Back in 1992, I published the second book about my mother’s childhood at Etta Bend, Cherokee County, Oklahoma. Mom told me these stories and I was privileged to write them to be published, first of all, in The Tahlequah Daily Press, and then gathered into a couple of books. Mom was the middle child of Levi and Mary Edna Latty. She, with her sisters Georgia and Alice, and her little brother Henry, lived on a large farm at Etta. It was a privileged childhood in many ways. Work was hard, true, but they had faith, love, lots of fun, and they had each other. These are the words of Susie Latty Day, as she told the story about some exciting happenings at Etta.
When I was a child, no one in our community had ever heard of a radio and television was undreamed of. When storms or other weather changes were to take place, the only warning we got came from our own observations. Several tornadoes roared over the farms at Etta, but none touched down, with one exception. One day Grandma Willis and Aunt Effie were watching storm clouds when they saw the long finger of a tornado dip into the Illinois River. Spray shot high into the air, then the tornado withdrew.
One spring night, a crowd gathered at our house for a good time of singing around the organ. Clouds began to cluster before dark, but they didn’t look ominous. Then, above the sound of our voices, a low, discordant growl began and grew. We hushed, our hearts hammering, as a thunderous roar passed over our house.
“What was that?” I asked.
“It must have been a tornado,” Papa answered. “Thank the Lord it stayed up there.”
Another time, a far less dangerous event caught us by surprise. Papa and his farm hands were working in the field one afternoon while we children helped Mama in the garden. Twilight shadowed the sky. Papa drove his team up from the cornfield and unharnessed them for the night. Chickens went to roost in the henhouse.
The day seemed peculiarly short and the sunlight was eerie and murky, but night was unmistakably coming. However, instead of deepening darkness, the sky grew lighter and then, there was the sun, not yet below the horizon.
Mama looked at Papa. “Why, it was an eclipse,” she said.
Sometime in the 1920s, came another exciting celestial happening. We were eating supper, the coal oil lamp glowing in the middle of the table. Suddenly, the room got brighter and brighter; then, just as quickly became dim again. A loud explosion jarred us. We ran to the porch. A glowing path arched across the sky, showing a meteorite’s fiery passage.
Those were Mom’s memories. I’m glad she told me these experiences. I’m glad that through her, I had an eye-witness to history in that celestial show, the eclipse of 1918. And, maybe in the future, we’ll tell our grandchildren about the eclipse that will take place on August 21, 2017. It should be quite an event!
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