Things My Mama Taught Me

All the good things that I am, came from my parents. The not-so-good? Well, I’ve  managed those things on my own. This morning I was thinking about things my mother taught me. I had never really tried to itemize them, they were just there. To list them would be like trying to draw a diagram […]

Goose Summer

Goose Summer

From The Heritage of Etta Bend by Susie Latty Day. Time: around 1918, Place: the Latty Farm. In the fall come rare, sparkling days that are warm and bright, with very little wind, when nature seems to savor the last remnants of summer. Spider webs break loose from their moorings and float through the air, […]

In the Walnut Woods

In the Walnut Woods

From The Heritage of Etta Bend by Susie Latty Day. Time: around 1918; Place: A small farm in Oklahoma. Autumn, on our farm at Etta, had its special joys. East of the spring branch, maples blazed in gold and russet. Oaks wore yellow and brown. Walnut trees dropped their leaves, then shed their green-coated nuts […]

Shelling Corn

Shelling Corn

My mother, Susie Latty Day, told me this story about a fun time during her childhood. The year was around 1918. These are her words. One chore we always enjoyed was shelling corn to be taken to the grist mill and ground into meal. At supper, Papa would announce that we had to shell corn […]

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 […]

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 […]