Category: Patureau

I wrote a post about the my paternal grandmother and her sisters over five years ago.  That other post featured a photo of my Mee Maw (Germaine Erie Patureau Landry) with five of her sisters.  This photo only has three of her sisters and it was taken a few years before that other photo. 

This photo was taken around 1958 or so.  I have no idea where it was taken.  I don’t recognize any background feature that would  give me a clue.  Maybe someone else knows.  I do know who the four Patureau sisters are.  From left to right we have Zita, Erie, Sylvie, and Lydwin.  Two of these sisters gave birth to eight children each – with four boys and four girls for each.  The other two sisters did not birth any children.  That was your choice back then.  Either you had eight children or you had none.

That’s not true.  It just happens to be the situation for those sisters in this photo.  Lydwin or Aunt Win was the oldest one in this photo.  She was never married and had no children.  On the other side of the couch is Aunt Zita who never gave birth to any children.  However, when their sister Marie Therese died as a young mother of two daughters, Zita married her widower (Clarence Schafer) and helped raise the two daughters.  While we love our Sis and Syl, I mainly wanted to talk about the two large families of the other two Patureau sisters.

Erie (later to be known as Mee Maw) married Rob Landry in 1921.  Their first child was born in 1923 and they had the rest of their eight children over the next 13 years in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  Sylvie married Son Marionneaux in 1929.  Their first child was born in 1930 and they had their eighth 12 years later.  These girls didn’t waste much time!  There were a few of them that were born close to the same time.  I remember how exciting it was when my sisters were pregnant at the same time.  Things change so quickly during those times. 

In 1932 both Erie and Sylvie gave birth to little girls.  Erie gave birth to Wana on June 30th and just four months later Sylvie gave birth to Winona on Halloween. (my birthday!)  Aunt Wana passed away in 2014 and we just lost Winona this week.  She was my inspiration for this week’s post.  It made me think of those two large families that were so similar.  I really don’t remember Winona from when I was young.  Shortly after I moved to Baton Rouge, I befriended her daughter.  We didn’t realize we were second cousins for two years.  Then one day she started talking about a strange cousin she had that would show up uninvited and start telling people what to do.  The more she talked, the more familiar the cousin sounded.  When I asked her if her cousin’s name was Tez, she was astounded.  It didn’t take long to figure out our relation.  The Uninvited Guest strikes again!

In 1936 Erie and Sylvie thought they could do a little better, and they did.  This time their children were only a month and a half apart. Sylvie had Maxine in June, while Erie gave birth to Johnny in August.  These cousins are still with us.  That completed Erie’s eight kids, while Sylvie had three more to go.  In those first few years (until 1935) Erie and Sylvie’s dad Max Patureau was still alive and he loved to go stay where all of the kids were.  So he would take turns going to Plaquemine and Lake Charles to visit his grandkids.

My dad used to talk about how he liked to go visit his cousins in Plaquemine.  The thing that was talked about the most was sleeping on the porch of the house.  There was something about jumping out of the window to claim the bed that was on the porch.  Whenever his cousins would show up at family reunions or get togethers, you could see that he had a fondness for them.  It seems like that was a mutual feeling between all of those cousins.  I feel the same way toward my cousins.

So this weekend we’ll be saying goodbye to one of Grampa Max’s grandchildren.  There are still a few of them left.  I’m hoping to see some of them and the next generation so we can maintain those family connections.

I wasn’t planning on posting this photo any time soon.  It was my most favorite one that I found in the Patureau Family Cache at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas, when I visited last month.  I try to space them out a bit so I don’t run out of the good photos too quickly.  I was actually running out of Patureau photos before I went to the collection in Beaumont.  In October I even repeated a photo of my grandmother from 1921 in a post.  I’m glad that I have a good supply of photos for that line of my family.

But I decided to post it now because a distant cousin also discovered that treasure trove and posted a copy of the photo on two online genealogy sites.  So it’s already out there for anyone to see.  So I decided to edit it a bit to clean it up and make it look its best.  It didn’t take very long to get a version that I was happy with.  And this time I made sure to save it.  I had worked on a different photo for a while and then walked away.  When I came back, the computer suggested installing an update.  I said ‘yes’ and by the time I realized what I had done, it was too late.  Back to the beginning for that photo.  But besides cleaning the photo up, there are some historical details that I need to resolve.

I have already written a post about all of the members of this family, so this time I will just identify those present in the photo.  The man in the back is the patriarch of the Patureau families in the United States.  He had a sister that has several descendants, but none of them have the last name Patureau.  If you run across a Patureau in America, it’s likely that they descend from this man – Ferdinand Pierre Patureau.  He was born in France on October 26, 1826.  I have a copy of his birth record and the name given on that document is only Pierre Patureau.  According to a document I found in the Tyrrell Historical Library’s collection, he and his father were both named Pierre Ferdinand Patureau.  Instead of referring to them as Sr. and Jr., they just switched the names for the son.  So Ferdinand Pierre Patureau was the son of Pierre Ferdinand Patureau.

Ferdinand was married to Marie Emma Landry, who is seen standing next to him in the middle of the photo.  She was born in 1829, so she would be about 34 years old at the time of the photo.  The year before, she had given birth to Rose Elisa.  She would be the little girl standing on the chair.  Obviously she could not stand still enough for the photo.  So she’s more of a blur.  No amount of editing could fix that!  In the middle of the photo is their oldest son Louis Leobon.  He would start to have brothers in the next year or so.  If you notice, one of his eyes is crossed.  I would have fixed that if I thought it was just an error in the photo.  But I remember seeing a newspaper article that Leobon was vouching for an eye doctor who corrected such a thing.  I looked for the article, but can’t find it right now.  I know I’ve seen it.  I’m positive! (See Update below)

On the left we have a grouping of three daughters.  The oldest is Aline, born in 1849.  The one on the end is Marie Zelica, born in 1857.  The last three children listed all married Hebert siblings.  Leobon married Amelia, Aline married Joseph Omer, and Zelica married Louis.  There were a lot of double cousins from that threesome – 23 to be exact.  The young girl on the bottom to the left is Anna Emma.  She was born in 1860.  I found another photo of her in the collection, but it looks like it was taken at the same time as this photo.

On the right we have Zulma and Palmyre.  Zulma was the oldest (born in 1848) and “everyone’s favorite.”  I’m fond of her because she collected a lot of these old photos along with a later sister Victorine.  Many times she wrote the names of people in the photos.  Very nice.  Palmyre or Palmire was born in 1855.  It’s odd that Palmyre and Anna Emma were born five years apart and they both died almost five years apart – they were both 14.  What a terrible case of deja vu that was.

So there you have it – all of the members of the Patureau family in 1864.  I really do cherish this photo.  It’s amazing.

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April 9, 2022 – Update

I finally found that newspaper article about Leobon Patureau’s eyes being corrected from being cross-eyed.  The whole article talks about a Dr. Prentice who cures all manner of evil.  He sounds like a quack or snake oil salesman.  Yet, an L. Patureau claims that he was cured by the good doctor.  He says that his eyes were crossed for 29 years.  The article is from 1884, when Leobon would have been 33 years old. 

A couple of months ago I found out about a collection of Patureau family memorabilia that had been donated to a library in Beaumont, Texas.  (Thanks, Dana P. for the heads up.)  What?  I thought.  Why would someone donate family history information to a library when there are so many Patureau family members out there with an interest in family history?  The online information about the Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Papers at the Tyrrell Historical Library showed that it included old photos, French documents, death notices, correspondence, and much more.  Old photos?  I want old photos!  And there were a few old Patureau family photos that I have been on the lookout for.

So I decided to add a stop in Beaumont to view this collection after a visit with family in Galveston last weekend.  After two delays from Covid, my niece was having a family get together for renewal of her vows.  We had a great time getting together after being apart for so long.  I even got to meet three of my newest family members – Max, Kate, and Jacob.  The family keeps growing!  So, once the weekend was over, I stopped in Beaumont on the way home to see what this Patureau collection was all about.

Now, my line of the family has been collecting Patureau information for a few generations.  It started with my grandmother Erie Patureau Landry.  Like I said a few weeks ago, I once thought she was one of the main persons that were exploring the Patureau line.  I found out that there were several people who have shown interest in the Patureau family through the years.  And now I think that it is impossible for anyone to have more Patureau information than what is in the collection at the Tyrrell Historical Library for Pierre Ferdinand Patureau (ID number AC-824).  Let’s call it the THLPFP Collection.  It will be the source of many a Patureau posts in the future.

It is overwhelming.  There are six boxes of items.  I went directly to Box 3 because it had a photo album in it.  Of course that would be the first one I would go to!  I was not disappointed.  I found the original photo of my great great grandfather Ferdinand Pierre Patureau (son of Pierre Ferdinand) that I had a copy of.  I also found a photo of his wife Marie Emma Landry Patureau that I had never seen before.  I’m not sharing those photos now, because I need to clean them up a bit and see if any modern day magic can improve them.  I am posting a picture of the cover of the album.  The other thing in Box 3 was a cigar box.  I’m not sure what the significance of the cigar box is.   I’ve heard stories of very small babies born into the family and the baby was kept in a cigar box.  None of those stories were associated with the Patureau family.

The next box I looked into was Box 5.  It included prayer books and another photo album.  This album had several really old family photos.  Many of them were tintypes.  It is a shame that many of them were not identified.  But some of them were.  I found an unidentified photo that I thought was my great grandfather Vincent Maximilian Patureau (Grampa Max) wearing some type of military or band uniform.  I had never seen the photo before and wasn’t sure it was him.  There were several prayer books in this box.  I think most of them belonged to Victorine Patureau Cropper.  She was Grampa Max’s youngest sister.  She is the one that started this amazing collection.

But the most exciting thing I found was the original photo of Ferdinand Pierre Patureau and Marie Emma Landry Patureau with their family from around 1864.  I shared a pitiful copy of the photo back in 2018 when cousin Melwyn died.  It was the only copy I had back then, but it’s the oldest photo of the Patureau family that I know of.  I can’t wait to share this photo once I have cleaned it up.

The next box of goodies that I looked into was Box 6.  It is an oversized box that included a few large photos in it.  They were all of the old portrait of Ferdinand Patureau.  He died in 1877 at the age of 51, so the photo was at some point before then.  The box also had the original passports of Pierre Patureau from 1840 and 1856.  There is also a document from 1863 for Ferdinand Patureau that came from Cuba.  I’m not sure what it is.  There are a few pieces of sheet music, some newspaper clippings, a Cropper family tree, and a few letters in there as well.

I looked at Box 4 next.  It had a ledger from 1866 that Ferdinand Patureau used to keep track of his sawmill business.  It’s interesting to see some of the history of their business, but what was even better were some of the letters that were pressed between the pages.  The letters are undated, but many of them are from Ferdinand to Emma.  Most of them end with him telling her, “I  embrace you with all my heart.”  So sweet!  I’m posting one of the short notes he wrote.  I’m not sure what it says, so I could be taking a risk.  I hope it isn’t too scandalous!  Beside the ledger, it has an order book from 1905 and a trial balance book from 1930.  You can see that they were later used to hold newspaper clippings and to write down some family history information.  The letters were the best.

Box 2 has lots of family documents in it: Cropper family photos, Crixell family photos, copies of the Emma Landry Patureau photo, a new photo of Ferdinand that I’ve never seen before, a Mexican passport for Ferdinand in 1865, and various other papers.  I had been looking through this information for over 2 hours or so when I got to these last two folders.  I was rushing furiously through them taking photos.  I really didn’t have time to see much of the details on all of the things I photographed.  I saved that for later.  I finally made it to the last box, which just happened to be Box 1.

Box 1 had an assortment of family history information that had been collected by Patureau family members through the years.  I already had some of it.  I even saw my name in a list of some descendants!  Then there were more letters written in French in folder after folder.  I didn’t have time to photograph them.  And really, when am I ever going to have time to read those??  I’d have to get them translated before I could even do that.  I already have copies of letters that I’ve never gotten translated.  So I skipped over several folders and looked through the death notices.  The collection had one for Pierre Patureau, which I had never seen before.  It also had one for Narcisse Landry, which I have seen before – twice.  It’s amazing that I’ve seen three copies of that same document from 1876. 

In Box 1 there was a folder of postcards that I almost passed over.  I decided to skim through them and boy am I glad I did.  In among these generic postcards was a card that looked like a graduation card or some such thing.   The name on the card was V. M. Patureau.  It was for Grampa Max!  But not only that, it had a small photo that matched the one I saw earlier that I had suspected was him.  I was correct.  Now I want to know what this card was for.  Any suggestions.

Before I saw this collection, I was a little miffed that someone gave all of this wonderful stuff to a library when they could have left it with someone who was really interested in the Patureau family – like me!  But now that I’ve seen how extensive the collection is, I’ve changed my mind.  I think it is probably in the best place for it.  Sure, I would like for it to be a little closer to Plaquemine, Louisiana, where the Patureau family first settled.  But there are a lot of Patureau family members who live in Texas as well.  And I really wouldn’t want to take care of all of those important documents.  I think there are plans for the library to digitize the collection at some point, so that would be even better.  If that happens, we can all see the whole collection from our homes at a leisurely pace.

That’s a good thing.  I think my back is still a little sore from standing over those items for three hours taking photos at just the right angle with just the right amount of light.  It was worth the trouble.  I still may have to revisit it at some point.

I’ve been thinking about Patureau history this week, so I think it is appropriate to write about that line of my family this week.  It’s interesting that there have been a lot of family members who have been passionate about Patureau family history through the years.  When I was growing up, I knew about my grandmother being a Patureau and looking into family history.  Later on, I’d hear my dad talking family history and would refer to the Patureau Family Records.

In his papers about the family, those records were abbreviated as PFR.  I think they were mainly records that were gathered by my Mee Maw (Germaine Erie Patureau) and her sister Zita – Aint Zita to the family.  Or was it Aint Lorena?  (I just looked it up.  It was Aunt Lorena.)  It wasn’t until 2019 that I realized how much she had collected.  It must have been divided up in 1973 when Mee Maw died (her sister Lorena died in 1972).  But the cousins brought some of it back together and I took photos of them and have shared them on different blog posts.  The most recent thing I’ve shared was the death notice of Emma Landry Patureau, who was the wife of Ferdinand Patureau.  They were the forebears of all of the Patureau family in southern Louisiana.

I erroneously thought that she was the only one that was doing that kind of research in the Patureau family.  I’ve discovered quite a few more.  I suppose I’ll first mention those in my line – the line of Vincent Maximilian Patureau.  After Mee Maw and Lorena, there would be cousin Sis.  She is the daughter of their sister Marie Therese Patureau Schafer.  She has collected a lot of Patureau information through the years and has graciously shared it with me.  Two of the daughters of Sylvie Patureau – Melwyn and Patricia – were also interested in Patureau family history and lived in Plaquemine where the Patureau family first settled in the US.  Then there is Syvie’s son Rhett’s son Wade who has spent much time exploring the family history.  And then there’s me.

But it wasn’t just in our line.  Going back to Grampa Max’s generation, there was his younger sister Victorine Patureau Cropper (called “Aunt Beb” or “Aunt Vic” by family) who settled in Beaumont.  I just recently found out that she started collecting family history information back in the 1890s and continued until her death in 1937.  It was passed on to her daughter Kitty Rush.  Somehow, some or all of her research is now at a library in Beaumont, Texas.  I’d like to see that someday. (I saw it. It’s called the Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Papers.)  Max’s sister Eliza had a son named Joseph Lawrence Dupuy and I’ve heard that he also was into Patureau genealogy.  Then there is Gary G. who is a grandson of Max’s brother Abel.  He has a family tree online that was very helpful when I first started looking at Patureau history more intensely.  He has a cousin named Suzi who also shares the passion for Patureau information.

And then there is the Leobon Patureau line.  His granddaughter Linda Cansler was instrumental in bringing together Patureau cousins in the 1990s for Patureau reunions at the home of Pat and Lora Patureau.  Linda collected lots of information and photos and I heard that she was going to write a book about the family.  I don’t think that happened and I recently found out that she passed away in 2019.  I don’t know how I missed hearing about her death.  I thought I was keeping up with the goings on of the Patureau family.  Obviously I do not know it all.  I know that Misty and Dana in that family line are interested in family history, but there could be many more.  There are so many cousins out there!

In the generation before Max and his siblings, there was his father Ferdinand and Ferdinand’s sister Anne Victorine Patureau Laulom.  Max went to visit these cousins in the Brownsville and Corpus Christie areas, but for the most part the families have lost touch.  I have found a couple of them who are interested in the Patureau family history.  I don’t think there is as much of a connection to the Patureau name after so many generations without the surname present. 

And now I’m taking you back a few generations to the family of Pierre Patureau’s grandparents.  Pierre was born in 1800 in LaRoche-Chalais, France, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1840.  He died in 1860 and was buried in Plaquemine, Louisiana.  His father was Leobon Patureau (1768-1851), who was the son of Antoine Patureau and Marie Sicaud. 

Antoine and Marie were married Nov. 3, 1767, in Palluaud, France.  I posted their wedding record before.  It shows that Antoine was a surgeon at the time.  Nine months later Leobon was born.  That seems to be a tradition with the Patureau family.  Leobon was the first of at least eight children for Antoine and Marie.  Three of those children died as infants.

We know that Leobon has many descendants.  I know of at least a thousand from his grandson Pierre.  I would be surprised if any of his siblings had more than that.  But I do know that the next child after Leobon also has descendants.  His name was Francois Patureau Laborie (1769-1840).  The reason I know that is that one of his descendants (Nellie who lives in France) has a blog that she writes and sometimes she writes about her Patureau line.   She is a sixth cousin or so and she is interested in Patureau ancestry.  La passion!

Another interesting fact about this family is that the son Pierre Patureau (1774-1827) fought under Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th Century.  He took part in the Battle in Castel-Nuovo, Znaim, in 1809.  He was injured in both of his legs at some point and in 1814 he was awarded the Legion of Honor award.   Leobon must have been fond of his brother because he named his son after him.

One of the reasons for this post was that I just found the death record for Marie Sicaud from 1794.  She was only 64 when she died and her youngest children were just teenagers at the time.  Her son Leobon had gotten married to Jeanne Lanson in 1787 and started a family a year later.  Since Pierre was born in 1800, he never knew his Patureau grandmother.  Antoine died in 1802, so Pierre probably didn’t have any memory of him.  His Lanson grandparents had died in the 1780s, so he didn’t know them either.  He didn’t even have photos of them to see what they had looked like.  When I discover things like that, it makes me appreciate the time that I had with my own grandparents. 

So now we can return to modern day America.  But don’t forget about those we visited in the past.  You might want to think about Antoine and Marie next Wednesday.  November 3, 2021, will be the 254th anniversary of their marriage.  Oh, how the years go by.