(macon.com) Claude Jr. is the oldest Landry offspring. The others are Corey, 16, Christian, 15, Cemoni, 14, Codrick, 13, Cierra, 12, Cordell, 11, Ceyonna, 10, and Camron, 7. Obviously, Claude Sr., 44, likes the letter C.
“I figure it keeps them close,” Landry said.
It must have worked. Despite the cramped quarters, Landry said his children get along well, and they don’t like sleeping apart from one another.
“They are real close,” he said. “That’s the thing I love and a prayer that’s been answered.”
Their mother left home about five years ago, Landry said. He said she sought a divorce, in part, because she had trouble coping with the responsibilities of a large family.
“I think she couldn’t handle it after a while,” he said. “I couldn’t understand it.”
Landry wasn’t afraid when he was left alone to raise the children, he said. And he hasn’t considered the experience after the divorce to be a particular burden.
“I don’t know where I would be without my kids,” he said. “If I didn’t have them to keep me together, I don’t know where I would be.”
He wasn’t close to his own father until he became adult. He was raised by his grandparents, and credits them with instilling in him his sense of responsibility to family.
“My grandfather was a real man,” Landry said. “When he said something, that was it.”
Landry also said he couldn’t make it now without the help of his grandmother, Viola Landry, who usually does the cooking for the family.
CHILDREN LEARN TO ADJUST
There are signs of the Landrys’ urban upbringing in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward – Claude Jr.’s cap turned askew, Christian’s dreadlocks – but there’s also something old-fashioned about the family, an innocence that makes them seem more like inner-city Waltons.
At first, moving to Warner Robins was tough for the children, who had never lived anywhere except New Orleans. There was a lot of clamoring to go back, Landry said, but he quickly saw that was not going to be a possibility.
His home was destroyed, more from wind damage than flooding, and the city was in turmoil.
“I love New Orleans. It’s my hometown,” he said. “If it was just me, I would probably go back, but when you’ve got kids, it’s not about you. If you go back there now, it looks like the hurricane happened yesterday.”
It took some time, but now even his children agree. They went to an all-black school in New Orleans, and now say they have enjoyed being in a school system with more diversity.
“It prepares you for life, because you are not going to be dealing with just black people all your life,” Claude Jr. said.
Houston County leaders have long contended that the local school system is a key reason the county is growing so rapidly. Landry could be Exhibit A.
He said his children have been learning much more here, and the school system is a key reason he decided to keep his family in Warner Robins. He and his children have found it to be far safer than their New Orleans schools, and Landry especially likes the fact that teachers here call him any time they have a problem with one of his children.
“These teachers out here, they call you for everything, and I respect that,” he said. “In New Orleans, they didn’t care.” (more…)
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