Pretty Well Blessed

As I get older, I think about “the good old days” and the way things used to be.  In the second Etta book, Remembering Etta Bend, I included remembrances of two of Ma and Pappy Latty’s children, Georgia Latty Cochran and my mother, Susie Latty Day. As I’m sure they would agree, they were pretty well […]

The Umbrella Oak

A large oak stands in front of the house that belonged to my parents. It is so tall and its limbs spread so wide that anyone standing under it during a rain is sheltered, as if by a giant umbrella. The tree is old and has seen many changes. A busy street a few feet […]

Her Dreams

Her name was Lydia and I can imagine family and friends called her “Lyddie.” She was my grandmother’s grandmother. Born in 1823, she was a widow who lived by herself on her farm in Georgia. Recently, I read copies of letters she wrote to her daughter,  Tep, and to her granddaughter,  Edna. One letter is dated 1890. Dear […]

Rainy Day Nostalgia

This long weekend is off to a wet start. Rain puts me in a nostalgic mood and I think of what a rainy morning may have been like on the Latty farm when my mother was a young girl. My grandfather always went to the barn to milk while the morning was still as dark […]

Looking Back

This is the second and final installment of my May 5, 1985 Daily Press article about the tornado which destroyed Peggs, Oklahoma on May 2, 1920. In 1920, Walter Neel lived with his parents, brothers and sisters on the Gid Morgan farm, two and a fourth miles southeast of Peggs. The storm went a mile […]

A Look Back

Each year I re-print the story of the Peggs tornado that I wrote for The Tahlequah Daily Press in 1985. This story is important because it is a part of our history. It is a sad story, but it is also full of human compassion and courage. We should not forget the many whose lives […]