The Latty Farm at Etta

This morning I’m thinking of houses and how homes are much more than houses. I’m thinking of how most people once lived on farms and now most people don’t. A lot of us have postage-stamp size yards, nestled right up against our neighbors’ yards. And some of us even live in layers, stacked on top of each other in apartments. No yard to call our own. I have a theory: crime increases at the direct rate of having less room. Remember “Elbow room,” said Dan’l Boone and Mr. Boone kept pushing west because he couldn’t stand being hemmed in.

But even the efficiency apartment or the smallest room can be a home if love lives there. Because it’s love that makes a house a home.

My mother remembered the Etta Bend of her childhood and the farm she and her sisters and brother grew up in. She told me about the buildings that were there and where they were spaced. They had plenty of room because Levi and Edna Lattty’s farm was more than 300 acres. And then just a piece down a winding, dusty road was Edna’s parents’, Ben and Tep Willis’ farm, of equal size. Pappy’s farm was like a small town in itself.

The road bisected the house and barn. Large, flat rocks stacked atop each other were the steps into the front yard. Once in the yard, steep wooden steps went up to the front porch. A walnut tree grew on the southeast side of the house, by the chimney. Pappy’s blacksmith shop, the one that withstood the attack by the bull, was south of the yard, in the vicinity of the old Easter Tree ground.

Across the road was Pappy’s barn. A short distance from it was the granary. Then up toward the house but still on the barn side of the road stood the spring house, covering the water source for the Latty family.  Lots of room on the Latty farm and lots of love, enough to go around and plenty left over for neighbors or strangers who needed help.

Ma and Pappy Latty’s farm was like a nest where their fledglings got their start. Then Alice, Susie, Georgia and Henry grew up and flew off to start homes of their own. Now we descendants of Levi and Edna live in many different places but nestled deep within the hearts of each of us is the desire to go back home. So once a year, we return–not to that wonderful farm of the past century but we get together. We bring our families and share stories and food. We celebrate our heritage. As I look at all these people, flown so far from the nest of Etta, I am thankful that our chief inheritance from Ma and Pappy Latty is the love we have for them, for our homes and each other. Love is our heritage of Etta Bend.