Almost Twins

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Joseph Delta Lafleur, Jr (1929-) and Alonzo Dyer Lafleur (1930-) circa 1937. Presumably First Communion

They were so close to being twins. My uncle J.D. was born in December, my father was born the following October, only 10 months later. When my uncle went off to first grade, my father sat dejectedly on the doorstep waiting for him to return home. But before they could go off to play, my schoolteacher grandmother would review the day’s lessons with my uncle. My father naturally joined in.

When my father went off to first grade the following year, the teacher realized he already knew the lessons, so he joined my uncle in second grade. The boys graduated high school together and went off to LSU together in 1946, where they shared an overcrowded dormitory room with returning World War II soldiers. The following year, my uncle went off to the military academy at West Point.

Years later, my uncle confided in me that he had felt bad about leaving my father all alone at LSU. But when he returned home at the end of the school year, he found the teenage boy he left had become a self-assured young man. “He did fine without me.”

About Photo+Story: Inspired by a competition at the RootsTech 2018 genealogy conference, the series distills family stories to a single photo plus 150* words or less. (*this one’s 200 words)

Out of the Piney Woods

Piney Woods Cattle
Hadley Alonzo Dyer (1875-1935) center, with young daughters Susie Dyer Lafleur (1901-2002) and Bertha Dyer Fontenot (1898-1982)

When my great-grandfather Hadley Alonzo Dyer was just 10 years old, he and his brother Machen, aged 12, would “hitch up their teams and haul loads to and from Lecompte, often camping in the woods by them-selves.” So wrote a reporter for the Alexandria Town Talk in May 1885. He made that twelve mile trip from the piney woods along Spring Creek to the plantations on Bayou Boeuf many times over the years: driving cattle from the hill country, delivering meat to the lumber companies and more.

In five decades, he moved his family from Loyd to Forest Hill, up to Boyce on the Red River, then back to Forest Hill again, finally settling on a dairy farm near Oakdale. All dutifully reported by the Alexandria Town Talk. My grandmother was always vague about where exactly she was from. Now I know why.

About Photo+Story: Inspired by a competition at the RootsTech 2018 genealogy conference, the series distills family stories to a single photo plus 150 words or less.

Momma Married Well

Dyer and Joyce as Young Couple
A young couple in love: Alonzo Dyer Lafleur (1930-) and Joyce Rita Bergeron (1930-) circa 1953

My parents met on a blind date arranged by mutual friends. She was working as a medical technologist at the Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge. He was finishing his master’s degree in chemistry at LSU. Daddy would come courting on Sunday afternoons, frequently sharing the couch with another suitor named Talmadge who always drove over in his truck with his cousin Ewell.

When Momma chose Daddy, she didn’t know that Talmadge’s family would strike oil on their family farm located smack dab on top of the Tuscaloosa Trend, nor that Talmadge would become a wealthy businessman, owning Hilton hotels in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. When I found out as a teenager, I teased Momma about how she could have married rich. But between my gratitude for having Daddy as a dedicated father to us and loving husband to her, and the stories I heard of Talmadge’s family drama, I’d say she  definitely married well.

About Photo+Story: Inspired by a competition at the RootsTech 2018 genealogy conference, the series distills family stories to a single photo plus 150 words or less.

A Truck Full of Cousins

Truck Full of Cousins
After Sunday dinner when the weather was fine, our grandfather would load us cousins into his truck and drive us to his camp by Lake Chicot. There, we’d throw hickory nuts, scare each other with cries of “Snake!” and shriek and jump for no good reason at all.

I’m sure my grandmother sighed with relief when the truck pulled away. No more kids running back and forth through the kitchen’s swinging doors, no more chicken fighting in the living room. To this day, none of the cousins has fessed up to breaking the glass top of her coffee table. I swear it wasn’t me.

My entry to the RootsTech 2018 Photo+Story Competition for the FAMILY category.