Whispers From the Past

Whispers From the Past

Delving into one’s ancestry is a fun and absorbing business. I’m finding out about ancestors from way, way back. Some of those finds are surprising. They are all fascinating. These people had stories and I, rooted in the present day, am listening, trying to hear what they had to say. They were from different parts […]

Exploration Gone Wrong

Exploration Gone Wrong

A couple of days ago, my post was on ancestry and the fun of exploring people of the past.  I’m blessed that my mother told me stories of her childhood that gave us a glimpse at the life of a young girl in rural Oklahoma in the early twentieth century. As another school year is […]

A Trip Back

A Trip Back

I’m actually writing this Tuesday evening. I’ll publish it Wednesday morning, August 5. It’s really quiet here now and it’s very nearly lonely. It’s at such times that I take a trip  back in memory, to a time a hundred or more years ago. In my mind, I go  to the small community of Etta […]

Rhymed Reminisces

by Blanche Day Manos Don’t tell me they are gone, for I can see them still The house, the spring, the burr oak tree, the barn beneath the hill. I smell the sausage sizzling, I hear the rooster crow, The sounds and scents of each new day that woke me long ago. I feel the […]

Camp  Out at the River

Camp Out at the River

Long ago in the community of Etta in northeastern Oklahoma, the Latty family liked to go camping, but not in springtime. Springtime was a time of busyness on the farm. Crops were growing and needed to be cared for, baby animals were being born. My mother and her family went camping on the Illinois River […]

Summer School at Etta

Summer School at Etta

  Times have changed and so have school terms. Today’s blog is the conclusion of the segment begun yesterday about the summer term at Etta Bend around 1915. This is taken from my book, The Heritage of Etta Bend. Although the picture is of an old-time school, it isn’t Etta. The words and story are my mother’s, […]