Yesterday, April 12 was my mother, Susie Latty Day’s birthday. Mom has been gone for nearly twenty-four years now and there isn’t a day when I don’t miss her. I’d love to sit down at her dining table for just one more cup of coffee, just one more chat. Many times, I wonder what […]
An Old-Time Easter
·The following story is an excerpt from The Heritage of Etta Bend. It’s a story my mother told me, an old-time Easter, about her childhood in northeast Oklahoma. The “I” is my mother, Susie Latty Day. I thought it was appropriate for this Easter, more than 100 years after it happened. Mom told me this […]
A Turning Point
·Dignity in defeat and graciousness in victory, and a turning point in American history. I’ve often wished, if I could go back in time, that I might have been present that day, April 9, 1865, in the parlor of Wilmer McLean of Appomattox Court House, Virginia. I would like to have seen General Robert […]
Recorded in the Bible
·In uncertain times, we need an anchor, something unchangeable that we can cling to. It helps to have reminders that people have gone through hard times before now, and survived. One of my nieces, for example, is interested in learning about family history. In trying to answer her questions, I turned to the place where […]
Don’t Be Fooled
·You may have a fly on your nose, a lizard on your head, or your shoes may be untied. Watch out! It’s April Fool’s Day! How long has that light-hearted tradition been around? Well over three hundred years. It’s a time when people get kind of giddy, thinking about winter being over and spring […]
Rain, a Hundred Years Ago
·On this rainy spring day, I’m thinking about long ago Etta and my Latty family. It would be dark on the farm at this hour, house lit only by kerosene lamps, no outdoor lights at all. Pappy would take a lantern as he walked through the rain, across the road to the barn to […]