What is the ancestory of Lloyd Beaconsfield Landry?
Who was St. Claude Avenue named after?
Hey Blake,
Lloyd Beaconsfield Landry was a prominent medical doctor on the West Bank Ñ Algiers Ñ for whom the school is named. Do you have any material about him and his family?
Phillip Hughes
Dear Phillip,
L.B. Landry was not only a physician, but an educator as well. The son of Pierre Landry, he was born in Donaldson, Louisiana on March 11, 1878. He attended Gilbert Academy in Baldwin, La., and received a B.A. in 1902 at Fisk University in Nashville. While at Fisk, Landry was a member of the famous Fisk Jubilee Singers. Landry then taught for two years until he enrolled at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, receiving an M.D. in 1908.
Dr. Landry soon began to practice medicine in Algiers, and a successful practice it was. But the good doctor also found time for civic and community work. He organized and directed a vocal music group that specialized in music for religious and educational programs -- the Osceola Five.
He was married to Effie McGann, but they had no children.
For many years, Dr. Landry provided the school children in Algiers with free medical checkups, and he also served voluntarily as a probation officer. For more than 25 years of service to his community, a public school was named for him.
He died in New Orleans on Jan. 3, 1934, and was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery but later moved to Nashville.
Hey Blake,
For whom was St. Claude Avenue named?
Lee Horvitz
Dear Lee,
It depends on which part of St. Claude Avenue you mean. Part of it was originally named by Bernard Marigny and called Rue Des Bons Enfants or Good Children Street. It was the last street in his faubourg -- Faubourg Marigny. However, in 1852 the street was renamed to honor Don Claudio Tremé, a wealthy landowner and native of Sauvigny in France.
Claude Tremé had come to New Orleans in 1783, and soon became involved in hat making and selling. But he ran afoul of the law in October 1787 when he shot and fatally wounded a black slave (an alleged thief) on Tremé's property. In March of 1788, Tremé was sent to prison by Gov. Miro, and there he remained until 1791.
Two years later, Tremé married Julie Moreau; it was a fortunate marriage, indeed, because Julie was the principal heir to her grandmother's estate.
Grandmother was none other than Madame Julie Prevost Moreau, wife of the deceased Paul Moreau, and owner of an enormous plantation north of Rampart Street. Grandma died in 1794, and the newly weds took up residence in the plantation house near the city ramparts. However, Tremé wasn't planning to cultivate the old French plantation or run any of the many factories or brickyards on the property. Instead he tried to make a private subdivision near the house.
By 1798, he had laid out several streets perpendicular to Bayou Road. Among them was Rue Saint Claude, named for his patron saint. He also established Rue du Marais from present St. Philip to Bayou Road, and another street he called Ste. Julie, which was later widened into Esplanade Avenue.
That same year, Tremé began selling off a few lots of his property. Many of the people who bought lots in the Faubourg Tremé were free people of color along with French and Spanish colonial settlers and recent immigrants. In some blocks, all of the lots were sold to free people of color, and many of the buyers were women. Soon Creole cottages began to appear on the 60-foot lots.
In 1810, Treme sold the rest of his plantation, except for a few lots, to the City of New Orleans for $40,000. This was the city's first subdivision -- the earlier subdivisions of Faubourg Ste. Marie and Faubourg Marigny were private projects -- and also its largest.
Treme and his large family stayed in the plantation house for several months and then moved about 2 miles away from the city where he died on March 17, 1828. He is buried in St. Louis Cemetery II.
