Category: Phenice

Mitochondrial Sisters

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Fred and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin family circa 1950 in Hathaway, Louisiana.  The children from left to right are Sylvia, Loris, Austin, Alma, and my mom Betty Lou.

This post is coming together from several things that I’ve been working on lately.  I’ve been editing a lot of old photos from different eras.  It’s also time to look at my mom’s side of the family.  I think I’ve neglected them a bit lately.  I did post this really nice edited photo of my mom’s childhood family recently just to give that side of my family a little bit of family history crumbs.  But it wasn’t a bona fide post.  I’m including it in this post to make it official!

The other thing that helped me to focus the theme for this week was a new DNA match at 23andMe.   He is a grandson of Aunt Marguerite, my grandmother Myrtle Phenice Bucklin’s younger sister.  Since he matches through his mother as I do, our mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is the same.  The mtDNA is passed on from mothers to their children without any changes most of the time.  From time to time there are mutations.  Since 23andMe only gives an estimate of the mtDNA and those estimates are slightly different,  I’ll just say that our designation is H1.  Some of the close relatives get an -n or an -h at the end, but we’re all basically in the very common group H1.

Grace Phenice Sowder, Myrtle Phenice Bucklin, and Marguerite Phenice Hill in their young adulthood.

I also had edited photos of both Marguerite and their other sister Grace.  I recently got a blog comment from Grace’s nephew by her husband Ray Sowder.  He commented about how Grace seemed to be out of his uncle’s league as far as looks are concerned.  I have to admit, those Phenice sisters were attractive young women.  I was thinking of sharing those photo edits, as well as a photo of my own sisters that I had completed recently.  It made me realize that there are several generations along this maternal line with three or more sisters.  So I decided to make this post about all of those mitochondrial sisters.

Alma Bucklin Waldorf, Marguerite Phenice Hill, Betty Lou Bucklin Landry (my mom), Myrtle Phenice Bucklin (my grandmother), Loris Bucklin Woolley, and Sylvia Bucklin Pilcher at Grandma’s house on Alice Street in Jennings, Louisiana, on January 22, 1984.

I found several photos of my mom with one or two of her sisters, but none of just the four sisters by themselves.  I also wanted one of them as adults.  The one I decided on was this photo of Grandma with her sister Marguerite and her four daughters after the funeral of Grandpa in 1984.  It’s a good photo of all of these H1 carriers.  It includes two of the generations that are the focus of this post.  Too bad they didn’t think to include some of the granddaughters in this photo, but that wasn’t the focus on that day.  This was one of the most difficult times in my Grandma’s life and it’s nice to see her surrounded by those she cared about the most.

There are two generations before and after these two and I keep changing my mind about which two I will talk about next.  I suppose I will go with the previous generation since I’ve shared those photos before.  I’ll save the new photos (in all living color!) for the end.

Rosetta Ruth Keys Bryan, Daisy Keys Phenice, Mabel Keys Miller in 1894.

So that brings us to the Keys sisters Daisy, Ruth, and Mabel.  I’ve posted about them previously.  They all immigrated to Louisiana from England with their mother and brothers in July 1887.  Ruth lived in Jennings, Daisy lived in Hathaway, and Mabel lived in Kinder.  They stayed pretty close to where they originally settled after arriving in the United States.

Those lovely girls were the daughters of Martha Cook Keys, the brave woman that brought her five children to America after her husband had passed away.  She was a dressmaker and shop owner in London at a time when a revolution in clothing manufacturing was taking place.  I always took it for granted that she made her clothes with a sewing machine – a machine that seems so common.  But it was a newfangled thing back then.  Before that, people went through the painstankling process of sewing everything by hand.  She was part of a revolution.  I found this out from a TV program I saw when I took a break from writing this post to take a lunch break.  I have a bit more respect for old Martha now.

Martha Cook Keys and Henrietta Cook Keys were from Great Wigsborough, Essex, England. They were married to Keys brothers.

I only have one photo for both of Martha and her sister.  I think the one of Martha is a photo of a painting.  At least we have something!  She was born in 1836 in Great Wigsborough, Essex.  She was the first child of Job Cook and Ruth Horsnell. Henrietta was born in 1839 and she was the last child of Job and Ruth.  That’s because Job died the following year at the age of 38 from “phrenitis.”  Otherwise I’m sure there would have been at least one more daughter.  All the other generations that we know of had three or more daughters.  Henrietta passed that H1 down to the present also.  I have a DNA match that came directly down from her through a line of daughters.

Ruth (1816-1880) was the daughter of William Horsnell and his wife Ann (1774-1859).  We don’t know Ann’s last name.  Since I don’t know her last name, and she is the originator of the H1 DNA for all of these women, I think I may put her last name as H1.  Somehow that seems appropriate.  Ruth had two sisters, so Ann started the trend of having three or more daughters along this line.  It could have been started earlier, but we don’t know that history.

Jamie, Jodie, and Karen in 1978

Jamie Landry Perry, Jodie Landry Rhodes, and Karen Landry Fontenot on Christmas Eve 1978 in Jennings, Louisiana.

Let’s get back to the more modern era.  I had three sisters.  My two older sisters have died.  My sister Karen died this year, so that was another reason I wanted to write this post about sisters.  This photo was a photo that my parents had on a small table in their living room for many years.  It’s from 1978 and it’s a good photo of all three of my sisters.  I can see why Mama wanted it where she could see it frequently.

Jodie did not continue the tradition of three daughters.  She had two children and they were both boys.  Karen did a little better.  She started out with a son, but then did better by having two daughters.  (Just kidding, James!)  Then Jamie decided that she had to keep the tradition alive.  She had three daughters.  She really did have three daughters, but you surely know I’m joking about her trying to keep up a tradition.  It’s just a trend that happened through the years.  Mostly it was the result of large families and the law of averages.  If you have lots of children, about half of them will be female.

Sarah, Beth, and Jill Perry

Sarah, Beth, and Jill Perry in November 2020 in League City, Texas.

Here is a very recent photo of Jamie’s three Perry girls.  This was taken last month at the wedding of her youngest daughter Beth.  Weddings and funerals are usually such big family events for us, but this was the year of Covid.  Karen’s funeral had very limited attendance due to precautions for the virus.  The high point was that the cousins in Lake Charles gathered around in the distance at the graveyard to show their love and support.

Beth and Glen’s wedding was postponed from the spring because of the pandemic.  I was looking forward to the family getting together for their wedding in early November.  But Covid struck again and Allen (the father of the bride) came down with a positive test.  So we had to have a virtual attendance to the event.  It’s not as good as being there in person, but it’s much better than missing the whole thing!

Now that she’s married, she can start thinking about carrying on that tradition!  I know, I know.  It’s not really a tradition, but we can’t let that stop her.  Jill already has one daughter.  They could make it fun – like it’s a contest or game.  Our family likes games.

Let the H1 continue!

Grandma Phenice and Her Chickens

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I’ve been thinking of writing about this for a while.  I’ve thought about the subject when I wrote other posts about my great grandmother Daisy Keys Phenice (mother of my maternal grandmother Myrtle Phenice Bucklin), but inevitably the posts ran longer than I wanted and there was no room for this topic.  I try to make these posts short and sweet, despite what you may think when you see all the words I sometimes write.

My great grandmother Daisy Keys Phenice with her granddaughter Marilyn Phenice in 1938 in Elton, Louisiana.

So I decided to write about Great Grandma Phenice and her expertise with chickens.  Then I went looking for a photo to go along with it.  This is the photo I first thought of and I think it works, even though it’s not a photo of her with a chicken.  That’s actually her young granddaughter Marilyn Phenice, my mom’s first cousin.  The photo was taken at a Keys family get together.  I posted a photo of the whole group two years ago.

According to Aunt Marguerite in some of her writings (Marge’s Memories), Daisy knew and loved her chickens.  Living out in the country in southern Louisiana in the early 1900s, raising chickens was a necessity.  I doubt that Daisy learned that as a young girl growing up in the city around London, England.  She was busy learning sewing and making things associated with her mother’s dress shop.  But when her mom (Martha Cook Keys) brought the family to Louisiana when Daisy was 11 years old, Daisy and the other children had to learn some new skills.

So as an adult, Daisy had become an expert with her chickens.  She knew when they were ready to set or lay eggs that could be hatched for a new group of chickens.  They wouldn’t set unless they were ready, and Daisy could tell when that was.  Maybe that had to do with the fact that when the family first moved to Louisiana, they had to live in a chicken coop until their house was built!  She was a chicken whisperer.  When she would see a storm coming, she immediately thought about her chickens.  She would run out into the storm to help the chickens into safety at her own risk.

The chickens produced lots of eggs, of course.  They were able to barter the surplus for other staples at the local Piggly Wiggly.  The family ate the eggs and the meat as well.  Like I said, Daisy loved her chickens!  When she was ready to fry some chicken, she gathered up some feed in her apron and went out in the yard.  I remember my mom telling me when I was a kid that her grandmother was the best at wringing a chicken’s neck.  Just a quick turn of the wrist was all it took.  She was quick about it, too.  From the idea of cooking some fried chicken to the point of serving it to the family only took a couple of hours.  Not exactly fast food, but that wasn’t available back then.

Mom’s Memories page 12

According to my mom, her Grandma Phenice’s fried chicken was especially tasty.  It was worth a mention in her memory book that she kept when she was getting older.  So it made it into Marge’s Memories and Mom’s Memories.  That must have been some fried chicken.

As my mom wrote, “It kept us a little warmer on the way home on cold nites.”  I think little Betty Lou loved Daisy’s chickens, too!

 

Betty Lou Visits Arkansas in 1938

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Christmastime in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1938.

I wonder if my mom would have remembered this event if she didn’t have the photos to remind her of it for the rest of her life?  It’s amazing what photos do to enhance your memories through the years.  I doubt that I’d remember what I looked like as a little kid if I didn’t have the photos to refer back to.  A picture tells a story – it’s like a thousand words or something.

You may think this photo looks familiar – or not.  Four years ago I posted another photo from the same day.  That photo only had my mom and the other little girl and the two dolls.  That post was about Girls and Their Dolls.  This one is not.  I’m not sure what it’s going to be about, but it’s not about girls and their dolls.  Or maybe it is.  That was the only thing my mom thought about when she talked about the photos from her visit to Fayetteville, Arkansas during the Christmas of 1938.

My mom is the little blonde girl on the left.  She is looking off to the side.  She never mentioned what she might have been looking at.  Like I said, she only talked about the dolls.  Her name was Betty Lou Bucklin and she was born May 20, 1933, in Hathaway, Louisiana.  She lived most of her life not far from there.  Her mother’s name was Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin.   Myrtle’s older sister Grace was married to a man named Ray Sowder.  Grace and Ray must have decided to take little Betty Lou with them to visit Ray’s family during the Christmastime of 1938, because the rest of the kids in the photo are Sowder relatives.

The two boys in the photo are the sons of Ray’s sister Alice and her husband Raymond Keith.  The little boy next to my mom is 2 1/2-year-old Donnie Keith.  He seems to be distracted by the same thing as my mom.  The other little boy is 4-year-old Paul Keith.  The other little girl is Kara Lee Sowder.  She was the daughter of Ray’s brother Hugh and his wife Bonnie.  But more importantly, she was “The Girl With the Two Dolls.”

And they weren’t just any old dolls.  They were store-bought dolls.  That was significant, because little Betty Lou didn’t have a store-bought doll.  So it was a really big deal to her that she got to play with a real doll and have her photo taken with it.  She cherished those photos for the rest of her life.

Come to think of it, she probably would have remembered that doll even if she didn’t have the photos to show it.  But since she did have those photos, now everyone reading this post can share that joyous experience she had in Arkansas back in 1938.

The Swimming Pool Part 2

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My maternal grandparents Fred Bucklin and Myrtle Phenice out on the beach with family in southern Louisiana circa 1929.

I’m excited about this photo.  It’s not an enhanced photo and it’s not a photo that I’ve shared before.  I’ve shared another photo from the same day before.  That was the original The Swimming Pool post from over four years ago.

I got this photo from my cousin Carla last year.  I’ve shared a few others that she shared with me and there are more to come in the future.  I was excited to get this one and a few others that were taken on the same day as the original photo I posted.  I wasn’t expecting that.  But it wasn’t until today when I was looking for something to post, that I realized that my grandmother (Myrtle Phenice Bucklin, mother of my mom Betty Lou Bucklin Landry) is in the photo. 

In the other photo it looked like the Bucklin brothers were fighting over a girl.  The girl was in the middle of that photo and she is in the middle of this one also.  She’s facing the camera.  I think she could be Grandma Myrtle’s older sister Grace.  Myrtle was in that original photo too, but she was off to the side looking a bit dejected.  But not in this one.

You can see her in front to the left.  She is facing away from the camera.  I recognized her because of her feminine shoulders and the straps of her swimsuit.  Even from this side view, you can recognize her strong high cheekbones.  Her hair matches the other photo as well.  Maybe she had it pinned up.  And even though you can’t see her face, it seems to me that she is having a better time. 

Did I hear someone say, “Hogwash!”  Well I’ll explain why I say that.  She is reclining on the beach between the cute Bucklin twins (Fred Bucklin was my grandfather and Clarence was the father of cousin Carla).  It looks like she may be sharing a secret behind a large hat with one of them, while the other one is behind her and reaching for her playfully.  I still can’t tell them apart in photos.  That happens when the photo is almost 100 years old and the two that I’m talking about were identical twins.

I’m still not exactly sure what is going on in this photo.  But now that I realize that my grandmother Myrtle is in it, I’m liking it much more.  It looks like they’re having a relaxing and fun time on the beach.

Crop of photo

Myrtle’s Childhood

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Myrtle Sylvia Phenice circa 1930.

A couple of weeks ago I gave everyone a teaser about this photo.  I was so pleased with the look of this photo that I thought it deserved a bit of expectancy.  Now that the time has come, I hope that the photo has lived up to my hype and your expectation.  Or maybe you didn’t know about it and had no expectation at all. 

This is a photo of my maternal grandmother from about 1930.  My mom had this photo in a small frame on her piano for as long as I can remember.  The frame actually held two photos.  One of my grandmother Myrtle Sylvia Phenice and the other of her husband, my grandfather Fred D. Bucklin.  I always thought the photos were from before they were married.  Like they were engagement photos. 

Photos of my grandparents that were on my mom’s piano when I was growing up.

This is what they looked like.  They were small photos and they were a little blurry.  I always hoped that I would find a larger copy of the photo of my grandmother, because I could tell it was a nice photo.  But then I got access to this photo software that enhances and enlarges the photo scans that I have.  Problem solved.  And I love it.

Since it is a photo from before she was married, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about her childhood.  She was born in Hathaway, Louisiana, to Harry Clifton Phenice and Daisy Henrietta Martha Keys on December 19, 1906.  She was their third child and second daughter.  Nine months before she was born, her parents went to Nebraska to celebrate the marriage of Harry Clifton’s (HC) younger sister Myrtle.  It was a productive celebration and my grandmother was named after her recently married aunt.

My great grandmother Daisy had immigrated to the United States from England when she was 11 years old.  I suppose she must have had somewhat of an English accent.  Her mother had been a seamstress and she learned to sew at a young age.  She was also thrifty and made a lot of clothes from feed sacks and such.  These skills have been passed down through the generations.  Why just this week I heard about one of her granddaughters making outfits for her own grandchildren out of bedsheets.

Besides learning to sew at a young age, my grandmother also learned how to sing and play the piano.  Her father HC played the fiddle and the family liked to entertain themselves by playing and singing songs in the evenings. He would also play for the community dances along with other friends and neighbors on the fiddle and banjo.  There would be square dancing and just good old clean fun.  They would have these events a couple of times a month.

June 23, 1916 clipping from the Rice Belt Journal in Welsh, Louisiana

Daisy was a member of the temperance group of the Methodist Church – The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.)  Daisy would work at their regular meetings and the children got involved, too.  In this 1916 clipping you can see that Myrtle competed in the singing contest and her older sister Grace competed in the recitation.  They were both winners!  Myrtle was 9 years old and sang “My Temperance Dolly.”

Myrtle’s certification of winning the WCTU contest. This had a very big impact on her life. It inspired her to continue singing, which she did for the rest of her life. This is evidenced by her saving this little memento of her victory and it was mentioned on her memorial at her funeral service.

Myrtle would have started school by this point.  She and her friend Emily Brown would ride the horse and buggy to school some mornings and her brothers would accompany them on horseback.  It was a different time.  They went to school in the Hathaway area.  Many days Myrtle would pack a lunch of an egg sandwich.  And of course it was homemade bread with eggs from the chickens they raised.

When she got home from school, her mom would have a treat for her and her siblings.  Sometimes it was roasted peanuts and other times popcorn or cookies.  On special occasions it would be popcorn balls or bread baked with jelly inside of it.

Grandma went to high school in Hathaway her first two years.  At the beginning of her third year, she went to school in Kinder.  But during the second half of the year, she started attending Jennings High School.  That is where she graduated on May 29, 1925.

After high school she went to Southwestern Louisiana Institute (S.L.I.) to study education.  After two years of study she received her teaching certificate which was good for life.  She taught for two years in the Calcasieu Parish school system.  It was during the end of this time that her relationship with Fred Bucklin became serious.  She decided to quit teaching in the public school system and get married.

So she went to a photographer to document that moment in time.  And that’s what we’re looking at today.

Myrtle Giving Haircut

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Myrtle Phenice Bucklin giving haircut to sister-in-law Irma Hetzel Phenice circa 1939

I’ve always liked this photo.  Mainly because it is a photo that includes my Grandma Bucklin in it.  The photo source was not a very high quality.  I think it was a scan of a Xerox of a photo.  There were lots of stripes and graininess in the photo, so I doctored it the best I could.  I like the way it looks, though I wonder what a scan of a good photo would look like.  Maybe one will come my way now that I’m putting this one out there.

Myrtle Sylvia Phenice was born Dec. 19, 1906, somewhere around Hathaway, Louisiana.  She was married to Fred Bucklin on March 12, 1930, at the Raymond Methodist Church in Raymond, Louisiana.  They had five children together, including my mom Betty Lou who was born in 1933.  You can tell from the title that my grandmother is the one giving the haircut.  But you don’t know whose hair she is cutting.  That would be Irma Hetzel Phenice.

At least I think she was a Phenice at the time.  I estimated that date on the photo.  Irma married Myrtle’s younger brother Henry in 1934.  Yes, I think the date is close enough to be sure that Irma is her sister-in-law at the time of the photo.  It seems like homemade haircuts are very common with my family.  I have photos of my other grandmother cutting a grandchild’s hair.  I also have a photo of my dad cutting his brother’s hair.  When we were young, my mom cut our hair most of the time.  I cut my own hair.  It’s a family thing.

But I think it might be a bit more popular now that the coronavirus is keeping people in their houses, and salons & barbershops aren’t open.  I’m here to tell you that you will survive a homemade cutting.  But I’m not trying to “educate” you or convince you to participate.  I just wanted to share an old photo that I like.

I hope you enjoyed it. (If you can see it through that mop of overgrown hair that you have by now!)

July 6, 2020 – Here is the photo enhanced.

Sept. 20, 2020 Addendum – Van Giving Haircut

I finally participated in the Caronavirus Pandemic Home Haircutting Extravaganza!  Cousin Mary came over with her mom Maggie and her children Aiden and Violet.  If you had seen Aiden’s hair, you would think I was talking about him when I wrote the last line of the blog post.  With a lot of coaxing from Mary, he finally decided  to trust me and my scissors.  Like I said before, I’m sure he will survive the homemade haircut!

Birds and Bucklins

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My grandparents home in Hathaway, Louisiana, circa 1959.

I found this photo a few years ago in a group of old negatives that I got from my parents.  I don’t really remember ever seeing a print of the photo before that, so it was a nice discovery.  I’ve been planning on using it for a blog post and that time is now.

So I cleaned it up this evening and now I’m sharing it with you.  It’s a photo from around 1958-1960 at my maternal grandparents home in Hathaway, Louisiana.  My grandparents were Fred and Myrtle Phenice Bucklin.  Grandpa is not in the photo, but he left plenty of evidence of his presence.  All of those bird carvings on the wall are his handiwork.  He carved ducks for wall hangings like this and also for decoys for hunting.  I’ve posted some color photos previously that show them, but have never commented on them before.  But how could I not comment?  They are all over that wall!  I wish I had a few of them.  But pictures of them would suffice!  (That is my hint to share!)

Grandma is prominent in the photo.  That is her working on setting the table for a tasty meal that was sure to come, especially tasty if it was followed by her fabled divinity.  She was also a teacher, a singer, an artist, and an organist.  But surely you know those things already if you have been following my blog.  Say “Hi” to Myrtle!

In the front of the photo are my three oldest siblings.  From left to right are Karen, Rob, and Jodie.  They look really excited about the meal to come.  Or maybe it was something else.  In the background on the left, you can see Aunt Sylvia and her husband Ronald Pilcher standing in the doorway.  My mom was Betty Lou Bucklin Landry and Sylvia was her older sister.  They were the oldest two of five children. 

The youngest of the five was Uncle Austin, who can be seen in the center in the back with his head in the clouds.  Not really, it just looks like that because his head was surrounded by birds.  He must have liked that feeling, because later he joined the Air Force and he spent many years working with airplanes.

The last of the subjects in the photo are some of my cousins.  I’m pretty sure they’re the children of Sylvia and Ronald Pilcher.  I’m just not sure which ones they are!  There’s a little boy and a little girl.  It’s either Larry or Paul with Toni or Lynn.  There were lots of grandkids being born during this time.  I don’t see Al, or Kevin, or Brent.  And joining the group soon would be me, Rhonda, Keith, Jamie, and Glen.  Later on would be Charla, John, Dale, and Anita.  We don’t even need to mention Mary. 

There were lots of meals that came out of that kitchen during those holidays.  And there was lots of fun with cousins that followed.  This was just a glimpse into one of those times.

Bonus photo from the same day.  In the back on the left is Aunt Alma, one of my mom’s younger sisters.  Next is my Grandma Myrtle, and Aunt Sylvia.  In front is Rob, who is looking back to the ladies, and Larry, who is looking at the table.  Larry is the boy in the original photo.  Cousin Toni claims the little girl in the original photo is her.

Soldier’s Joy by HC in ’43

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I got the recording!  Whoo hoo!  I was thinking that I would go ahead as I usually do and write a post about my dad’s side of the family since I wrote about my mom’s side last week.  But I couldn’t get this catchy little tune out of my head.  And besides, I didn’t want to keep you waiting when I already had access to the songs I mentioned last week.  So I decided to continue from last week’s post.

It really is an amazing recording.  Not that the songs all sound wonderful, or it’s a great recording of the songs.  It’s just such an historic record of my great grandparents playing music.  I recorded just a clip of one of the tracks on my iPhone.  It starts off with one of the Phenice family women (if you are able to identify who it is, please let me know) introducing the music by saying, “June the twelfth nineteen hundred and forty-three (1943) will very likely become a memorable day to all the members of this Phenice family, because for the first time we are to have a phonographic record of our family reunion instead of the usual photographic one.”  I’m so glad that they said the date. 

Since they said the date, I thought I’d find a photo from around the same time.  So I looked in my Phenice folder and found a good photo.  I had posted a version of the photo previously, but in the meantime I have obtained a better quality image.  At least I thought I posted it before!  I just looked again and can’t find it anywhere.  I guess I posted it on Facebook before I actually started this blog over four years ago.  My how time flies!

I had estimated the date of the photo as 1943 based on the age of my uncle Austin Bucklin.  He is the toddler in the front of the photo.  But then when I looked at the photo this time, I realized that Grandma Phenice (my mom’s maternal grandmother Daisy Keys Phenice) was holding a baby.  I looked through my family tree information and found that in 1943 Daisy had a new granddaughter named Linda Phenice.  She’s the one who got this recording to me!  So the photo was taken a few months after March of 1943, which is pretty close to June 12, 1943.

I wonder if the photo was taken on the same day as the songs were recorded?  She says on the recording that it was a Phenice family reunion.  This photo is a Phenice family group.  But in the recording she says that they were making a phonographic record of the family “instead of” a photographic one.  So maybe it was on a different day.  Or maybe she meant to say “as well as” in her statement and she misspoke.  You know how it is when you talk on one of those newfangled recording instruments – you get a little nervous!  Then again, Sylvan Phenice is not in the photo and he was the one that made the record.  He could have taken the photo, but then his wife Mary would have been in the photo.  Oh, well, we know that the sound recording and the photo were taken close to the same time.

The rest of the clip of the recording that I’m sharing this week is a song called “Soldier’s Joy” with Harry Clifton Phenice on the fiddle accompanied by his wife Daisy on the piano.  It’s a very old timey sounding fiddling song.  I looked it up and it originates from around the mid 1700s and has its roots in Scottish fiddling tradition.  There has been some talk that the Phenice family and name may have Scottish origins, so I find that fact fascinating.  The song was associated with the Civil War, too.  HC’s dad Samuel was a soldier in the Civil War, so I wonder if he thought of his dad when he played it.

The song is not only associated with the Civil War, but the term “soldier’s joy” came to refer to the combination of whiskey, beer, and morphine used by Civil War soldiers.  In fact, when talking about it Wikipedia quoted these song lyrics:

Gimme some of that Soldier’s Joy, you know what I mean’
I don’t want to hurt no more my leg is turnin’ green

That kinda made me laugh because Samuel was shot in the leg in the Battle of the Wilderness during the Civil War.   While staying in the hospital, skirmishes around the area kept medicine from being delivered and Samuel ended up getting gangrene.  I hope he got some morphine eventually!  That sounds mighty painful! 

So enough talking about the song.  It’s time to listen to it.  Just click on the link below.  And now I can say that I did my part in making June 12, 1943, a memorable day for this Phenice family!

 

Musical Keys and Phenice Family News

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I’ve had some exciting news about the Keys and Phenice family lately.  Sometimes I look for things and can’t find them, which can be frustrating.  Other times I find hints about them and have to track them down for a while.  Sometimes I give up altogether and go searching for something else.  Occasionally something that I’ve given up on will fall right into my lap.  That’s what happened in the first part of this blog.

Clockwise from top left: Irma Hetzel Phenice, Daisy Keys Phenice, Marguerite Phenice, and Sylvia Bucklin. This photo was taken around 1932 in Hathaway, Louisiana.

Before I tell you that story, I thought I’d share a related photo.  I’ve been thinking of sharing this one for a while.  There is an old timey charm about it.  I took a photo of a photo at the Keys Family Reunion in 2017.  I can’t remember who shared it with me, but I do appreciate it.   The older woman on the right is my great grandmother Daisy Keys Phenice.  She was my mom’s maternal grandmother. 

The younger woman on the left is her future daughter-in-law Irma Hetzel.  She would marry Daisy’s son Henry in 1934.  The dark-haired girl in the photo (her face can’t be seen) is Daisy’s youngest child Marguerite.  Marguerite would marry Thomas Hill in 1943.  The youngest person in the photo is my aunt Sylvia Bucklin.  She was oldest daughter of Myrtle Phenice Bucklin, who was the middle daughter of Daisy.

I’m not sure what they are doing in the photo, but it looks like they could be listening to music.  This brings us back to the story I was wanting to tell.  Many years ago, about 1972, my mom somehow got a collection of old records from her Uncle Sylvan.  He was a son of Daisy and he was big into sound systems and recordings.   He had a company for many years called Sylvan’s Sound Service and one of the things he did was put intercom systems in the schools of Calcasieu and surrounding Parishes back in the day.

So if you are from that area and are old enough, you probably heard your morning news at school through the sound system of old Uncle Sylvan.  But the recordings that my mom got were even more special than that.  He had some old recordings of family conversations and singalongs from back in the 1940s or so.  I’ve shared some of those before.  I shared my grandmother Myrtle singing a few songs and my mom’s paternal grandmother Addie telling a story.  It’s nice to hear those old voices from the past.

I had some of the recordings, but not all of them.  I heard somewhere along the way that there was a recording of my great grandparents Daisy and Harry singing “Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built For Two)” together.  There was also a recording of Harry playing a song on the fiddle.  Supposedly, a recording was given to my dad and he was going to digitize it for them.  So when we were clearing out my parents’ home, I was on the lookout for it.  That’s when I found the recordings of Myrtle singing and Addie telling her story.   I couldn’t find the recordings of Harry and Daisy.  I even went through the archives at my sister and brother-in-law’s house, but it was nowhere to be found.  I gave them up for lost.  I didn’t tell you all about that, because I don’t like to tell sad stories.  (Ha!)

I’m telling you now, because it’s a happy story!  One of my mom’s cousins sent me a note that said that she has the recording of Daisy and Harry singing, as well as the recording of Harry playing the fiddle!  Whoo hoo!  She said the recordings were in bad shape and needed some help.  I offered to help.  Even if I didn’t know how to do any editing, I would have offered.  I would have learned just so I could hear those old wonderful recordings that I had thought were lost forever.  Don’t get too excited, because I don’t have them yet.  I think they are near and I hope to get them soon.  Then I will share them with everyone.  Remember, patience is a virtue.

The other news I have is a bit more rewarding.  While the other is a preview of something in the future, this is a realized view of something from the past.  A couple of years ago when I was looking at the Phenice side of the family, I came across some information about Grandma Myrtle’s first cousin.  Her name was Doris Enola Phenice and she lived in Colorado.  Like my grandmother she was a schoolteacher for many years.  When she was an elderly single woman, she befriended a couple who ended up caring for her at the end of her life.  They also put together a book about her life and her family that included photos and such.  There was some contact information, so I wrote them a note and said that I’d be interested in seeing that book.

So I waited patiently.  I didn’t hear anything back from that first message I sent.  I mentioned it to a distant Phenice cousin and she tried contacting them the same way and got a response.  She shared the phone number of the couple who put together the book.  I tried writing an email again…  And waited again.   Sometimes I think I confuse forgetfulness with patience. 

Anna Armina Stockton Phenice and Chauncey Phenice in Victor, Colorado, in 1900.

Then one day recently I was looking for some information about a DNA match.  This person was a descendant of Chauncey Phenice.  Chauncey was the oldest brother of my great grandfather Harry Phenice and he was the father of Doris Enola.  I found the phone number of that couple and decided to call.  The woman is still alive, but sadly she recently became a widow.  She was very friendly and said that she would be glad to send me a copy of the book that they put together.

She followed through and now I have the book!  I found out a few more interesting things about the Phenice family, but the thing I was most excited about was finding a photo of Chauncey.  I have several photos of Harry’s sisters and his brother Edd, but I didn’t have any of his brothers Chauncey or William Emory.  Now I just need to find one of William Emory!

The picture of him is when he and his wife were living in Victor, Colorado.  They went there with Will (William Emory) for a short time to try their hand at gold mining.  One of my favorite photos of my great grandfather Harry is one of him in a gold mine.  I didn’t realize that gold mining was a family tradition.  You can see from the photo that includes Harry and Edd that there is a family resemblance in the three brothers that are in the photos.

1906 in Nebraska. Top row: Daisy Keys Phenice (wife of Harry), Lola Myrtle Phenice, Emma Orra Phenice. Bottom row: Harry Clifton Phenice and James Edmund “Edd” Phenice.

A Phenice Keepsake: Painting by Grandma

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I know, I know.  You all must be asking, “Another Phenice post?  When are you going to talk about my group?”  And you’re right!  I wrote about my grandmother three weeks ago and then last week I wrote about her father.  “What’s up with that?”  you must be asking yourself.

What’s up with that is that today is my Grandma Bucklin’s birthday!  Myrtle Sylvia Phenice was born on December 19, 1906, in Hathaway, Louisiana.  She was the third of seven children born to Harry Clifton Phenice and Daisy Keys Phenice.  And reportedly, she was a very pretty little baby.  I may have told you that before, but it bears repeating.  When my mom was a little girl, she won a contest for Gerber’s Cutest Baby.  (Or so I’ve been told.)  My grandmother probably bragged about that for a while.  Yes, my grandmother was known for bragging on occasion.  There are worse things a person can do.

But then my grandmother quit bragging about it when young Betty Lou (my mom) started to brag about it herself.  At some point Grandma must have started to answer with a comeback akin to, “I was known to be pretty baby, too, if I may say so myself!”  I never personally witnessed this exchange between my mother and grandmother, but Mama told me that it was a thing. 

I’m sure they were both very cute babies, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about today.  Otherwise I would be posting photos of them as babies and learn how to set up a poll on Facebook or something.  I wanted to share a keepsake that I have from Grandma.  I have a few keepsakes from her – a key, a puzzle, a carving – but those aren’t very impressive or personal.

Oil painting by Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin, date unknown

This is much more personal and I rather like it.  My mom gave it to me some time around 2014.   My mom wrote a little blurb on the back of it.  It says, “Mama painted this for Uncle Roy and Aunt Effie.  It was given to me after they died.”  Uncle Roy Bucklin died in 1999.  His wife Effie Hetzel Bucklin died in July of 2001, so she got it some time after that.

So I have no idea when it was painted or how long it was hanging in the home of Uncle Roy and Aunt Effie.  I’m also not familiar with any other paintings by my grandmother.  So if anyone else has any original artwork by her, I would love to see it.  Just a quick little digital photo would be sufficient.

Now I’m really curious to see if anyone is going to share something with us.  This is so much better than a vote for the cutest baby.  But for what it’s worth, I always thought I was a cute baby.

If I may say so myself!

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