Culture and Traditions

One by one, we abandon traditions, leaving the past behind. It’s sad, because, although we shouldn’t live in the past, we need a sense of continuity. There is something comforting about following patterns, about observing practices that have been carried down through generations. It gives me a connection to my ancestors. Decoration Day, always the […]

A Special Day

A Special Day

  Yesterday would have been my mother, Susie Latty Day’s, birthday and if she were here, I’d bake her favorite dessert–lemon pie. The lilac bush at her house in Tahlequah is blooming now and that’s fitting because she loved lilacs. In fact, when she was sixteen, her dear Aunt Ettie, Tettle, she called that aunt, […]

The Easter Egg Tree

The Easter Egg Tree

The following story is an excerpt from The Heritage of Etta Bend, a story my mother told me about her childhood in northeast Oklahoma. The “I” is my mother, Susie Latty Day. Mom told me this story and I wrote it to be included in The Heritage of Etta Bend in 1989. It was spring, […]

A Special Day

A Special Day

Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States of America. The day of the week was Thursday and Easter was coming in just three days. Five days before, Mt. Vesuvius had erupted and devastated Naples, Italy. In only six days to come, the great San Francisco earthquake would hit California. In Etta Bend, Indian Territory, […]

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom

On Mother’s Day, Mom always wore a corsage of white roses to church. Used to be that was the custom–if your mother was no longer with you, you wore white flowers; if she was still here, you wore red flowers. That tradition has probably flown, like so many. I think of Mom every day and […]

A Special Birthday

Today, April 12, is my mother, Susie Latty Day’s birthday. Mom has been gone for nearly twenty-five 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 my […]