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 […]
Jan 27, 2025
January Thaw
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In the days when my grandparents, Levi and Edna Latty, were on their farm at Etta, my grandfather looked forward to the January thaw, those few January days when winter paused to take a deep breath and remember that spring would soon be on its way. During the January thaw, Pappy would hitch his team […]
Jul 6, 2024
The Comfort of Quilts
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The Ozarks Mountaineer was a wonderful magazine that, sadly, ceased publishing a few years ago. My piece about my grandmother’s quilts found a home in that magazine in December 1998. This was a story as my mother told it to me. Today’s post is excerpted from that story. Quilting is an ancient craft which still […]
May 20, 2024
Culture and Traditions
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One by one, we abandon traditions, leaving the past behind. It’s sad, because, although we shouldn’t live in the past, we need a sense of continuity. There is something comforting about following patterns, about observing practices that have been carried down through generations. It gives me a connection to my ancestors. Decoration Day, always the […]
Apr 12, 2024
A Country Life
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Today would have been my mother, Susie Latty Day’s, birthday. She was born in 1906. I’m grateful she told me some stories of her childhood because it was a way of life that is now gone from the American scene and will never return. But,even though this way of life is gone, it’s important to […]
Jul 7, 2023
A Land of Many Springs
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My mother was born in 1906. She had many memories of Cherokee County, the way it was when she was a child. One of the things she remembered was the abundance of fresh, clean water. These are her words, her story as she told it to me: Green country used to be a land of […]
