Cousins posting family stuff
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.
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.
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.
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 
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).
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
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.
Myrtle Phenice’s diploma
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.
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!
Van Landry’s post this week is about Addie Hine and Louis Bucklin with a photo of them when she was 29. Ray Bucklin said she was really good with kids. She had lots of experience. They had 11 children that survived to adulthood, a total of 19 grand kids. I am not going to try counting the great grand kids. Here she is with some great grandkids. Charles and Kurt Bruchhaus? She lived at Ruth Bucklin and William Charles “Budda” Bruchhaus’ house in her later years.
Addie and Lou Bucklin in 1905
This is a photo of my mom’s paternal grandparents in 1905. They were married in 1898 and by the time this photo was taken, they already had five children. But before I finish counting off their children, let me tell you a little bit about the two of them.
Addie May Hine was born in Noblesville, Indiana, on Sept. 23, 1876. She was the oldest of six children born to George Hine and Susan Stanbrough. She had five younger brothers and the youngest was only eight years younger than she was. From the earliest photos of the family, it looks like they lived in a frontier area with a rough wood home. The family moved to Louisiana in 1894 and settled in the Hathaway area of Jefferson Davis Parish.
Louis Charles Bucklin was born in Masonville, Iowa, on April 11, 1873. He was the youngest child of James Bucklin and his second wife Mary Ann McGrath. James was from a family line with a long history in Massachusetts, while Mary Ann was an Irish immigrant. Louis had five older siblings – a half-sister and half-brother by his father and his first wife Rhoda Marie Gove, plus two brothers and a sister by his parents. In the 1880 census they were living in Coffin Grove, Iowa, which was a very small community in rural Iowa. Four years later the family moved to the Jennings, Louisiana, area and acquired homestead property in the Hathaway area. Louis was too young to stake a claim, but his father, brother and sister were able to.
Louis kept a journal starting in January of 1893 when he went off to school. He returned home at the death of his sister Jennie in June of 1893. From that point on his journal was mostly about farming and such. Except when he occasionally mentions a certain “Miss Hine” or “Addie” who came to help his mother with chores around the house. I suppose she was worth mentioning because he ended up marrying her in 1898, which brings us back to the top of the story.
Soon after this photo was taken, the three most important Bucklin offspring were sprung! In 1906 there came Herbert, who is the grandfather of our Joseph. Then in 1907 there was a double dose of goodness – the identical twins Fred and Clarence. Fred is my grandfather and Clarence is the father of Carla. There were a few more after that, but they’re hardly worth mentioning. I really shouldn’t joke about that because the next one, Edna, is the reason we have so many wonderful photos from way back when. She collected and protected many photos, though this one was kept by Ruth. Joseph and Louise visited and scanned numerous photos from both of them.
All in all, Addie and Lou had a nice even dozen children. Now I’m feeling a little obligated to name them all, so here goes: Leo, Mary, Ralph, Paul, Carl, Herbert, Clarence, Fred, Edna, Robert, Ruth, and Roy. That’s a lot of names to come up with. From the look of the photo, they seem like somewhat happy people – salt of the earth. I’d like to say that they lived long and happy lives, but sadly Lou died at the age of fifty-four. Addie went on the live into her eighties and died less than a month after I was born. I don’t have any personal memories of either Addie or Lou, but I do feel like I get to know them a little from the photos and stories that they left behind. And now, hopefully, you do too.
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Update for July 9, 2026 – Added a few slight bits of information for a reissue of this post on Facebook after ten years. I’m changing all of the older posts to change the spelling of Addie’s middle name to be consistently May.
Jean Trasimond Landry in 1861
I realized recently that I haven’t posted one of the oldest photos in my collection of old photos. It is a Civil War photo of my great great grandfather Trasimond Landry. He was my paternal grandmother’s maternal grandfather. And being that he was from the South, he was in the Confederate Army. The photo is dated as 1861. It’s a pretty clear photo considering how old it is.
I won’t talk about the politics of the Civil War. Oh, well, maybe just a little. Slavery is wrong. It is so hard for me to understand how people can treat their fellow human beings so cruelly. I hear things like, “But they treated them so nicely.” or “They kept the buildings they lived in nice and comfortable.” or “He really cherished him and left him a gold watch in his will.”
“Really?” I think, shaking my head. If you treated them so well, why weren’t we freed? If you liked the buildings so much, why don’t we trade? If you want to leave something, leave me my free will – worth innumerable gold watches compared to the life you stole from me. But I wasn’t there (thank goodness) and people are more enlightened now (hopefully).
So I’ll get back to talking about my great great grandfather, who grew up in a culture saturated with the slavery mentality. When he was born in 1839, his family had seven slaves on their property. The number increased continually until the time of the Civil War. In 1859 Trasimond went off to St. Joseph’s College in Bardstown, Kentucky, to finish his education. When that was completed in 1861, Trasimond then became part of the West Baton Rouge Tirailleurs. This group mustered into service of the 4th Louisiana Infantry Regiment. (For more information, see the book titled Tirailleurs by Thomas H. Richey, a cousin and fellow descendant of Trasimond.)
Trasimond fought in many battles during the war with people falling all around him. The story about his battles is very riveting. Fortunately for me and my relatives, he survived all of those perilous encounters. Of course all of us descend from survivors of famines, pestilence, and wars, but to read a book that describes the experience makes it a bit more personal.
After the war Trasimond married Amelie Bujol and they had five children together. In 1879 he was bitten by a mosquito. But not just any mosquito. This one carried the virus for the yellow fever. It proved fatal. To make it through musket fire, cannon shot, and slicing bayonets only to be taken down by a lowly mosquito. When the pesky bug bit him, he wouldn’t have known that it would be his downfall. Just the same, I hope he swatted it flat!
Feb. 26, 2021 – The website MyHeritage now has a feature that animates old photos. Of course I had to try it out on this old photo. It came out really well.