Hollyhock Girl

Hollyhock Girl

How many of you ladies remember making hollyhock dolls? One wilted bloom for the head, a full blossom for the dress and there was a flowery girl, all dressed up for a party.  Hollyhocks are old-timey flowers. Mom had lots of hollyhocks by her garden gate when I was a child. I believe that Ma […]

Sitting Down to Breakfast

As I get older, I think about “the good old days” and the way things used to be. I am grateful for my grandchildren who keep me anchored to the “here and now” and make the present a lively, happy place to be. In the back of my second Etta book, Remembering Etta Bend, I included […]

Etta–A Dear, Familiar Place

This is the final part of my sister Helen’s thoughts about our grandparents, Levi and Edna Latty, and life on the farm at Etta Bend. “When I hear anything about Nixon’s ‘Watergate’, I get a flashback to Pappy’s ‘watergap’ and I giggle. Anyway, the watergap of my childhood was a fence of vertical boards hung […]

Cream, Cousins, and Watercress

In the back of my second Etta book, Remembering Etta Bend, I included a section of personal remembrances of life at Etta. These were written by Ma and Pappy Latty’s two surviving children in 1992, Susie Latty Day and Georgia Latty Cochran as well as most of their grandchildren. The following is a remembrance of my sister, […]

Camping Out Long Ago

Memorial Day! I’m grateful to be living in the best country in the world. I am grateful to God for the defenders of our freedom, those who have put themselves between their families and harm. And I am grateful to be able to celebrate with my family. Some people go camping during this first holiday […]

Defying the Darkness

Defying the Darkness

It was a tiny, striped chipmunk, about one-third the size of D. C. the cat. D. C. had stalked her prey and the chipmunk had run until it had no place to go. Behind it was the corner of the yard with no escape route. I’m sure that small rodent’s heart was about to hammer […]