, Rob, Al, and Jodie.  The family lived in Lake Charles at the time, so it would have been quite a trek to go to Baton Rouge back then.  It was before Interstate 10 was completed.

When we went to Baton Rouge then, we took the ferry across the Mississippi River.  There isn’t a photo of that from this trip, but there are some from other trips.  My dad had gone to LSU and got his Master’s degree from there in 1960, so he was familiar with the area.  If it had been up to my mother to go there, it wouldn’t have happened.  She wasn’t keen on driving in unfamiliar places.  She didn’t even get her driver’s license until around 1969.  But she knew how to accessorize a van to make it multifunctional!

The Landry family on the train at Thunderbird Beach in 1961.

When I asked Rob what he remembered about Thunderbird Beach, he mentioned the carousel.  I didn’t think I had a photo of that, but it’s in the second photo right behind his head.  I always tend to focus on Rob and Jodie with their rafts, Al standing out by the road looking back at the camera, and Karen helping Mama to push me in the stroller.  And then I would look at the sign identifying the place as Thunderbird Beach – Swimming – Dancing – Concessions!  There was something for everyone.

This third photo is my favorite.  It’s such a good photo of everyone and you can see our faces better because we’re not as far away from the camera.  Karen looks like something has caught her attention and she looks very interested in what she sees.  I wonder if it was the large slide at the park.  If it was, it’s because she hadn’t learned yet that she and slides do not get along.  I can still remember seeing her roll out the end of the big slide at Six Flags.  She was not too happy.  

I remember this little train that went around the park.  For some reason it made a lasting pleasant memory for me.  It wasn’t very big and it didn’t go very fast, so it couldn’t have been that exciting.  But for a little boy just learning about the world, I guess it was interesting enough.  Jodie looked pleased to be sitting and holding on to me so I wouldn’t fly out of the train.  She was always helping Mama to watch out for us.  That’s how she ended up being called “Little Mama” by the younger kids.

It wasn’t long after this that we got in a wreck and the Volkswagen was replaced by a Ford van.  I think we returned to Thunderbird Beach a time or two more.  I can’t imagine that I remember that train from just one trip when I was nine months old.  I did find another photo of the carousel from a year later.  But there weren’t all the great family photos like there were for this trip on July 22, 1961.  What treasures.

Last night we watched the movie “First Man.”  It is about the events leading up to the first moon landing in the summer of 1969.  Since I was living way back then, I had memories of those long-ago events.  I also have photos to remind me of some of the things that we did back then.  And somehow, I have another reminder of some of those events.

The Landry family – Jamie, Jodie, Al, Rob, Van, mom (Betty Lou Bucklin), and Karen in Houston, Texas, a few days after the first moon landing in July of 1969.

Five years ago I posted a photo from the same event.  That was in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.  Just recently we passed the 55th anniversary of that time.  I had planned on posting this photo soon after that other one.  Mainly because it is a better photo of all of us, though this one is with our mom.  The other one was with our dad while we were standing in front of the Lunar Landing Module.  (or a replica of one).

This photo has us standing in front of the splashdown capsule from one of the space missions.  It wasn’t from Apollo 11, because that one had just splashed down with Armstrong and crew a day earlier.  Yes, the Landry family was at NASA on July 25, the day after the first visitors to the moon landed back on Earth.  We even saw some commotion with some official-looking cars and such.  We just knew that it was either the astronauts being brought into quarantine or some of the moon rocks being brought in for examination.  What an exciting visit!

I always find it surprising that the first “Star Trek” series was before the first moon landing and it actually ended the month before.  You would think that all of this excitement of traveling in space would have created an audience for the show so that it wouldn’t have been cancelled.  I was definitely a big fan.  Sure, my mom’s first cousin Mel Keys built the model of the U. S. S. Enterprise that they used to film those shows, but I didn’t know that back then.  I just loved the stories about space.  So I was definitely excited to go to NASA that summer.

Notecards written by Karen in July 1969

But that wasn’t all that was happening in July of 1969.  I’ve been planning on writing about a few events from the beginning of that month for a while.  That’s because somehow, I have notecards that Karen wrote on about some of those events.  I’m glad I do, because they give a glimpse into how things were back then.  

The day was July 6, 1969.  We left Jennings and went to Lake Charles to drop Jodie off at band camp.  Karen seemed excited that she got to go in and help Jodie get situated.  Jodie was 15 at the time and Karen was 12.  Band Camp was held at McNeese and it lasted a week during the summer.  After leaving Jodie there, the family went looking to visit family.   

My dad was from Lake Charles, and he had six siblings that still lived there at the time.  The last of all of those eight siblings just recently passed away.  So it looks like we went to his sister Wana’s house first.  It was closest to McNeese.  But, as Karen said, “Nobody was there.”  We headed to the other side of McNeese to see what was going on at Uncle Johnny’s.  Cousin Mona was sick, so we didn’t stay there for more than a bit of a chat.  Then we went to his sister Frances’s house, and everyone was there playing cards.  It’s what they did.  I’m sure we joined in on the games.

We then went to Shakey’s Pizza Parlor for dinner.  We had pizza and balloons.  I’m thinking that we maybe got balloons because Jamie’s birthday was the day before.  It would be another seven years before our family became the entertainment at that Shakey’s location.  I can’t imagine the pizzas costing that much money back then.  Karen didn’t say how much it cost.  But she did talk about the price of dessert.  When we got back to Jennings, we stopped at the Bulldog Inn.  For some reason Al decided to treat everyone to ice cream.  He was rich back then!  Even with seven of us (Jodie was at B. C. in L.C.), the total price would come in under 40 cents.

Those were the days.