Grandfather’s Barn

Grandfather’s Barn

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8) That verse reminds me of my grandpa, Levi Latty. I can picture him going to his barn to milk, morning and evening, […]

Star Spangled Cat

Star Spangled Cat

In   honor of Flag Day, this is a re-run of a recent post. Star Spangled Cat By Blanche Day Manos “What?” I screeched. “Go to sea? Are you crazy?” Every one of my gray and white hairs stood straight up. Reggie laughed. “You look like a bottle brush, old chap,” he said. “You’ll love the […]

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, […]

In My Mother’s Bible

In uncertain times, we need an anchor, something unchangeable that we can cling to. It helps to have reminders that people have gone through hard times before now and survived. One of my nieces is interested in learning about family history. In trying to answer her questions, I turned to the place where our family […]

The Pine and the President

The Pine and the President

Happy Presidents Day. This is a good day to reflect on why we have presidents instead of kings, czars, or some other autocratic ruler. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that these men, elected to the highest office in the land, with all the weight of crucial decisions on their shoulders are, first of […]

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 […]