A Remembering Rock

It rests in my herb garden, a memory stone. It’s a reminder of a slower, quieter time, of the strong, good people who owned the farm which was the rock’s home. It’s just a dark rock, pitted by millenia. Cows’ and horses’ hooves have stepped on it and probably bare-foot children have stubbed their toes […]

Mama’s Story of 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, […]

You Have to Use Your Imagination

You Have to Use Your Imagination

Imagination is a wonderful thing. With imagination, you can see things that really aren’t there. With imagination this morning, I can take a trip of about a hundred miles and a hundred years and, there I am at Etta Bend, my mother’s childhood home. I can see the farm as it was a century ago. […]

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 […]

The Ticking of a Clock

The Ticking of a Clock

  When I hear a clock ticking, I go back a few decades and find myself in Ma and Pappy Latty’s house. They always had a wind-up clock and I can remember how the sound meant peace and security for me. I can see my grandparents’ living room, sun coming through the windows, and feel […]