Bucklin Blood

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James A. Bucklin circa 1880s.

This is not my favorite photo.  It was taken at some time in the late 1800s.  Since it is a photo of my great great grandfather James A. Bucklin, it was taken before his death date of May 15, 1890.  He was 69 years old at the time of his death and it is difficult to tell how old he is in the photo.  The reason I’m not fond of the photo is the same reason it is difficult to tell how old he his – it has been tampered with.

I think it was some combination of painting or coloring on a photographic negative.  So I can’t really tell what was actually part of the original image.  Was there any hair on the top of his head?  Was this the alternative they had back then for Hair Club for Men?  Was his beard that full?  I doubt it.  But it could have been somewhat long.  Like I said, it’s hard to tell.

But nevertheless I do like it because it is an old image of my ancestor and there aren’t that many of him around.  He was born in 1821 in Palmer, Massachusetts, which was before practical photography became popular.  At least there is an image of him.  He came from a long line of Bucklins that lived in Massachusetts.  Sadly, there are no photos of those previous generations.  He was actually the fifth generation born in the United States.  I should really say North America, since the first Bucklin arrived in 1635 in Hingham, Massachusetts.

There was some question about the connection to that long line of Bucklins in Massachusetts, but that has been settled for the most part.  Still, I was beginning to wonder about the connection myself because of the lack of DNA matches that come from that family line.  There is no question about the Landry, Phenice, and Stanbrough connection.  I have lots of DNA matches with those names in their family tree.

But then again, those family names are also associated with large families.  But the family name that has the most matches is the Patureau family.  I keep thinking I have tracked down all of my third cousins in that line and then another DNA match pops up with a new Patureau name.  And they are usually big families, so I’m adding twenty or thirty or more names to my tree.  I have found hundreds of cousins along the Patureau line.

The reason I have DNA matches with some of them is that there are so many available to test.  I kept wondering why I didn’t have any Bucklin third cousins show up as matches.  Then it dawned on me that there must not be any at all.  I wrote a sad story about one of James’s sons Joseph.  He was married three times and had four children (or so).  But they mostly died young and none of them produced offspring.

The same is true for the other children of James, except for his son Louis.  Louis was my great grandfather.  He and his wife Addie Hine Bucklin had a dozen children, so I have lots of second cousins.  But that doesn’t prove James’s connection to the Massachusetts Bucklin line.  It just shows that we all descend from James.  And once you get past third cousins, your chances of matching a distant relative decreases.

Thankfully, it is not impossible.  I do have one match that shows the connection.  One.  (I say that with emphasis, but not enough to deserve an exclamation point.)  I do have a fourth cousin once removed who descends from James’s brother William Livere “Willie” Bucklin.  That was exciting, but I would like to have a few more.

Actually I do have many more that point back to the Massachusetts connection.  James’s father was born in Barnstable, and there are a lot of our (mine, mom’s, Aunt Loris’s, and Uncle Austin’s) DNA matches that have ancestors from that same area.  I just can’t tell who our common ancestors were.

So if you are related to me through this man, know that you too have deep roots in colonial Massachusetts.

Erie Alone

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I noticed that many of the past few posts have been large groups.  I like those old photos with lots of people in them, but they are more work to identify them all.  Not that I can I identify them all, but I try to.  So I thought I’d post a photo with fewer people in it.

It’s also time to post something for my dad’s side of the family.  I thought I’d post something about my Mee Maw.  I had some group photos from when she was in school, but I don’t want to post a group shot.  You see the dilemma I have when trying to find the perfect post every week?

But lucky for me, there is a photo of Mee Maw by herself that I’ve been wanting to post for a while.  I posted another photo of her that was taken on the same day, but that was over two years ago, so I should be good to post it now.

Erie Patureau sitting pretty in 1921.

Here it is.  This was taken in July 1921 somewhere in southern Louisiana.  Germaine Erie Patureau was born in Crescent, Louisiana, (near Plaquemine) on August 6, 1895.  Her parents were Max and Therese Landry Patureau.  Her mother died in 1909 when Erie was just 14 years old.

In 1912 she went off to college in Lafayette at SLI.  She may have stayed with Grandma Babin at that time.  Grandma Babin was her mother’s mother.  I always refer to her as Belite.  Her full name was Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol Landry Babin.  She was one of the beautiful daughters of the Widow Bujol who made a flag before the Civil War to see off the soldiers in the Brusly area.  But in 1912, she was just Erie’s grandmother.  Belite and her second husband Magloire Babin had moved to Lafayette a few years earlier.

In 1915 Erie graduated from college and began her teaching profession in Lafayette.  I’ve shared a photo of her with her classroom once before.  She was living in Lafayette in 1920 according to the Census.  She was living with her mom’s half sister and her family.  Her mom was the daughter of Belite and Trasimond Landry, and her mom’s half-sister Clemence was the daughter of Belite and Magloire Babin.  Also in the household was Clemence’s husband and their six children, as well as Belite.

As it turns out, Clemence’s husband was her own second cousin Louis Peter Landry.  Louis had a younger brother by the name of Robert Joseph Landry.  We all know what happens next.  In 1900 Rob’s brother Sebastian had married their first cousin Manette.  Then in 1905 Louis married their second cousin Clemence.  So really, a cousin marriage was long overdue!

Because that’s what Erie did in November of 1921.  She married her mom’s first cousin Rob and moved with him to Lake Charles to start a family of her own.  So much for Erie being all alone as the title suggests.  But as we all know, she lived happily ever after.

Stanbrough or Hine?

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The family of George Hine and Susan Stanbrough with relatives (presumably) circa 1898.

Here is an old photo from the collection.  Maybe I should say it is from the collective.  (Resistance is futile!)  It is from a collection of photos from my mom’s side of the family.  My grandfather’s sisters collected old photos and passed them on to my mom’s cousin Louise.  She and her son Joseph have scanned them and generously share them with family, including me.  This photo has been edited quite a bit to clean it up and make repairs.  Joseph started it and then shared it with me.  I cleaned it up a bit more and brought it to this version.

The first version I ever saw was quite decrepit.  I’ll tell you why.  It looks like one of the things that Louise did was to print out many of these old photos and made photocopies.  Then she went around (or mailed them out) asking the aunts and cousins to identify as many of the people as they could.  There were some identifications attributed to my mom.  She had a good memory for many years and was pretty good at recognizing those old relatives.  The famed family historian Edith Keys Segraves was questioned for some of those photos.

For this photo, Edna Bucklin Keys was consulted.  She identified the older couple sitting to the right as “Grandpa” and “Susan Stanbrough Hine.”  On the left border of the photo it read “Stanbrough family?”  Evidently no one knew who the other people in this photo were, but it was assumed that they were family.  I tend to agree.

1898 – Detail with names

I’m pretty sure that their daughter Addie Hine is standing behind Grandpa George Hine and Grandma Sue.  (Addie was the mother of my maternal grandfather Fred Bucklin.) She is usually standing behind her parents in photos, and in some she has her hand on her mother’s shoulder.  I recognize their sons from other photos that I’ve seen.

On the right is their son Rowe.  To the left of Addie is Jim and the next male to the left is Lonnie (also in dark jacket).  The youngest son Ollie is sitting on the ground and also wearing a dark jacket.  There is another son named Bert and I assume that it is him standing behind Addie.

The other people in the photo are a mystery.  As Aunt Edna indicated, they could be extended Stanbrough family. Grandma Sue had eleven siblings and one older half brother. The other possibility is that the others were part of the extended Hine family.  Grandpa George had six siblings.  Both sides of the family lived in Indiana.

I’m thinking this was two families taking a photograph together.  The older woman sitting on the left and the man standing next to her are likely the parents or grandparents of the other people in the photo.  I looked through my family tree to see if any family grouping looked similar in structure to the one in the photo, but I don’t think I have enough information to come to any conclusion.  So a mystery they remain.

In the meantime I will be looking to see if anyone from those extended Stanbrough and Hine families post the same photo or photos of the same people.  If you perchance should know who any of them are, do let me know.  I would greatly appreciate it.

Landry Family Circa 1956

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There were two events this week that I was made aware of that influenced the topic of this post.  Two days ago I got a reminder from Ancestry.com about the anniversary of Pee Paw’s death.  If you don’t know who Pee Paw is, you haven’t been reading my posts very thoroughly.  What’s up with that?  For those of you just joining us, I’ll let you know and hopefully you’ll look back to see other references to my paternal grandfather Robert Joseph Landry, Sr.

Then today I saw a post from a cousin that mentioned the anniversary of the death of my Aunt Wana.  She was the daughter of my Pee Paw and one of my dad’s four lovely sisters.  So I thought I would post a photo of the nuclear family that they belonged to.  Fortunately for me, the group has many photos through the years.  In more recent years, it has just been the siblings.  I wanted a photo that had both of the parents in it as well.

This is a photo of the family from around 1956.  I have the photo dated 1956, but I’m not sure how precise that date is.  As the reminder stated, Pee Paw died on August 28, 1957, at the age of 64.  So we know for sure the photo was taken before that!  It’s such a good photo of all of them.  I wish I knew if this was at some specific family event.  Maybe I’ll get some hints from some family.  In the meantime, let me tell you a little bit about the family at that time.

On the left is Frances Mae, the youngest girl.  She was 22 at the time and she married Joe Raley on Aug. 4 of that year.  Maybe the photo was associated with her wedding?  That seems like a good possibility.  Needless to say, she did not have any children at the time.  She and Uncle Joe ended up having five children together.  (A family member has verified that this photo was definitely taken at Frances and Joe’s wedding on August 4, 1956.)

Second from the left is Wana Lydwin.  She was around 23 and had been married to Norman Duffy since 1953.  If it was after March of 1956, she and Uncle Duffy would have two children, with four more to come.  Like I said in the beginning, today is the anniversary of Aunt Wana’s death.  She died on August 30, 2014, and is dearly missed.  She was a great woman who knew how to tell a good story.

Next is Germaine Erie, who was named after her mother.  She was around 29 and she married Ross Winn in 1948. They had three children together and all three of them were born at the time this photo was taken.  I wonder who was watching the kids?  Probably the First.  We’ll get to her later.

Marie Therese was the next one.  She bore the name of Mee Maw’s mother who had died when Mee Maw was just 14 years old.  It is a favored name in the Patureau and Landry families.  I wrote a post about that a while back and have found a few more with the name in the meantime.  Back to Aunt Marie.  She was the oldest of the children and was the first to get married.  She married Malloy Reeves in 1945.    They had their son Mark a few years after that.  Marie was around 33 years old at the time of this photo.

In the center of the photo Mee Maw and Pee Paw stand proudly with their children.  Erie Patureau married Rob Landry on November 12, 1921.  I said earlier that Erie’s mother was Marie Therese. And her maiden name was Landry.  She was Pee Paw’s first cousin.  Rob and Erie had their eight children over the next fifteen years.

To the right of Pee Paw is Alcide Joseph.  Uncle A. J. was around 32 years old when this photo was taken, and though he was the oldest son, he was not married at the time.  He would later marry Margie Harrington.  They did not have any children, but they did care for a niece (or two) and became like parents to them.

Hubert is next and he was around 31 at the time of the photo.  He had married Mildred Sutherlin in 1946, and they were the first to give Erie and Rob their new names of Mee Maw and Pee Paw.  By the time of this photo Uncle Hubert and Aunt Mildred had four of their children.  They later had Marla in 1960.  She had medical problems and did not make it to her third birthday.

Finally we get to my dad.  He was born and named Robert Joseph Landry, Jr., but he went by the name Bobbie or Bob most of his life.  He married Betty Lou Bucklin in 1952 and eleven months later along came Jodie.  In December of 1956, they would have the third of their six children.  Daddy was 27 years old in this photo.

The youngest of all of the children was my godfather John Alfred.  We all call him Uncle Johnny.  He had married Sondra Lee a few years earlier and was 21 years old in this photo.  They would later have three children.

So I guess you could say I came from a large family.  I enjoy being part of this large group.  Most of the cousins lived in Lake Charles, while we lived in Jennings.  It was close enough for us to go to most of the big family get togethers, but we probably missed some of them.

It’s nice that the family still gets together, even though we’re more spread out now. I’m sorry I had to miss it this year.  I hope to make the next one.

Joseph Raley married Frances Mae Landry on August 4, 1956, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Shown here with her parents.

Here is another photo from that same day.  It has Pee Paw, Uncle Joe, Aunt Frances, and Mee Maw in it with the wedding cake.  I should have seen this photo and recognized the clothes that Mee Maw and Pee Paw were wearing.  It does confirm the date of the photo.  Don’t you think?

The Keys Family Circa 1938

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The Keys families in Elton, Louisiana, around 1938.

Here is another great old photo that I wish I had. I guess I kinda have it already, but this is a rather poor resolution of the photo. I can still make out who many of the people are in the photo, but there aren’t many more details that can be made out.

The photo was taken in Elton, Louisiana, in about 1938 in front of the home of Leonard and Edessa Keys. This is my mom’s extended family. My mom was Betty Lou Bucklin and she is the girl standing in front of the adults with her hands down by the side of her dress. Her younger sister Alma is to the left with the blonde hair and it looks like she may be getting ready to dance a jig. Their older sister Sylvia is the older girl sitting in the front. I’m not sure who the child on the left of her is, but I’m thinking it could be younger sister Loris. The young girl on the right is Marilyn Phenice, my mom’s first cousin.

I’m hoping that someone else in the family has a better copy of this photo. I found this scan in a group of photo scans that my dad gave me a few years ago. It seems like my mom should have had the original photo since my dad scanned it, but it may have been lost in the moves and clean ups. So if you do have a better copy, send me the best scan you can make. I’ll clean it up and share it with everyone on here.

Let me go ahead and try to name a few more of the people seen in the photo. The reason I named it the Phenice/Keys group is that central in the photo are my mom’s maternal grandparents Harry Clifton Phenice and Daisy Keys Phenice. Also present are some of their children. But the bigger influence on the name was the fact that at least two of Daisy’s siblings are in the photo.

Grandpa Phenice (H.C.) is standing in the center holding his hat. Standing between him and my mom is Daisy. To the right and behind H. C. is my grandmother Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin and my grandfather Fred Bucklin. Now that I look at this photo more closely, I realize that I’ve posted a Fred Bucklin family photo that was taken on this same day. I called that one “Depression Era Bucklin Babies.”  That photo confirms that the little girl in front of Betty Lou in this photo is Loris.

Now, who else do I see? There’s Aunt Marguerite second from the left. She’s pretty easy to recognize. (Imagine my embarrassment if I’m wrong about that!) To the right of her are Henry Phenice and his wife Irma Hetzel Phenice. Then there is Orville Phenice. (He and Myrtle, Marguerite, and Henry are children of H. C. and Daisy.) I’m thinking that Orville’s wife Elta Whitman Phenice is standing behind and between Daisy and H. C. Orville and Elta are the parents of Marilyn.

The man standing to the right of H. C. is Daisy’s older brother Leonard Keys. I suppose that could be his wife standing next to him. She’s kinda cute and Leonard’s wife Edessa May Havenar was a cute young girl. (Her identity had been confirmed by her granddaughter Carolyn Segraves Conner. She also informed me that the girl on the far left was her mother Edith Keys.) Between/behind Leonard and Edessa are two men. The one in front is Warren Phenice, another son of H. C. and Daisy. The other man looks like he’s standing on something in the background.

To the right of Edessa are four more people. The first woman is Daisy’s younger sister Mabel Keys Miller. The woman kinda standing in front of her and facing toward the middle of the photo looks somewhat familiar. I think she may be Mary Bucklin Phenice. But neither of the two men around her look like her husband Sylvan Phenice, so that could be incorrect. I have been told that the man on the far right is Ray Miller, the son of Mabel Keys Miller.

I’ll be editing this post as I get feedback from the cousins about the identities of unidentified or mistakenly identified individuals. Maybe I’ll even get an ID on the hidden person.

So that’s what this post is all about. I want a better version of the scan and I want more people identified. Oh, yeah, and I want everyone to enjoy the old photo of my family.

March 30, 2019 Update

I said that if I ever got a better scan, I would clean it up and share it with everyone.  So that’s what I’m doing.  My cousin Mary brought an original copy of the photo to me yesterday.  She got it from our 2nd cousin Kristie.  Thank you Mary and Kristie.  Kristie’s a cousin from the Bucklin side of the family, so she was okay with letting go of photos of the Phenice family that she is not related to. 

The photo is much sharper than the old scan that I had previously.  You can see the faces of everyone so much better.  You can see that Aunt Irma is looking to the side at something.  You can also see that Aunt Sylvia is sticking her tongue out.  I thought she looked a bit mischievous in the photo!

I got several photos.  I know who a few of the people are, but there are several photos that have unidentified people in them.  Either way, I got some new old photos and that is always exciting!  They’re supposed to be people in the Phenice family, but I’m not so sure.  I’ll have to explore a bit. 

So here is the new and improved version of the photo. 

1938 photo of Keys and Phenice families includes: back row – Edith Keys Segraves, Marguerite Phenice, Henry Phenice, Irma Hetzel Phenice, Orville Phenice (holding Kathleen), Daisy Keys Phenice, Elta Whitman Phenice, Harry Clifton Phenice, Fred Bucklin, Myrtle Phenice Bucklin, Leonard Keys, Warren Keys, unidentified man in background, Edessa Havenar Keys, Mabel Keys Miller, unidentified man looking to the side, Mary Bucklin Phenice, and Ray Miller; standing in the front – Alma and Betty Lou Bucklin; sitting in the front – Loris Bucklin, Sylvia Bucklin, and Marilyn Phenice

Old School Photos

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Back to school 1965 – Rob, Jodie, Karen, and Al Landry

I just realized something this week.  I’ve been looking at all of the cute back-to-school photos that everybody has been posting on online media.  It’s great to have all of those milestones documented for your children.

When I saw those new photos all over the place, it reminded me of this old photo from 1965.  This is a photo of my older siblings Jodie, Rob, Karen, and Al before their first day of school.  The girls are wearing their Catholic schoolgirl uniforms.  I’m not sure why the boys didn’t have to wear uniforms, but they all were going to Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Elementary School which was only a few blocks away from our home at 758 Lucy Street.

OLHC school in 1965

See, this is the school.  The main reason I posted this was to show that I got the name right.  That was the name of the school when we went to it, but it later was changed to Our Lady Immaculate.  Mostly it was called OLI.  And when I say we went to it, I say that to include myself.  Because I did go to that school in the first grade.  All of the family then went to public school the years after that.

I have report cards and such to prove that I went to school there, but I don’t have a 1st Day of School photo of myself!  Not one!  Can you believe that?  And I never really thought about that until this year when I was looking at those happy little faces.  So where’s the picture of my happy little face on my first day of school?

Sadly, there isn’t one.  My and my younger sister Jamie have always been aware that there aren’t as many photos of us as there are of the older kids.  I guess once you get around to the fifth child, the thrill is gone.

It really wasn’t all that bad.  I have pictures from my birthdays and such.  But more importantly, I had the best parents in the world.  Maybe they were negligent in taking photos of us all on our first day of school.  I didn’t say they were perfect.

I guess I really shouldn’t feel left out at all.  See, I have a photo of Jamie and me from around the same time.  We got to stay home and do whatever we wanted while they were off to school.  At least for another year or so!

Jamie and Van taking it easy at home in 1965.  This was our PreSchool.

A Leobon By Any Other Name…

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I thought about posting some of this information last week, but it would have been out of turn.  We must let everyone have their turn!  I think it will work out well anyway.  The topic has changed a bit from what I had thought of last week.  I had even thought of doing something entirely different, but a few things happened this week that made me decide to go with the flow.

Baptism record for Leobon Patureau in 1768.

The thing that started it last week was this bit of information I found a few months back.  If you can’t read it, it says that Leobon Patureau was baptised in Palluaud, France, in 1768 and that he was born on Aug. 1.  That was what struck me last week – it was the sestercentenneal of of his birth.  Or is it semiquincentennial?  Whatever you call it, he was born 250 years ago.  Now that’s a milestone.

Mausoleum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for Elmo Leobon “Pat” Patureau, Jr. and family

Then, earlier this week, some Patureau family members were remembering the anniversary of a loved one’s death.  A new mausoleum was built in the honor of Elmo Leobon Patureau, Jr.  who was known by family and friends as “Pat.”  He was the father of Dana and Byron.  There was a service for family and friends for his new resting place.  It is a beautiful monument.

The thing that really decided it was that I started looking back at those old French documents and noticed the repetition of that name Leobon.  It’s not a common name, yet it has been in the Patureau family for quite a while.  The Leobon that was born in 1768 died in 1851 in France.

He died that February, and then the name was continued later that year when his grandson Ferdinand Pierre Patureau named his firstborn son Louis Leobon Patureau (Pat’s great grandfather).  Ferdinand was about 14 when the family moved from France to the US, so he probably had some fond memories of his grandfather.

The Patureau tomb in Plaquemine

Louis Leobon went by the name Leobon.  He later married and named one of his sons Louis Leobon, Jr.  The son died at the age of 16, so the name Leobon was not carried down his line.  His next older brother was named Charles Allen and he had a son named Elmo Leobon.  He, of course, named one of his sons Elmo Leobon, Jr.

But that Leobon Patureau born in 1768 was not the first one in the family with the Leobon name.  If you look at that old baptismal record, you’ll see that his godfather or “parrain” was a Leobon Mounier. Leobon’s mother’s name is given as Marie Sicaud.

I looked at more documents and found that Marie Sicaud was the daughter of Pierre Sicaud and Jeanne Mounier.  So I’m thinking that the Leobon name was actually from our Mounier side of the family.  I found a document from 1742 that records the death of a 72-year-old man named Leobon, and Pierre Sicaud was a witness to the death.  Pierre was married into the Mounier family at that time, so it’s possible that the man was a family member.

So that Leobon name might have been in the family for almost 350 years.  Do I see a semiseptcentennial in our future?  We’ll have to find further verification before we do that!  So we’ll just have to be satisfied with a sestercentennial.

Go on.  Celebrate!  Just be careful with all those candles!

The Bucklins of Hathaway 1948

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Alma, Betty Lou, Austin, Sylvia, and Loris Bucklin in 1948. They are the children of Fred D. Bucklin and Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin. (edited photo by Van Landry)

It’s time for a Bucklin photo!  And this one from 70 years ago seems like a nice one to share today.  Just a simple family portrait from the young family out in Hathaway.  I’ve always liked this old photo.  I even have it framed and hanging in my “dining room” here at home.  (Not its own room.  A large open room that includes kitchen, living, piano, and dining table.  An “open concept” if you will.)

Would you call it a family portrait?  I suppose you could, but I usually think that would include the parents in the photo.  This one doesn’t.  It’s just of the children of Fred and Myrtle Bucklin in 1948.

When I got this photo, it didn’t have the date on it.  So I looked through all of Mom’s old photos and decided on 1948 based on one main thing.  It was the only year that Mama didn’t wear bangs.  She was definitely a bangs type of girl, but I guess she decided to grow them out at least this one time.  Evidently she did not like the look for herself.  Snip, snip.

The photo includes Alma, Betty Lou (my mom), Austin, Sylvia, and Loris.  They are situated rather symmetricly in the photo, yet the door in the background is off-center.  I could have edited it to make it better, though that would have been a subjective thing.  Like I’ve said before, sometimes the imperfections give it more charm.

This brings me to another issue.  I’ve never really liked photos of myself with my eyes closed or looking way off to the side, particularly for posed photos like this.  So I always wondered if Aunt Loris liked the way her eyes are to the side in this photo.  So I changed them.  Now you may or may not be seeing the edited version.  It depends on what Aunt Loris says.  If you see the eyes to the side, she has decided that we should go with the original version (or I haven’t changed it yet).  If you see eyes forward, that’s what she wanted.

So, Aunt Loris, what is it to be?

Pee Paw and the Aquitania

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Last week I ended my post by saying that I was on to other mysteries.  It was just a comment about finding new discoveries as I research my family lines.  I didn’t have any particular mystery in mind, but this photo was kinda in the back of my mind.  Not because of any mystery, though.  I was just thinking it was time to post a photo from the Landry side of my family and this is an interesting and nice photo of my grandfather from this period in his life.

Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. in 1938

As you can see from the writing on the photo, it is of R. J. Landry in 1938.  That would be Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. for those of us in the know.  But a few of us would have called him Papa or Pappy, and more of us would know him as Pee Paw.  Some others called him Uncle Rob.  Let’s just call him Rob.

Rob would have been 45 years old in this photo.  He and his wife Erie had been married for 17 years and they had eight children.  There are a few photos of their children from this time and some of them have Erie in them.  Rob is not in many of them.

So why is Rob posing with this print of the cruise liner called the Aquitania?  Because he is definitely taking a photo with the image.  It doesn’t just happen to be behind him.  He’s standing to the side as though the ship is another subject in the photograph.  What’s up with that?  And the nameplate that denotes the Cunard Line is intriguing as well.  Maybe this is when he was named the captain of the ship before he sailed around the world that time?  Oh, wait! No. That never happened!

Or maybe it was when his wife was shipwrecked on a deserted island for several years and he heard that the Aquitania had rescued her and was bringing her back to him.  So he stared at the image of the ship as he longingly waited on her return.  Oh, drats!  That never happened either!  How else could they have had 8 children in 17 years?

So why is he staring at that ship so intently in the second photo?  I guess we’ll never know.  It’s a good thing I didn’t say I was going to solve those mysteries that I was moving on to!

Visits in the Past

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I thought I would continue with the theme from two weeks ago.  That was the post of my visit to southern Nebraska to see the final resting place of my great great grandparents Samuel Charles Phenice and Cathrine Jane Foster Phenice – or Charles and Kate as I have come to know them a little better.

But before it was their resting place, it was their living place.  I’m not really sure when they moved to the Beaver City area of Nebraska, but it was sometime shortly before the turn of the century.  That was about 120 years ago.  I’ve posted a few photos of Charles and Kate and other family members in the past, but the topic of this week is about visits to the area by the next generations.

I’m sure other cousins from my own generation have visited there and I think some may live near that area.  I don’t think my mom ever went.  Some of her cousins may have, but I don’t have any photos of that.  But I do have a photo from a visit by my grandmother Myrtle Phenice Bucklin’s generation.

Extended Phenice family in Almena, Kansas, circa 1939.

This photo was probably taken in Almena, Kansas, around 1939.  At that point Kate had died in 1921 and Charles had gone to live with his daughter Myrtle Cozad in Almena, which is 14 miles south of Precept.

I know that it is from 1939, because it has Aunt Marguerite in it.  She was a Phenice (who married a Hill) and sister of my Grandma.  She wrote her memoirs (Marge’s Memories) and mentioned that she only went up there once and it was just before her Grandpa Phenice died.  If you remember from other posts, Samuel Charles Phenice died on Sept. 15, 1939.

I’m thinking this photo was taken in the summer of 1939.  You can see Marguerite third from the right on the back row.  She’s looking over to the left toward her sister-in-law Irma Hetzel Phenice (in the black skirt) and sister Grace Phenice Sowder (holding the hat).  On the top right is Marguerite & Grace’s brother Warren Phenice.  I think the three girls who are second from the right on the top through bottom rows are the daughters of Myrtle Cozad – Pauline, Ruby, and Leora.  At least it looks like the same people I’ve seen from other photos.

The other person I recognize is another son of Charles and Kate.  He is second from the left sitting on the middle row.  His name was James Edmund Phenice, but everyone called him Edd.  Of course, Grace and Marguerite probably called him Uncle Edd.  He is buried next to his parents.  I could kick myself now because I forgot to take a photo of his headstone!  Now I’ll have to go back!

I’m not sure who the other family members are in this photo, but I’m thinking some of them are Quillens, because they also lived close by.  Maybe some of their descendants will be able to help us identify them.  Wouldn’t that be great?  (Heard from Michelle Quillen!  She says that the man front and center is Dean Quillen, son of Emma Phenice Quillen.  His wife Evelyn Satter Quillen is sitting directly behind him and she is holding their oldest son Kenneth.)

Top: Daisy Keys Phenice, Lola Myrtle Phenice, and Emma Orra Phenice; Bottom: Harry Clifton Phenice and James Edmund Phenice.

You’ve all seen this next photo before.  I posted this one in November of 2015.  It is such a great photo.  I had estimated the date of the photo to be 1900 when I originally posted it.  I looked at it a few months ago and realized that the date had to be incorrect.  Emma was only 11 years old in 1900 and she is obviously older than that in the photo.  I posted  the photo on Facebook to request a possible date and I was told it was probably taken between 1905 and 1910.  That seemed reasonable and fit better with Emma’s apparent age.

I also wondered where and why the photo was taken.  Daisy and Harry were married in 1900, so that would have been a reason for the three Phenice siblings Myrtle, Emma, and Edd to come down for a visit.  But we’ve already ruled out that early date.  I didn’t know of any visits that Daisy made up north, but it seems like she would have visited.  Yet I didn’t see her in any of the photos of other visits that I’ve seen.  So when was it?  I decided on an estimated date of 1907 a week or so before I visited Nebraska.

But then I found a clue in Nebraska!  Yay!  When I had looked up information before we arrived in Beaver City, it showed that the library would be closed on Saturdays – and we were there on a Saturday.  After having a tasty Beaver Burger at the Beaver Bar and Grill, I thought I’d go to the thrift store to see if I might find a memento from my visit.  At the thrift store, the attendant was very nice and friendly.  Come to find out, her husband was related to some of the Cozad family too.  She also told me about the library being open, so we hurried over before they shut the door.

1906 wedding record of Lola Myrtle Phenice and Franklin Pierce Cozad

In the local history room I found a binder with the name Phenice on the spine.  It was collected information about our family!  The friendly thrift store attendant showed up at the library with her husband and helped us find a few things.  One of the things I found was that Samuel Charles and Cathrine Jane went by Charles and Kate.  I’ve already told you that, though.  But on the March 19, 1906, wedding record of Myrtle Phenice and Frank Cozad, it showed that one of the witnesses to the wedding in Precept, Nebraska, was “Mrs. H. C. Phenice.”

The only H. C. Phenice in that family was my great grandfather Harry Clifton.  And his wife was Daisy Keys.  So there it was!  Evidence of Daisy visiting up north at a formal family event.  Plus the time was around the time I was thinking that photo must have been taken.  They must have had a nice time.  They gave birth to my grandmother nine months later and named her after the bride.

So for now, I’ll say the photo was taken in March 1906.

Now on to other mysteries.

 

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