Framed portrait of Waelder resident awaits new home

Down in Louisiana, where the black trees grow, is not only where you will hear the legend of voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, but where a framed portrait of Waelder resident Milvern Crozier sits awaiting a new home.

Lafayette, La., resident Robert LeBlanc reached out to the Gonzales Inquirer recently for help finding Croziers’ closest Texas relatives, so the portrait can be rehomed in the Lone Star State.

LeBlanc is the son of Geraldine Crockett LeBlanc, the grandson of Willie May Holland Crockett and great-grandson of John Ida Crozier Holland, who was Milvern Crozier’s sister. Milvern Crozier, who was born Feb. 25, 1883, sadly died at the age of 21 on Sept. 8, 1904, and was buried in Waelder Cemetery.

“I'm assuming my great grandmother, John Ida Crozier Holland, who we affectionately call 'Great Nanny', had this portrait of her brother, Milvern, in her home in Waelder,” LeBlanc said. “I would presume it first belonged to her mother, Texanna Missouri Hopkins Crozier. To the best of my memory, it was said he died of tuberculosis, but they referred to it as consumption. I don't recall seeing it at 'Great Nanny's' when we visited her.”

LeBlanc said when his ‘Great Nanny’ died in 1962, the portrait was passed on to his grandmother, Willie May Holland Crockett, called ‘Nanny’ by his family. It then was left to his mother, Geraldine Crockett LeBlanc Lyons, who lived in Port Arthur.

“It hung in her living room for years,” LeBlanc said. “Then one day, she decided to place a flowered picture on top. When my wife and I built our home in Lafayette, she knew my wife, Cindy, loved antiques and thought we'd enjoy having it. Of course, we took the flowered picture off.

“We are now in our seventies and have no children to pass it down to. Cindy had this idea to search around on the internet to see if we could find any Crozier descendants who might want the portrait. We started looking at the family names on the website, Find a Grave, and who managed them. Then we tried the local newspaper in Gonzales.”

The Inquirer has given LeBlanc’s information to Gonzales residents Richard and Barbara Crozier, as Richard is a descendant of the same Crozier family. If there are any closer relatives of Milvern Crozier who wish to have the portrait, they may contact Robert LeBlanc by email at cy_brown@bellsouth.net.

For this, Robert LeBlanc says, “Merci beaucoup!”