Family History - Part 56

I Was a Little Bit Thin

August 24, 2016 Van Leave a comment

1921-07- Earnest Cropper, Clifford Clements, Germaine Erie Patureau, Zita Patureau, and H. L. Landry Clean

Summer 1921

Sometimes a photo just compels me. That’s the situation this week. I was feeling somewhat ornery and thought I’d do a really good and confusing one about some of the tangled relations on my dad’s side of the family. I started looking at photos and this one grabbed my attention. Not because of any intrigue or confusion, just because it is a sweet photo of my grandmother Erie Patureau Landry.

It was taken in the summer of 1921. “How do you know that?” you ask? Because that’s what it says on the back of the photo in my Mee Maw’s very own handwriting. That’s how. And not only that, she listed everyone in the photo. Thanks again, Mee Maw!

Standing behind her is her sister Zita Patureau. The guy standing behind the wooden handrail is their first cousin Earnest Cropper. (Joseph Earnest Cropper, Sr. born in 1901) His mother was a Patureau and the sister of Erie and Zita’s father. The other guy’s name is Clifford Clements. No relation that I know of, but one of their other Patureau cousins married a Clements girl who could possibly be related to him. May be her brother?

1921-07- Earnest Cropper, Clifford Clements, Germaine Erie Patureau, Zita Patureau, and H. L. Landry Back

Writing on the back of the photo

And that leaves us with just the boy’s name not revealed yet. She has his name listed as H. L. Landry. I would suppose that this was Henry Louis Landry who was born in 1911. And that brings a slightly sinister grin to my face. :9 You see, little H. L. is not only Erie and Zita’s half first cousin, he is also their first cousin once removed. Because Erie’s maternal grandmother Belite is also H. L.’s maternal grandmother. Where Erie came about from the union of Belite and Trasimond Landry, H. L. comes from Belite’s 2nd union with Magloire Babin. That explains the half first cousin part. In addition H. L. is the (at this point my grin is becoming a scowl – this is confusing me and I have it all clearly displayed on my computer!) grandson of Alcide Joseph Landry who is the brother of Erie’s grandfather Trasimond. So I was wrong. He is their half first cousin and their second cousin. (I wonder if that adds up to a three quarters first cousin?) Now it’s perfectly clear. I think it’s clear. Are we clear? Similar to what it says on the back of the photo, my confidence in the outcome is “a little bit thin” right now.

1913 Was a Tough Year

August 18, 2016 Joseph Leave a comment

Bills were piling up for Louis Charles Bucklin. He mortgaged 160 acres of land in March. I am not sure how much of the farm he personally owned at the time, but in total the family homesteaded 850 acres. One of those bills that wasn’t getting paid was at the Tupper Store. Thankfully W. H. Tupper continued to let the Bucklins buy on credit for months with no payment. By August 1, he owed $271 at the store and had only $99 in the bank.

Bucklin

A Sad Story

August 17, 2016 Van Leave a comment

I’m in the mood to tell a sad story. It’s probably because I’ve been hearing so many this week with the Great Flood of 2016 happening all around me. Like those stories, it is a true story. And, alas, it is sad.

I’ve wanted to tell it for a while now. As I looked through the information about the Bucklin family, little pieces of the story would show up from time to time. My cousin Joseph Connors posted a prequel to this story a few weeks ago. (Jennie Has Been Very Sick) He told a part of this tragic tale, but I thought that I’d tell a little more.

Joe Bucklin in 1909 in Jennings, Louisiana. (photo edited by Van Landry)

His name was Joseph Bucklin. He was born around 1859 in Massachusetts to James Austin Bucklin of Palmer, Massachusetts, and Mary Ann McGrath Bucklin originally of Ireland. The family must have moved to Iowa shortly after his birth, because his younger brother Edward was born there in 1864. Then his youngest brother Louis Charles Bucklin (my great grandfather) was born in Iowa in 1873. They lived in Coffins Grove, Iowa. (Cue the ominous music here.)

In 1884 the family moved to southern Louisiana where he, his father, his brother Ed, and his sister Jennie set up homesteads in the Raymond area. (Louis was not old enough to set up his own at that time.) I’m sure it was a busy time for the family working on developing the land, roads, and bridges in that area. But still, as things will happen, Joseph got married to Agnes “Aggie” Ausman in 1892. She was from Canada, had spent time in Iowa at some point, but I’m not sure how they got together. Let’s hope it was a happy courtship and marriage, because tragedies soon followed.

In 1893, Joseph wrote to Louis in Ohio to tell him about their sister Jennie being sick. Jennie died sometime after June of 1893. Around the same time, Joe and Aggie had a little daughter named Leola. Things were calm for a few years with the birth of Gladys in 1896 and Harold in July 1899. Shortly after that came more tragedies. A month after Harold was born, Aggie died. Then in December Leola died. Joe must have been having a hard time, because his mother Mary Ann came to stay with him in Jennings. But to make matters worse, she caught a severe case of the flu and died on April 10, 1900.

I told you it was a sad story. I feel a reluctance in telling you his story and letting you get to know him a bit, because his story is so sad. But I wanted to tell it, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m sorry to tell you this, but there are more tragedies to come for poor Joe. But not just yet. As luck would have it (I’m not so sure about that Irish luck at this point!), Aggie had a younger sister of marrying age and Joe did just that. He married Ida Ausman in November of 1900. He certainly didn’t waste any time!

He and Ida had a daughter named Ida May in 1903. I’m not sure of the details here, but Joe’s wife Ida died on Sept. 5, 1903. It could have been from disease or complications from childbirth, but it was a tragedy nonetheless. Following that, little Ida May died a few months later. As an article in the Jennings Daily Times states, she had never been strong and died as a result of a severe cold. The person writing the article must have known the situation, because they talk about “the grief stricken father whose cup of sorrow seems filled to over flowing.” I agree with that evaluation.

Joe did marry again in 1913, but he didn’t have any more children. His daughter Gladys died in 1917 in Iowa at the age of 21 while living with her Ausman grandparents. (There could also be a sad story written about the Ausman family, but I’ll leave that up to someone else.) Gladys did not have any children. Then Joe himself died a year later of the flu in the great 1918 flu pandemic while living in Florida.

There are no descendants today of Joe. His son Harold did get married, but he died at the age of 27 without any children in 1926. He was the last of that family. I descend from his brother Louis and I have never even attempted to count the number of descendants that he has. He and Addie had 11 children (including my grandfather Fred) and 19 grandchildren (including my mom Betty Lou). There were several more great grandchildren (Fred himself added 20 to that count.) and countless great great grandchildren. The difference is drastic.

And so ends the sad story of Joe.

June 11, 2017 Update

For more information about the connections between the Ausmans and Bucklins, read the later post The Bucklin/Keys/Ausman/MacVey Connections.

Nov. 14, 2019 Update

For newly discovered details about the life of the Ausmans and Joe Bucklin, read this post The Sad History Surrounding Joe Bucklin.

Appeal to Congress Rice Growers of the United States Face Ruin

August 11, 2016 Joseph Leave a comment

Louis Charles Bucklin kept a box of his 1913 records so we have an interesting look into that year. That is where we found his rice warehouse receipts that I posted last week. He received a copy of this letter about the threat of Asiatic Rice to American Rice Farmers.

Bucklin

The Man in Black

August 10, 2016 Van Leave a comment

Landry family photo from 1912

This photo is of a group of family members from my dad’s family. The center of attention (and the photo) is that man in black. My eye is always drawn to him. That is my grandfather Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. He was known by Rob or Bob and his grandchildren knew him as Pee Paw. He was born in Westlake, Louisiana, in 1893 and died in Lake Charles in 1957, so I never knew him personally.

This photo was taken in Dec. 1912, so he would be 19 years old. The girl on the far left is Estelle Myhand Alston. I don’t know anything about her, but this photo comes from her scrapbook. She wrote the date on the back of the photo and said something about it being taken on the road from Mrs. Landry’s. She identifies herself, then Tom Bird next to her. He is my grandfather’s first cousin. Their mothers were Leveque half-sisters. (Actually 3/4 sisters because they had the same father and their mothers were sisters.) From what I’ve seen in censuses and graveyards, the Landry, Leveque, Myhand, and Bird families had members that moved from the Brusly area to the Lake Charles area around the same time. There were a few marriages between the groups, but I don’t know all of that history.

Next in line is Beulah. Estelle doesn’t say any more than that because Beulah is probably her sister. I have another copy of the photo that shows her as Beulah Myhand Koch. Pee Paw is identified as Bob L. Next to him is Manette Landry who would later marry Adnes “Bibb” Bouquet. She’s just an eight year old girl in this photo and the young niece (and cousin) of Bob L. Next in line are Zim and Joe Landry. Joe is Alcide Joseph Landry, Bob’s older brother. The last one is their cousin named Emma Patureau. She would marry Toby Mouton nine years later. But her biggest claim to fame is that she was the mother of Tez. This was the calm before the storm.

Writing from the back of the photo

I’m also posting the back of the photo because it’s kind of interesting. That’s where I got the title to the post. She mentions something about singing “..the Man Dressed in Black.” I guess I’ll have to look that up and find out what it’s all about. You can do the same if you are interested.

That’s it for now. See you next time.

Update for Jan. 24, 2021

I was experimenting with MyHeritage’s photo editing features earlier this week and tried out the colorizing feature on a few photos. Some of them came out pretty good. I think they’re improving the feature, because I’m starting to like the results more. Maybe I’m just getting used to the idea. But one photo colorization came out really good. Of course I had to clean it up a bit more after the colorizing, and now I am really pleased with the edited version. So behold The Man in Black in color:

An edited and colorized version of the December 1912 photo of my grandfather and various friends and family members in Westlake, Louisiana.

Harvest Time

August 4, 2016 Joseph Leave a comment

Since it is harvest time, I though this would be a good post even though the farmers in the family are probably too busy for Facebook right now. These are warehouse receipt tickets handwritten in pencil for Louis Bucklin’s farm from the July 1913 Rice Harvest. Apparently they were growing Japan Rice.

Bucklin

A Switch to Hymes from Hine

August 3, 2016 Van 2 comments

George and Susan Hine Family circa 1900

My decision of what to post this week was motivated by two factors: I made an exciting discovery regarding a last name and I finished working on this photo after working on it off and on for over a year. Plus, this is a really, really nice family photo from over 100 years ago. I think it’s from around 1900, which would mean it was taken in Louisiana.

The photo is of the George Henry Hine and Susan Stanbrough Hine family. In the back row is James, Lonnie, Addie and Bert. The front row is Rowe, Susan, George, and Ollie. There are a lot of descendants of this family in southern Louisiana, as well as a few other places. They were all born in Hamilton County in Indiana in the 1800s. The family moved to Louisiana in 1894 and the daughter Addie married Louis Charles Bucklin in 1898. One of their sons was Fred Bucklin, my maternal grandfather. Now you know where I fit in.

Malina and John P. Hine headstone

But what you don’t know is the last name of George Henry Hine’s mother. Some of you might not even know her first name! So to help you out, I will let you know that his parents’ names were John Peter and Malina Hine. (Like in the second photo that I’m posting.) I have been looking for Malina’s last name for a while.

It was not in the census records that I had found from 1860-1900 or other records I could find online. But then Ancestry added Indiana death certificates to their data sources available to its members. I didn’t really think about looking for her name when that information first came out. All I really thought was, “Oh, some more stuff available.” I deleted the notification and moved on. I came across her name a few days later and then thought I’d try to find her last name again. Her death certificate is not included because she died in 1894 and the records start in 1899. What? You’ve got to be kidding me?

I was almost forlorn, but then I remembered that George Henry had several siblings that lived out the rest of their lives and died in Indiana. I wasn’t even sure the siblings I had listed were accurate, but I tried anyway. So I checked for William Hine and found death certificate that showed his mother’s maiden name! Yippee! Then I checked for Benjamin and Thomas and found the same 1917 William Hine death notice thing. They all three had the maiden name of Malina Hine as being Malina Cox.

I was still a little unsure because I wasn’t sure that they were all really the siblings of George Henry Hine. So I was determined to find the 1850 Census that I had been unable to find before. The children would have been young enough to all be at home still at that time. They weren’t in the home in the later censuses. I searched all day for that census! I looked for the name spelled any way possible: Hine, Hines, Heinz, Hinds. But no luck. I was giving up and decided to see if someone else might have the info on their tree. I looked at a few trees on Ancestry and found a few with census records.

And that’s when I noticed something. I already knew that census workers spelled people’s names however they thought was correct. They did not have the spelling gene from Grandma Myrtle! But another mistake that I saw was the name transcribed as Him. In cursive Him and Hine look very similar. So I went back and searched for John Peter Him. I didn’t find Him, but I found him. The family was listed as Hymes in the 1850 Census. And all of the children were listed. The ones who had death certificates giving the last name of Malina as Cox. I am now satisfied that we have at least one line of Cox family in our history. She was born in North Carolina and I believe that her family may have been Quakers. Now I want to know more! The search never ends.

1850 census lists John (Peter) Hymes (Hine), Malina, Benjamin, William, George H(enry), and Allen L(arkin).

Jennie Has Been Very Sick

July 28, 2016 Joseph 2 comments

This is a letter from Joseph Bucklin to his brother Louis Charles Bucklin who was away at business/military school in Ada, Ohio. Soon after this letter, their sister Jennie Bucklin Taylor died, sometime after June 13, 1893. Jennie had not been well since at least early in April.

Louis was unusually emotional in his June 5th journal entry, stopping mid sentence, “A fellow a thousand miles from home and all he loves. feels although he may have”. He didn’t write in his journal again for five months. His daughter Edna Bucklin told us that Louis was very upset when Jennie died. He never went back to school.

You can click the images to read the letter or scroll down to see it transcribed.

Lake Arthur Sa. May 15, ‘93.
L. C. Bucklin Esq.
Ada Ohio

Dear Brother: Mother wanted me to write to you again for she dislikes to write so much, she has been here with Jennie 2 weeks watin [waiting] on her and is all tired and worn out. Jennie has been very sick and is no better at this writing, she has sinking spells nearly every day, twice mother thought she was dieing. Ben has gone up to Jennings today for the Dr. to see if he cannot change her medacine. We will keep you posted every few days as to how she is getting along.

Ed. and Clarence came down from the farm yesterday and say everything is looking nice on the farm the rice on the maria is about ready to flood and is looking fine. The corn the boys had to plant over again and is now about knee high.

Ed told me that there would be lots of peaches if nothing happens. They have been using new irish potatoes. Ed. has been having the chills and fever lately. I suppose every body up where you are, are healthy and look fine, was thinking yesterday that it would be so nice for you to be up there just at your age you can realize and enjoy everything more now than at any other age your military exercises must be nice and healthful. Mother says there are two of your last letters in the office at China which she has not read, she told me to direct your next letter to her at this place as she will get it quicker than at the other place.

Ben. and I have gotten along finely with our work will be done with our plowing this week if nothing happens and our rice we have sown is all up nicely some of it nearly ready to flood then comes the work unless we get our levees done and can catch rain.

There is not much news to write to you. Chas. Shoesmith is going north about the 1st of June and of course will take in the worlds fair.

Mr. Gardener and Fannie starts about the same time wont Charly have some highly entertaining [??] abroad if Fannie should go along when he does my wouldn’t the journey be short though.

Ed tells me that Mrs. Blessington died week ago Thurs. That one of her daug-hters got here the night before she died. Mrs. Tuppers sister and her daughter have come. Tuppers will soon reveal the advantages of this country to them. Well my store of news is about exhausted so will close. Write to mother at this place. from bro Joe

Bucklin

Myrtle the Graduate of 1925

July 27, 2016 Van Leave a comment

1925-05-29 - Myrtle Sylvia Phenice H.S. Graduation

In 1925 Myrtle Phenice graduated from Jennings High School

The woman I knew as “Grandma” was born December 19th, 1906 to Harry Clifton Phenice and Daisy Henrietta Martha Keys Phenice. She was the third of their seven children and she was named Myrtle Sylvia Phenice. The family lived in an area known as Hathaway. I’m not really sure what the ‘borders’ of Hathaway are, but it’s just down the road from China and Raymond. A few miles to the west is Kinder and a couple of miles to the east is Elton. And all of those places are about ten miles north of Jennings.

I’m not sure of the details of her early life. That’s kinda sad now that I think about it. And there are no early photos of her to give me a clue. At least none that I know of. I have photos of her parents from before she and her siblings were born, but then none until this photo. Maybe they didn’t take many photos during that time. Maybe my grandmother didn’t like any of the photos of herself as a child and destroyed them. If anybody knows more about this, please let me know. (See update.)

This photo is her high school graduation photo. She graduated from “the Jennings High School, an Authorized State High School” on May 29, 1925. I think it is a lovely photo of her. She continued her education at Southwestern Louisiana Institute in Lafayette and graduated there in 1928. This all led to a long career as an elementary school teacher at Hathaway High School.

1925 - Myrtle Sylvia Phenice H.S. Diploma

Myrtle Phenice’s diploma

Phenice

The Uninvited Guest

July 20, 2016 Van 26 comments

Nothing could strike fear into my childhood heart like the unexpected and undesired visit from The Uninvited Guest – or as we liked to call it – The UG. We all acquired a sixth sense that alerted us to the approach of the UG. As we played our fun little innocent childhood games without a care in the world, something unseen would hit us. We would all stop at once as if in a trance and chant together in a whispered voice, “Hell – fire! will kill a bug, but nothing stops the bumply UG.” We all knew what that warning meant. My younger sister would start crying, so my oldest sister would swoop her up and run as we all scrambled to our favorite hiding places.

But it wasn’t just our family who responded in this way. The neighborhood kids would scatter in all directions as they ran home to their parents. Their moms would look out the window, spit out a silent curse in our direction, and withdraw while pulling the shades tight. It’s like there was a small dark cloud that settled down over our little section of the street.

Yet for some strange reason, the adults in our family were in thrall to this creature. They went so far as to even allow it to rub its slimy bumply lips on their vulnerable necks. It still makes me shudder when I picture it. Once this bizarre ritual had been completed, they would go inside and things would settle down a bit. Then one by one each of us kids would sneak back into the house to see what manner of evil was taking place. Many times the UG would be ordering my parents around and demanding what kind of feast they were to prepare for its dinnertime. Thankfully, none of us kids were on the menu for the whims of the vile creature.

Later on in the night as we tried to sleep, I would be overcome by a feeling of dread. I just knew that something was prowling around our bedroom, hoping to fulfill its desire for an innocent’s blood. As I lay in bed with my skin crawling with goose bumps – goose bumps, mind you, not bumply bumps – I felt a need to see what was going on. When I forced myself to pry open one eye, I would see this huge dark hand on the ceiling coming down to get me. I realized it was the shadow cast by the nightlight of a hand coming toward me. And not just any hand – it had the bumply bumps of the bumply arms of that bumpfully bumpedy bumply UG. As I stared in terror I heard it rasp in a gravelly whisper, “Hell – fire! will kill a bug, but nothing stops the bumply UG.” At that, it turned around and headed out the door snickering its evil little bumply UG snicker. The end.

I admit. This is quite a bit different than my usual Throwback Thursday, but I was inspired! When I say that all of my cousins on the Landry side will know what this story is about, I mean every single one of them! And probably most of the other relatives on that side of the family. This story was inspired by and dedicated to Therese Wynhoven Mouton, my dad’s first cousin on the Patureau side of the family. But everyone knew her by her nickname “Tez.”

She was quite the character, though she was not the detestable creature that I write about in my story. Like I said, she was just the inspiration. She did show up at our house unannounced and uninvited, we did run away from her when she showed up trying to kiss everyone, she did like to tell people what to prepare for dinner or what to watch on TV, and she told us scary stories at night. Oh, yeah, and she did have bumps all over her body.

1970 - Tez Mouton and Erie Patureau Landry travelling

Tez and Mee Maw traveling circa 1970

The poor creature! She didn’t ask for those bumps and she probably didn’t have slimy lips. She was just a lonely single woman who was trying to connect with family. She was very independent too. She was a school teacher, she enjoyed writing stories and poems, and she liked to travel. But she also liked to scare little boys who probably gave her bumpy profile a hard stare. As she brought that shadowy hand down on me from the ceiling, she didn’t say anything about a bumply UG, she was reading a poem by James Whitcomb Riley, “…and the goblins gonna get you if you don’t watch out.” And that’s why I’ve been such a good boy ever since!

Patureau

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