Family History - Part 23

A Warm Summer Evening

April 7, 2022 Van Leave a comment

The Landry family and cousins on July 5, 1967, at 758 Lucy Street in Jennings, Louisiana.

I’m not really sure why I picked this photo. The mood of it resonated with me somehow. It’s not the clearest photo by far. It was taken on July 5, 1967, in Jennings, Louisiana, at my childhood home. That was the yellow house on Lucy Street with the number 758. It wasn’t 758 Lucy Street until our family moved there in 1964. The numbers weren’t on the house and the house on the left had a number in the 700s, while the house on the right had a number in the 800s. So we just picked something in between. And that’s what it is today.

Another thing about the house is that when we moved into it, there was no air conditioning. Even at the time that this photo was taken, we still didn’t have air conditioning. We didn’t get that until around 1972. I remember sleeping in the bed at night with the attic fan on. It brought the “cool” evening air into the house. I would sleep with my head on the window sill. The breeze from the fan felt good.

But really! It wasn’t that cool. Everybody knows how hot it gets in southern Louisiana in July. It doesn’t cool off after the sun goes down. It’s not as hot, but it’s still pretty warm. That’s one of the things this photo reminds me of. It looks like we were just finishing up with dinner. And everyone knows what happened at the Landry household on July 5th after dinner time. Right? Of course! It was time to put candles on Jamie’s birthday cake and sing “Happy Birthday dear Jamie” to her. She was five that year. You can see her peeking from behind me in the photo. If you know which one is me, that is.

I grew up in a family with six kids. But if you happen to have counted how many are in this photo, you would know that there were a few extra. Those two extras are our cousins Lynn and Toni. They were the daughters of my mom Betty Lou Bucklin Landry’s older sister Sylvia Bucklin Pilcher. That’s Aunt Sylvia to those of us in the family. She had five children of her own and they were all close to the same ages as us kids. You can see Lynn in the very center of the photo. She’s the one closest to the cameraman – most likely that was my dad (Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr.) In the bottom left corner of the photo you can see her older sister Toni. I suppose they were there visiting my sisters. It happened from time to time.

Above Toni’s head, you can see Al looking across the sea of people. Pay attention! Al! We’re trying to take a picture here! Oh, well. He will forever be not listening. Next in the circle is Rob. He is paying attention and smiling for the photo. Good job, Rob! Next is my mom. She is looking a little tired or distracted. She was a busy woman taking care of six young, growing kids. I don’t know how she did that and managed to not look tired in most photos. Maybe she was just wondering if we were ever going to get air conditioning!

Standing up in the back is my older sister Jodie. She was the oldest and the leader of the pack. By that I mean the six of us kids. When I’ve met kids through the years, I notice how there is a connection they have with their siblings. One of them is clearly the leader. And there is a closeness among them that is noticeable. I’m sure we were like that. I wasn’t really that aware of it when I was growing up. We lost our leader when Jodie died in 1989. In front of Jodie – and kinda behind me – is the birthday girl. Jamie was kind of shy back then. But not usually with family. She looks like she did when there were strangers around. She’d be lurking around behind one of us older siblings and not saying much. That has changed.

Like I said, I am in front of Jamie. My name is Van. I wasn’t much braver than Jamie was myself. We were the two youngest. I’m the blurriest one in the photo. I look like I’m moving or something. Maybe someone left a bit of food on their plate? I shouldn’t give Al and my mom so much grief when I was definitely not paying attention to the cameraman.

And lastly we have Karen. She was supposed to be my main focus for the blog today. The second anniversary of her death is tomorrow and I wanted to commemorate it with a story. I think she would have liked this story, though. It’s about our family and good times we had together. She doesn’t look particularly happy in this photo, but if she was upset about something I think we would have known about it. If Karen didn’t like something or didn’t want to do something, it would take a lot of effort to get her to do it. She didn’t like shots – who does – but she would fight with my mom to try to keep from getting one. My mom was just trying to make sure she was okay, but Karen acted like she was trying to kill her! She was like that for any sort of medical thing, though she outgrew that.

So there you have it. A warm summer evening in Smalltown, USA. Sure it’s warm, but five little candles won’t make much of a difference. Cake, anyone?

Calling All Keys – Unite!

March 31, 2022 Van Leave a comment

It’s time again. That’s right. We are overdue for a Keys Reunion. The last one was in 2019. With the pandemic happening the past two years, we were unable to meet. But now things have settled down and we can meet again, just like we have for many years. It will be held on June 18th (a Saturday) at the Raymond Methodist Church at 10:00am until…bring your favorite dish and drink! A fun time will be had by all.

Keys family reunion in June of 1973.

Can you believe it has been almost fifty years since that First Keys Reunion in 1973? So much has changed since then. The biggest change recently is that my Uncle Austin passed away earlier this month. He died a week before his 80th birthday. He will be missed.

I do love this old photo, though I do notice that a lot of people are no longer with us. But that is the way with families. The older generation passes on and the younger generation carries on. Sometimes we lose touch with relatives. So that’s what the reunion is for – we can get together and reconnect. We do share a great family heritage from our Keys family. I do hope that I’ve shared enough photos and stories of the family for you to see that.

But if you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll listen to my great grandmother Daisy Keys Phenice. After all, she was born a Keys. She and her four siblings – Leonard, Henry Alfred “The Judge,” Ruth, and Mabel – gave rise to all of the hundreds of family members in that Keys family spreading out from southern Louisiana. Maybe she will entice you to attend the event. Just touch or click on the photo below and it will come to life.

Daisy Keys circa 1894

Keys

Jeanne Zerbine Dupuy Landry Revealed

March 24, 2022 Van Leave a comment

Photo taken from the Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Collection (AC-824) at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas.

I’ve had a hard time getting this post started. I keep second guessing myself about declaring the identity of the woman in the photo I’m posting. I’m pretty sure she is my great great great grandmother Jeanne Zerbine Dupuy Landry. That’s pretty exciting to me, because I haven’t had any other photos of any of my 3X great grandparents. This is a photo that I copied from the Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Collection at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas. (Collection AC-824) It was in one of the family photo albums in the collection in a prominent place. Zerbine (pronounced Zir’bean) Landry was the mother-in-law of Ferdinand Patureau, the patriarch of the Patureau family in southern Louisiana. But before that, she was Zerbine Dupuy.

Jeanne Zerbine Dupuy was born June 23, 1807, to Magloire Dupuy and Henriette Serrette. Magloire was the first generation born in America with all Acadian ancestry, while Henriette was first generation born in America with all French ancestry. By some definitions, they would be considered Creole. The next generation was a mix of French and Acadian. I’m not sure how they identified themselves, but they spoke French and were associated and married mostly with people I consider Cajun.

Zerbine was the fourth of eight children. What’s really interesting is that her grandmother Anne Marie Hebert was alive until the time that Zerbine was almost 18 years old. Anne Marie was born in Acadie. She lived with her family there until 1755, when her family and all of the other Acadians were Exiled during the Grand Derangement. Anne Marie was with her family during twelve years of Exile in Georgetown, Maryland. The family made their way to Louisiana in 1767. So when Zerbine was growing up in Brusly, she most likely visited her grandmother in St. Gabriel and heard a few interesting stories from her past. If only those talking photos really told us things we didn’t already know!!

Zerbine’s grandmother almost lived long enough to make it to her wedding. Zerbine got married to Elie Onezime Landry on Feb. 7, 1825, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her grandmother Anne Marie died two days earlier. Onezime is one of the three sons of Joseph Ignatius Landry that I descend from. His brother Narcisse Landry was married to Marie Carmelite Hebert. Marie Carmelite and Zerbine were related, because Carmelite’s grandfather Pierre Paul Hebert was the brother of Zerbine’s grandmother Anne Marie. But even more interesting, Onezime’s brother Manuel was married to Celeste Bruneteau who was the half-sister of Zerbine’s father. Celeste was a daughter of Anne Marie. How did I not realize how closely related these wives were to each other? These Landry and Hebert families were very enmeshed.

This death notice of Marie Pamelia Landry is part of the Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Collection (AC-824) at the Tyrrell Historical Library in Beaumont, Texas.

Zerbine and Onezime had six children together, including my great great grandmother Marie Emma Landry Patureau. They only had a dozen years together, because Onezime died in April 1837. Their sixth child Marie Pamelia actually was born three months after his death. What a bittersweet occasion that must have been.

A year later Zerbine married Louis Valsin Comeaux. I don’t know much about him, so I don’t know if there is a Landry or Hebert connection. Some family information states that Zerbine and Valsin had three children together. Yet, in the 1850 Census, the only children in the Comeaux household were Zulma and Pamelia Landry. No children with the Comeaux last name. There may have been three Comeaux children for Valsin with a previous marriage, but I’ve never seen any evidence of that.

Zerbin and Valsin only had seventeen years together. In an odd coincidence, Valsin died in June of 1854 a few days after the death of Marie Pamelia. So Marie Pamelia’s birth and death are close to the deaths of both of Zerbine’s husbands.

By this time Marie Emma had been married to Ferdinand Patureau for seven years and they had four children. Their fourth child Marie Valentine was only a year old when she died on August 4, 1854. It was a rough time for this family, but they carried on. Marie and Ferdinand had a few more children and in 1864 the family went to New Orleans to have a photograph of the family made. I know this because I have a copy of that photo and I’ve shared it with everyone.

But I also think that they brought Emma’s mother Zerbine with them and had a portrait made of her as well. The main photo of this post was taken at the same photo studio around the same time as the 1864 photo. The name of the studio and the print on the back of the two photos are identical. A friend of mine who loves the study of Civil War era history and fashions assures me that the photo was taken in the Civil War era. This is based on the hairstyle and the dress she is wearing. And as I said earlier, the photo was in a Patureau family photo album in a prominent position. Who else would it be? Ferdinand’s mother died in 1842. Zerbine lived until 1886. Plus the woman in the photo looks like she could be Emma’s mother. These were people who saved death notices of their beloved family members, and of course they would want to have a portrait made of their mother.

So yes, I do believe this is a photo of my great great great grandmother Jeanne Zerbine Dupuy Landry. Try not to be too jealous.

Check out the follow up to this story:

Zerbine Was a Feisty Woman

Grandma Kate Opens Up

March 17, 2022 Van Leave a comment

I’m so excited about this post! You know how it is sometimes with older relatives – you want to know their story and they’re just not willing to talk about things. I must have caught Grandma Kate on a good day. Finally, after all these years! I knew she would be hesitant to talk about some things. The end of her life was difficult. It’s pretty drastic when you get caught by fire. She does touch on that, but mostly she talks about her family history. How convenient for me, since that is what I am most interested in. It is a family history blog after all.

Her voice doesn’t sound like what I expected. It may have changed through the years. Or maybe I was errant in my expectations. Either way, I enjoyed hearing her story. I hope you do, too.

Marie Celeste Talks

March 10, 2022 Van Leave a comment

This is a little different today. It’s an audiovisual post. The website MyHeritage came out with a new feature this past week. It’s kinda crazy! It combines all the information that you have about an ancestor and puts it all together to make a story about the person’s life.

I thought I would try it with my great grandmother Marie Celeste Leveque Landry. She was my father’s paternal grandmother. They all called her Grandma Celeste. I like the way it came out, but I had to edit it a bit to get it closer to what I think she might sound like. I gave her a somewhat French accent and changed it to a photo of her from her later years. How else would she know all the information about her whole life?

So sit back and listen to Grandma Celeste tell us about her life in southern Louisiana that started in the mid 1800s. And don’t make fun of her or she might give you the evil eye. She might even try to scare you with a story about Madame Macoon!

Click here to see the video.

Seven Stanbrough Generations

4 Generations of Hine in 1959

Almost two years ago I posted a blog about a photo of four generations of the Hine family. The photo includes my four older siblings in 1959 with my mother (Betty Lou Bucklin Landry), my maternal grandfather (Fred D. Bucklin), and my great grandmother (Addie May Hine Bucklin). I have a tendency to show more photos of my own line of the family. Of course I do! I’m writing about my own family. But I do sometimes share photos of relatives when the story moves me.

Four generations of Hine circa1948

After I posted the photo of the four generations of the Hine family that included my siblings, I also posted another one that had my mom’s first cousin Helen Bucklin Taylor in it. It has Addie, Ralph Bucklin, Helen Bucklin Taylor, and Ronnie Taylor in it. I called them Hine family photos because the common name that they all shared was last name at birth of the oldest generation. So even though there were four Landry children in the photo, the common ancestry they all shared was Hine.

The other day I was looking through my old photos and came across a photo that has been posted before by cousin Joseph. I realized that it was another four generation photo and it included three of the four family members from the 1948 four generation photo. It’s pretty cool and it makes me a little jealous! Addie was still alive when I was born, but I don’t have a photo of four generations that include me. Poor Addie was probably not in a picture taking mood during her last month alive. It looks like she barely tolerated photos being taken of her when she was a spry young thing! And I’m thankful that nobody had the grand idea of having a postmortem version with Addie after the fact.

Four generations of Stanbrough in 1926

The common family members in this older family photo are Addie, Ralph, and Helen Bucklin. The photo was taken in Elton, Louisiana, on Sunday, October 3, 1926. I had to estimate the dates of the other photos, but this time I have an exact date. That’s because the photo was taken at the birthday celebration of Susan G. Stanbrough Hine, my great great grandmother. I like to call her Grandma Sue. She is the one sitting in the chair in front of her progeny.

This was the day of Grandma Sue’s 75th birthday and it was the 20th time she and her friend Edessa Jane “Jennie” Welton Havenar celebrated their shared birthday together. Jennie was only 60 years old that year. The newspaper clipping about the event said that over 100 people came together to celebrate their birthdays. A lot of those people were family members. It included both sides of my mom’s family before her parents were married. Thankfully there were several photos taken to commemorate the event.

So now you know why this post is called The Four Stanbrough Generations. It’s because the oldest generation of the group was born a Stanbrough. She was born in 1851 to John Stanbrough and Lydia Mills Stanbrough. I don’t know of any photos of those two, even though they did live into the age of photography. There is still a glimmer of hope. We don’t have a photo of my mom with Grandma Sue, because she died almost two months before my mom was born.

Someone just reminded me that I didn’t call this post “The Four Stanbrough Generations” and that only five generations in total have been shown. That’s right. I’m sure most of you caught that. So with the 1948 and 1926 photos, it covers five generations of Stanbrough – Sue Stanbrough Hine, Addie Hine Bucklin, Ralph Bucklin, Helen Bucklin Taylor, and Ronnie Taylor. The 1959 photo has the same number of generations but it includes Sue, Addie, Fred Bucklin, Betty Bucklin Landry, and Jodie, Rob, Karen, and Al Landry. So you might be thinking that I titled my post incorrectly. As my mother always told me when I spoke too soon, “Fools and children shouldn’t see things unfinished.” This is not meant to insult you, but to encourage you to wait until the end to see everything. Funny how I always felt a little insulted by it. But that’s just me.

Four generations of Stanbrough descendants in 2008 in Jennings, Louisiana.

The reason I called it The Seven Stanbrough Generations is because all along I planned on posting one more photo of four generations. I have not used this photo before, but I did use another one taken the same day . Instead of going back further a generation (nearly impossible since I’ve already said that I don’t know of any photos of Grandma Sue’s parents), this one is much more recent. It is a four generation photo and this time it is a followup of the 1959 photo. It has my mom – Betty Lou, my sister Karen, Karen’s son James, and James’s daughter Kelcie. I took this photo on November 27, 2008, at my parents’ house on Lucy Street in Jennings, Louisiana.

So there it is – seven generations of the Stanbrough family – Sue, Addie, Fred and Ralph, Betty and Helen, Jodie and Rob and Karen and Al, James, and Kelcie – shown in four photos across 82 years of time.

Landry Family in 1964

Bob Landry with his six children in 1964 in Jennings, Louisiana.

I felt like posting a photo from my own childhood, so that’s what I’m doing. It takes a lot of thought to try to figure out who’s who, what’s what, and when’s when in those old photos. Not that I can remember everything about photos taken in my own childhood, but at least I have a better idea of what’s happening!

I was drawn to this photo for a couple of reasons. It’s a good photo of everyone, it has the family dog and the family car in it, and it’s obviously taken after we went to Sunday church. I had also previously edited the photo and enhanced it. That saves a lot of time for the evening of putting a post together.

I don’t have to guess about who is in this photo. It’s my siblings and me with our dad. Behind most of us is my younger sister Jamie in the arms of my dad. His name was Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. He was called Bobbie, Bob, Pluto, Daddy, and Pappy, depending on who you were. In the front is Rob (RJL, III), Al, Van (me), Jodie, and Karen.

The dog in the photo was Princess. She was a good dog. She had at least one litter of puppies, because I can remember climbing under the house around this age to get the puppies out so we could play with them. Princess had them under the steps of our old house in Jennings just north of the Interstate 10 on Highway 26. We had Princess with us when we moved into town later this year. She ended up getting hit by a car and killed on Roberts Avenue just a few blocks from our home. I remember Jodie coming in the house crying and frantic because Princess had gotten hit.

The Volkswagen van in the photo also brings back memories. It must have been our family car when I was born or shortly thereafter. I remember it being under the carport at our house in Lake Charles when I was just 1 or 2. The funny thing about it is that in my memory, there are no back seats. It was just open space. Maybe my dad took the seats out so he could haul something around and that left an impression on me. Even after we got rid of the vehicle, we had the seats at our house on Lucy Street.

I can’t believe it! That’s not a Volkswagen van! I think I started to realize that because I was questioning the spelling of the name. I looked at another photo of this van and it definitely had ‘wagon’ on it. Obviously, I have never been someone who knows what kind of car they’re looking at. My adjectives for vehicles are mainly a color and whether it is a car, truck, or van. So I asked Chuck and he said it was a Ford. So I did a search for Ford vans in the 1960s and I found the Ford Falcon Club Wagon in the same color blue as ours was.

Betty Lou Bucklin Landry with her five children in 1961 in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

But then I did a search in our older photos and found the 1961 photo of the family and the vehicle in that photo definitely was a Volkswagen. So there were two vans that we had back then. I can be forgiven for making that simple mistake. And here I was saying how at least I know what’s going on in photos of myself as a child. I had considered using this photo in the post, but decided against it since Jamie wasn’t around yet.

So I saw photos of two different vehicles and didn’t notice the difference. In my defense, there are no color cues to give it away. That’s my main way of distinguishing vehicles. So if this vehicle was also blue, then I would have made the same mistake anyway! I’m thinking that they were both blue. It’s like Karen was choosing the color of our vehicles back then! This photo has my mom in it and it was taken at our house on Clover Drive in Lake Charles.

So there you have it – a trip down memory lane. And we were not just traveling in one vehicle, but two. We may not have realized it was two at first, but at least we caught on after a while!

Patureau and Landry Musicians Circa 1900

Kelly’s String Band from Plaquemine, Louisiana, circa 1900.

I’ve posted this photo before, but it was a poor quality version of the photo. Then at the end of last year I was given an original copy of the photo when I went to pick up an amazing Patureau family heirloom. The photo is a cabinet card from around 1900 in Plaquemine, Louisiana. It came from a Patureau relative, which makes sense because three of the people in the photo are Patureau relatives. Even though I still have several photos to edit from the Patureau Collection from Beaumont, I decided to edit this photo anyway. I even made a colorized version with a new and improved program. I like the results.

When I posted the photo previously, I didn’t know the connection that I had with one of the other band members – Wade Landry. I found out the connection a while back. But those two things by themselves wasn’t enough to cause me to write a post about the photo again. What pushed me over the edge in deciding to write about this topic was something that was shared on Facebook last week. In the Plaquemine – My Home Town group, B. D. posted a newspaper article that talked about a tragic accident that happened in Plaquemine in 1907.

Before I tell you about that, let me introduce you to everyone. (Drum roll, please!) In front on the left, playing the trumpet is our very own Joseph Alcide Patureau (1868-1919). Alcide was three years younger than his brother Max. Vincent Maximilian Patureau was the father of my paternal grandmother. I’ve never heard of Grampa Max playing any musical instrument. Front and center with the banjo is Alcide and Max’s younger brother Abel Omer Patureau (1870-1917). Also in the front row is another Patureau family member – Joseph Ferdinand Hebert. His mother was Aline Patureau Hebert – older sister to Alcide, Max, and Omer. Ferdinand played the mandolin. In the second row we have Nick Manola on the upright bass. It looks like he tears up those strings. One of them looks like it is wrapped around the head of the instrument. I don’t know of any relation to him. I know he lived in Plaquemine and later moved to Chicago. And that leaves us with Wade Landry on guitar.

I’m sure everyone remembers that Grampa Max’s mother was Marie Emma Landry. If not, then now you know. Don’t forget it! His great grandfather was Joseph Ignatius Landry, who just happens to be an ancestor of Wade Landry as well. Come to find out, Wade’s father Joseph Alcee Landry was a second cousin of Max, Alcide, and Omer. That would make Wade the third cousin of Ferdinand Hebert. Both of them were from the next generation. When I read the newspaper article about the tragedy, I posted a comment about it and shared the old article I have about Kelly’s String Band. I’m glad I did, because B. D. shared an earlier newspaper article.

In that article from 1895, it talked about Alcee Landry giving an elegant supper at his residence. I don’t know how many guests he had, but the table was “exquisitely arranged” in their “brilliantly illuminated” dining room. Omer Patureau was one of the main entertainers for the evening. He played the banjo! He recited verse! He even sang along with his pretty young cousins. Wade played a “pleasing selection” on the guitar along with his cousin Ferdinand on the mandolin. His sister Maude played a solo on the mandolin and later joined younger sister Edna and cousin Omer in singing a lively song. It stated that “all who were present spent a most enjoyable evening. ”

But alas, things did not remain idyllic for our Wade. Sure, he got married and they soon had two young children together by 1907. I’m not sure when that took place. I haven’t found records for his children, yet. But the article that I saw was from December 1907. It talked about a group of six people including Wade Landry who were traveling on Bayou Plaquemine in a “gasoline launch.” I guess you would now call it a motor boat. Another boat came along and the two owners decided to test the speed of their boats. The second boat got in front of the boat with Wade in it and capsized it. The six people on the boat went in the water. Only three of them came out alive. Wade was not one of them. He was only 30 years old. It was a tragic day for the community of Plaquemine.

Sometimes it is not so pleasing to know the stories behind the photos.

Betty Lou and Her Younger Phenice Cousins

I really didn’t have anything in mind for my blog post this week. Sometimes I’ll see a story that needs to be told or find an amazing old photo that I just have to share. But this week I just went looking back in some of my mom’s old photos. It is my mom’s turn, after all. I gotta keep it relatively even.

I’ve been thinking of posting this photo for a few years now. I had to look back at my old posts to make sure I hadn’t used the photo before. This is my 350th post, so it’s getting harder and harder to remember which photos I’ve posted and which ones I have thought about posting over the years. 350 posts is a lot! It’s almost enough for a post for every day of the year. Of course some of those posts weren’t “official” posts. Either they were lagniappe or documents supporting another post.

Phenice family cousins in Hathaway, Louisiana, circa April 1951.

This picture was taken around April of 1951 in Hathaway, Louisiana. I estimated the date based on the youngest subject of the photo. I can identify her as Carol Phenice. She was born in the winter of 1950/51 and she looks like she is still quite young and the weather and plants looks like it is springtime. The oldest subject of the photo is my dear sweet mom. Her name was Betty Lou Bucklin and she was born on May 20, 1933. Her parents’ names were Fred Bucklin and Myrtle Phenice.

I’m mentioning her parents so I can explain to you the connection between my mom and her younger companions. And in this case, the connection comes from Myrtle Phenice AKA Grandma Bucklin or just Grandma. Myrtle had a younger brother named Orville Phenice. Orville and his wife Elta Whitman Phenice had five children, including their three youngest shown in this photo.

Holding little Carol is their third child Linda. She would be about eight years old in this photo. The boy in the photo is my mom’s cousin Paul. He was the only son out of those five children. That’s just like what Grandma and Grandpa had. I wonder if he and my Uncle Austin ever got together to complain about living in a household of mostly girls. I grew up in a household that was evenly divided and it seems to me like the best situation. I’m probably biased.

I wonder where all the other siblings are from these two families? It doesn’t really matter. It would have been too crowded with everyone in it. This is a nice little grouping of cousins. I’ve always liked the photo. It is such a good photo of all of them and the background is pleasing. I’m pretty sure it is at my grandparents’ property in Hathaway.

And now I’ve finally used the photo in a post. I’ll try to make sure I remember that fact!

Landry Sisters and Cousins

Two months ago I was talking about my great great grandmother Marie Emma Landry (married to Ferdinand Patureau) and her four Landry first cousins that I descend from. They all lived in Brusly, Louisiana, in the mid 1800s, so they probably were all pretty close to each other. I’ve probably talked more about her cousins who were the sons of her Uncle Narcisse Landry (married to Marie Carmelite Hebert). That would be brothers Trasimond and Alcide who both fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy. I’ve shared photos of both of them. I only have one photo of each of them.

The other cousins that I haven’t talked as much about were the daughters of Joseph Emmanuel “Manuel” Landry and his wife Clarice Celeste Bruneteau. Those sisters would be Adele and Basalite. I’ve had a photo of Basalite for a while. I shared it a few years ago. It’s the only one I had of her. I don’t have any photos of Adele, even though she lived well into the time of photography. So with five Landry cousins that I descend from, I only have one of each of four of them.

Marguerite Basalite Landry (1821-1902)

At least that’s what I had before I discovered the Tyrrell Historical Library’s Pierre Ferdinand Patureau Collection in Beaumont, Texas. Of course there was a photo of Emma Landry, she was married to a Patureau. Actually there are two photos of Emma in that collection. I’m still working on the other photo from that collection. It will eventually be shared. But today I am sharing a photo with you from that collection that might be one of the Landry cousins that I talked about. Let’s talk more about that family.

Manuel and Celeste Landry had six children – Manuel Dorville, Rosalia, Jean Baptiste, Clarissa Doralise, Anna Adele, and Marguerite Basalite. I don’t have a record of any children from the first three children. Dorville and Rosalia lived to be adults, but I see no records of marriages or children. Jean Baptiste only lived to the age of eleven. Doralise was married to Joseph August Leveque and they had six children. Now I descend from Joseph Auguste Leveque (another ancestor that I only have one photo of!) but from his second wife. Those first six children of his were half aunts and uncles. But they were also cousins because his second wife was none other than Doralise’s baby sister Basalite Landry. I descend from Joseph Auguste and Basalite’s daughter Marie Celeste. She was married to her mother’s cousin Alcide Landry.

Marie Celeste Leveque Landry is daughter of Marguerite.

The other sister that I descend from is Adele Landry. She was married to Joseph Hubert Amedee Bujol in 1839. Over the next thirteen years Adele gave birth to ten daughters. Finally they had a son in 1856. Amedee died in 1857. I’m not sure how he died, but it could have been that Adele strangled him when he mentioned that they should try to have one more son! No! I’m sure if that had been the case, we would have heard about it. But Amedee did die in 1857, which is why Adele is listed as a widow during the time of the Civil War. It was shortly after the war that her daughter Marie Amelie “Belite” married one of the local heroes from the war. She married Adele’s first cousin Trasimond Landry.

So the photo from the Patureau collection caught my eye because the older woman in it looks so much like Basalite Landry. When I compare the two photos, I think they look the same. Plus, the collection for the most part only has photos of family members in it. When I showed the photo to Chuck, he thought the house looked like one that could be in old Baton Rouge. I thought the same thing and there were family members living in Baton Rouge back then. I shared the death notice for Adele Landry Bujol (Basalite’s sister) and that showed that she had died at her daughter Anaise’s house in Baton Rouge in 1899.

When I looked at the family of Anaise Bujol, I found some interesting things. She was married to a man named Amedee Fourrier. While the last name may not be familiar, his mother’s last name was Bujol. Anaise or “Aunt Nye” and Amedee “Uncle Medee” were first cousins in the Bujol family. They had eight children together and when you look at their four youngest children, you will see Julian (b. 1882), Charles (b.1886), Claude (b. 1888), and Maldetta (b. 1889). Those four children would match those in this photo if the photo was taken around 1891. The woman holding the little girl’s hand would be Aunt Nye and the older woman would most likely be a family member. The woman reminds me of the photo of Marie Celeste that I’ve shared previously. I think I see a family resemblance.

And like I always say, “Who else would it be?” I guess it could be anybody. But I’m thinking that it is either Basalite or possibly her sister Adele. It looks like Basalite, but since I don’t have a photo of Adele to compare it to, it’s hard to know. Then again, wouldn’t “Aunt Nye” (A designation that came from my paternal grandmother Erie Patureau’s line. Her maternal grandmother was Nye’s sister Belite. My grandfather’s line would have called her “Cousin Nye”) more likely have a photo of herself with her children and her own mother? So I’m thinking that it is probably Adele in the photo.

So there you have it – an exploration of the Landry cousin connections and possibly a newly identified photo of one of them.