Romain Octave Landry was born on August 9, 1843, in Louisiana to Adelard and Ursula Landry. His father was a sugar planter who owned $1,000 of real estate and $15,000 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, before enrolling at Spring Hill College.

 

He enlisted in the Confederate army, and he mustered in as a private in Captain Landry’s Company, Donaldsonville Louisiana Artillery on September 13, 1861. The unit took part in the Peninsula campaign, the Second Battle of Manassas, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Gettysburg, the Overland Campaign, the siege of Petersburg, and the Appomattox campaign. He surrendered as part of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865.

 

He returned to Ascension Parish after the war, and he married Georgiana Dicharry on February 12, 1866. The couple had no children, but they helped to raise a niece and several young cousins. According to an early biographer, he worked “with his father in sugar planting for several years” before “embarking in business on his own account as a store keeper and planter.” By 1870, he owned $3,000 of personal property. He moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, around 1905, and he died there of “grippe” on February 24, 1909.

SOURCES