Family History

My younger sister Jamie shared a post this week about preschool. It said that structured learning at a young age was not as beneficial as play. I’m glad to know that. I never went to preschool and when I was young, it seemed like all we did was play. And when you have five brothers and sisters, you always have someone to play with. The photo that represents this topic is this photo of all of us siblings on our old swing set in 1965.

As you can see, there was room for all of us at once. Though Rob isn’t on the swing set, he is in the photo playing with our dog Princess. She was a good dog. I remember that she had at least one litter of puppies while we lived there. I used to crawl under the house to gather up all the puppies so we could play with them!

I am the little boy closest to Rob in the photo. I was only four years old at the time, but I have lots of memories from that old house “out in the country.” It was north of Jennings (about half a mile north of I-10) on Highway 26. We rented the house for two years or so from 1963 to 1965. It was preschool for me, Al (to the right of me), and Jamie (to the right of Al). Rob, Jodie (with the baton), and Karen (on the trapeze) had already started their formal education.

That swing set was lots of fun. It was a little scary at times when we were all swinging at once. If too many were on the same side at the same time, it would start to tump. We liked the way it gave us butterflies when we’d go really high. And we always tried to jump just a little bit further than we did the time before. We learned to hang from our knees and our toes on that old swing set! And sometimes we’d Skin the Cat. But don’t worry, we’d always Bring Him Back.

We also had an old trike that we’d ride around. There was a wagon that could carry a couple of kids with armloads of puppies. I remember being scolded not to touch a baby bird that fell from the fig tree. If we did, the mother would reject it. Nobody wanted that. We had a sand pit that was somewhat fun. I seem to remember my mom saying that the cats used it for other purposes than playing. I do remember there being a wasp nest in it. (It was a round brick structure with a ceiling from what I recall. That sounds rather odd now that I say it. It seems like a sand pit should just be a boxed in area with sand in it. What say you, siblings?)

Toward the back of the yard was an old rusty barn. We’d rub our hands on it and make our palms red. It seemed fun at the time. Inside the barn was the wooden framework of an airplane. I don’t think we were allowed to play in there, but we’d peek in from time to time. We had cats and dogs as well as horses and cows. (some with feathers!) It was great fodder for young developing minds.

But all we were really concerned about was having fun.

I was thinking of naming this post “Joseph Ignatius’s Mother Was a Babin,” but decided to give her a little more prominence than that. I wrote about Joseph Ignatius a few weeks ago to talk about the five ways my tribe and I descend from that ancestor. This week I’m going a generation back to talk about his mother.

The ancestor I’m talking about is my great great great great grandmother Marie Magdelena Babin. She was born in Pisiquit, Acadie, around 1725. She married Augustin Landry some time around 1747. He was a widower and he had two children by his first wife Ann Rivet. Magdelena probably took care of her step-children Maria and Joseph Marie as well as the children that she and Augustin soon started having. Magdelena gave birth to Joseph Ignatius, Mathurin, Marie Madeleine, and Marguerite. There were most likely more children born that did not survive, but the ones I named have documentation.

At some point during this time of child-bearing, Magdelena and Augustin, along with the children born by 1755, were ripped from their homes by the Grand Derangement. The English took over the land that they wanted for their own subjects and sent the Acadians away violently. The Landry family spent about a dozen years in Exile in Maryland where the last of their children were born. I can’t imagine rearing six children during their formative years in a foreign environment where you didn’t feel welcome.

Things changed in 1767 when Spain offered land grants to settlers who wanted to relocate to Louisiana. The Landrys decided to take a chance in Louisiana. They were aboard the ship “The Virgin” that brought a load of ‘French neutrals’ to Louisiana on July 12, 1767. They brought with them all of their worldly possessions. That amounted to two trunks and everything they contained. They were given 8 arpents of land fronting on the Mississippi River.

This was really a huge turning point in the lives of our ancestors. I came to this realization this week when I found the document that inspired me to write the topic of this week. I’m a little reluctant to say that I was a bit touched by this document. The document is titled “Succession Vve. Augustin Landry” and the date is March 25, 1814. “Vve.” is the abbreviation for veuve, the French word for widow. So it is the succession information for our Magdelena. It was written by John Dutton, Judge of the Parish of Iberville.

What was so touching to me was the way Judge Dutton talks about entering the Landry home after Magdelena’s death. He talks about her death being two days previous (on the 23rd), and how he walked into the principal hall and placed a seal on the large armoire (painted red) he found there. It sounds like he was making sure that her legal possessions were not disturbed until there was an inventory a few days later. He proceeds down the hall and puts another seal on a “door of a chamber in the back gallery…”

Judge Dutton also mentions family members that he interacted with and were present at the Landry home. Joseph LeBlanc dit Michel was her son-in-law. He was the husband of Marguerite and son of Michel LeBlanc (hence the dit name). A John Baptiste a gros LeBlanc is mentioned, but I can’t figure out his connection to the family. (See update below.) Two witnesses are named. Aubry Dupuy was the brother to our Magloire Dupuy . Antoine Serrette is another witness and he was the brother of Henriette Serrette, Magloire’s wife. Ten years later, Magloire and Henriette‘s daughter Zerbine would marry Joseph Ignatius’s son Elie Onezime Landry.

It is such a revealing document from over 200 years ago. I was happy to see that this first generation of Acadians in Louisiana were prosperous. This can be seen by the list of their belongings on this and further documents. It included much more than what could be placed in two trunks. I was not happy to see more individuals who had been enslaved by my family. Though it sounds like these individuals were treated considerately, it was still within the confines of slavery.

It also seems like the family was coming together for Magdelena’s funeral. She lived to be almost 90 years old. Oh, what a story she could have told! So by the time of her funeral, her children (natural and step) had children of their own. All but one of the children (Marguerite) had predeceased her. But by the look of the names of witnesses at the bottom of the document, Magdelena’s family had come to her house to mourn or to celebrate her life. Included in that list is Emanuel Landry, one of her three grandsons that I descend from. Other grandsons include Elie, Bellonni LeBlanc, Xavier Landry, Josephe Landry, and Ursin Landry. Pierre Paul LeBlanc was a grandson-in-law.

And now all of us, her great great great grandchildren and beyond, are celebrating her life again.

April 2, 2021 Update – I recently found the connection to John Baptiste a gros LeBlanc. Marie Magdelena (Widow Landry) had a daughter named Madeleine who married Joseph a gros LeBlanc. (Yes, sister Marguerite married another Joseph LeBlanc, but that one was dit Michel.) Joseph a gros LeBlanc had a brother named Jean Baptiste a gros LeBlanc, who I’m pretty sure is the John Baptiste a gros LeBlanc mentioned in this succession paper.

For those of you have been reading these blog posts that I write, you’ll have learned about the cousin marriages in my family history. For those that have researched families with Cajun or Acadian ancestry, you’ll know that this was a common practice. Some people are not very comfortable with these marriages, while others don’t seem to have a problem with it at all. It’s just part of history and I owe my life to it all.

In my family, I don’t have to look far to find an example. My grandparents were first cousins once removed. You can see that in the handy diagram that I created for myself to help me keep it all straight in my mind. It can all get a bit confusing sometimes. At the bottom of the diagram is my dad Bob Landry. Following the lines up from him bring you to Rob and Erie. Those are my paternal grandparents Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. and Germaine Erie Patureau. Their grandkids knew them as Pee Paw and Mee Maw.

If you follow Rob and Erie’s lines up through the middle of the chart, you come to their common ancestor Narcisse Landry. (I normally like to name both parents of individuals when I know them, but in this case I’m just listing those in the line leading to the ultimate common ancestor Joseph Ignatius Landry.) Rob and Erie were first cousins once removed because Narcisse was Rob’s grandfather while he was Erie’s great grandfather. Or put another way, Simon Alcide Landry and Jean Trasimond Landry were the sons of Narcisse. Rob was the son of Alcide and Marie Therese Landry Patureau was the daughter of Trasimond. Rob then married his first cousin Therese’s daughter Erie. Since Narcisse, Alcide, Trasimond, and Therese had all died before 1921, none of them were alive to celebrate Rob and Erie’s union.

But that’s not the only way that they were related, just the closest. That first connection was derived from Rob and his first cousin Therese’s fathers. The next connection we’ll look at the connection through their mothers. Rob’s mother was Marie Celeste Leveque Landry. Celeste’s mother was Marguerite Basalite Landry Leveque. Basalite was the daughter of Joseph Emmanuel Landry.

Now for Therese’s mother’s line. Her mother was Marie Amelie Bujol Landry. Since she had a long life, I have more photos of her and have written a few posts about her. Remember? We call her Belite. (She is also known as Grandma Babin to some of her descendants. Don’t let this throw you.) I’ve also referred to her as one of the beautiful daughters of the Widow Bujol. That would be her mother Anna Adele Landry Bujol. Adele was also the daughter of Joseph Emmanuel “Manuel” Landry. So if you look at the maternal lines to see the connection between Rob and Erie, you find that they were second cousins once removed.

We’ve looked at both sides of Pee Paw’s tree and on both sides of Mee Maw’s mother’s tree. Now it’s time to look at Mee Maw’s father’s line. We all know him as Grampa Max, but his full name was Vincent Maximilian Patureau. I don’t usually think of him as a Landry, but his mother was a Landry. Her name was Marie Emma Landry Patureau. Emma’s father was Elie Onezime Landry. Though both Rob & Erie descend from Narcisse and Manuel, only Erie descends from Onezime.

But there are still more connections, because Narcisse, Manuel, and Onezime were all sons of Joseph Ignatius Landry. Joseph was born in Acadie in 1748. He was only seven years old when the Grand Derangement took place. It was 1755 when the English exiled the French Acadian population. Joseph and his family spent the next 12 years in Exile in Maryland, then settled in Louisiana in 1767. He married Scholastique Breaux in 1776. She was also an Acadian who spent the Exile in Maryland. She happened to be his double third cousin as well. They had four children together including a son named Manuel.

Scholastique died in 1785. Two years later he married Olive Elizabeth Breaux. She was the 2nd cousin of Scholastique and a 3rd cousin of Joseph. They had six children together including Narcisse and Onezime. So Narcisse and Onezime were full brothers and Manuel was their half brother.

So there they are. My paths to Joseph Ignatius. My siblings, nieces, nephews, and first cousins share these common paths. Some of my other cousins share a path or two and have a few of their own twisted paths to Joseph Ignatius. I even know of at least one with seven paths to that illustrious ancestor. I have to admit that fact makes me a little jealous. Is that weird?

I love this old photo of my grandmother and aunts. It was taken some time around 1939 and it was probably taken in Lake Charles somewhere. The only thing I don’t like about the photo is that their feet don’t show in the photo. I’m not particularly fond of feet. It’s just that if you’re going to take a full length photo of a group of people, get the whole person (or persons) in the photo. This was long before phones with cameras or digital photos with instant results to check, so I guess I’ll have to forgive them. It would also have been nice to see the group centered in the photo. Oh, well, at least they took this wonderful photo.

My dad came from a somewhat large family. There were eight children, with four boys and four girls. I’ve shared a photo of the male members of the family previously. The photos look like they were taken the same day. The background is the same, the lighting looks the same, and the border is the same. But instead of a father with his four sons in the previous photo, this one is of a mother with her four daughters.

But it’s not just any old mother in the photo. This is my beloved paternal grandmother who we all called Mee Maw. Her given name was Germaine Erie Patureau. She married Robert Joseph (Rob or Bob) Landry, Sr. and then went by Erie Landry. The first child of this couple was their oldest daughter Marie Therese Landry. Aunt Marie is shown on the far left in the photo. She would later marry Malloy Reeves, and they had one son named Mark. The next daughter born to Rob and Erie was Germaine Erie. Aunt Germaine can be seen to the right of Mee Maw in the darker dress. She would later marry Ross Winn, and they had three children.

The third daughter of Erie and Rob was Wana Lidwin. She can be seen on the far right in the photo. She would later marry Norman Duffy. Aunt Wana and Uncle Duffy had six children. The youngest of the girls – though not the youngest of the eight – was little Frances Mae. Aunt Frances or Framay would later marry Joseph Raley. Aunt Framay and Uncle Joe had five children.

These lovely ladies and warm, nurturing women are a strong emotional backbone for our family. That stood out particularly clearly to me in regard to the death of my sister Jodie in 1989. These four sisters were not there just for their brother, they were there for all the family. They were such a great example of what family can do for one another. They still are.