Although I have no descendants, Lorraine's may be interested
in my memories of our parents and grandparents.
    Emmit Girdell Latta, son of Samuel Elish Lattan and Orpha
Elizabeth Gorton, was born on May 28, 1849.  He married Lura
Merriam Brown, daughter of Jefferson Luther Brown and Helen Amanda
Merriam.  Lura was born on April 1, 1857 and married at Wilcocx, Pa.
on  Aug. 27, 1879.
    Emmit must have been an adventurous young man for he ran away
from home when he was sixteen to fight in the Civil War.  His
parents appealed to Pres. Lincoln to return him to his home.  This was
done, only to have Emmit run away again.  This time his parents
didn't interfere.  He served two enlistments in the army:  first  in
Battery A, 1st U.S. Artillery and later in Co. 1, 19th N.Y. Cavalry.
    According to the story I heard as a girl, he accompanied a sur-
vying team to the west to help survey the largely uninhabited part
of our country, including the areas now in the national park system.
This must have occurred after his army service because he didn't
get married until he was thirty years old.
  He had and impressive list of titles, having been vice president
of two banks, a shoe company, and a lumber company in Canada.  He
was a partner in Brown, Latta and Condon Real Estate in Wilcox, Pa.
He was the first president of the Board of Trustees when Friendship
was incorporated.  His formal education was limited but he educated
himself by extensive reading.
    He had over one hundred patents on inventions he had made on
horses harness, bicycles and typewriters.
    Emmit and Lura lived first in WilCox, then in Friendship, N.Y.
where all their children were born.  Their declining years were
spent in Syracuse in a large three-story home on Euclid Ave., which
at that time was a wealthy neighborhood.
    He was an undemonstrative and silent man with thin, sandy
hair and a mustache.  I was in awe of him but believe now that he
must have been more sensitive and caring than he appeared.  He
developed diabetes in his later years, as did each of his three
sons.  I think both my father and I have some of his characteristics.
Steve looks like him.


The Lattas were well-to-do by standards of the day.  Unfortunately
he invested heavily in railroad stocks and lost most
of his fortune with the advent of the automobile.

    I do not have much insight into the character of my grandmother,
Lura, for she died when I was only seven years old.
She was a doting grandmother and a female Santa Claus.  She was
more partial to me than Lorraine, which was unfair.  Perhaps, it
was because I was named after her.
    In addition to music, for she was a graduate of Baxter
Musical Institute, she had talent in hand sewing, tatting and
fine embroidery.  She also did china painting, several pieces of
which are still treasured by her descendents.
    She did me a great service in telling me about Jesus, thus
establishing the strongest motivation of my life.
    At the age of sixty-four she was advised to have her tonsils
taken out.  After the operation, she caught pneumonia and died.
Grandpa tried to get in touch with her at a séance.  The voice
claiming to be his wife said something grandpa said she would
have never said.  He was very angry at the deception.
    They  had three sons:  Jefferson Brown, Raymond Frank and
Hubert Isaac.



    Out grandparents on my mother's side of the family were
Frank Morris and Ida Hart.  (I don't have genealogies to refer to
for this branch of the family.)
    He must have finished eighth grade for he qualified to teach
school in his early career.  Later he became a civil servant for
the City of Syracuse in the Water Department.  I don't know how
many years he worked in the city, but shortly before my mother's
marriage, he was appointed Sanitary Inspector and moved to city-
owned property at the foot of Skaneateles Lake.
    It was advertised that Skaneateles Lake had the purest water
in the world and he was to help keep it that way, since the lake
was the source of the Syracuse water supply.
    Grandpa was present when the pipeline for water was laid
between Syracuse and the lake.  He walked through every foot of it,
check the seal of the joints between lengths of pipe.

In those days there was no plumbing in the cottages that
rimmed the lake.  His job, with his helpers, was to navigate a
large boat and stop at each cottage to collect cans of sewage
from the outhouses and dispose of the contents in a huge septic
tank oh the city property.  It doesn't sound like a prestigious
job, but he was the supervisor.  His home was in a peaceful and
beautiful spot.  It is still my favorite place on earth,  As a
child, I visited ther in the summertime and still remember
seeing grandpa go out in his boat after supper and catch large
pike and lake trout right in front of the house.
    He was a large-boned man over six feet tall and ranther hand-
some.  One could see his Mohawk indian heritage in his face.
Mother looked a lot like him.  He was a proud and opinionated man.
He had hayfever and asthma, which has passed down in the family,
unfortunately.  He died of a stroke at the age of seventy-eight,
a few months before Carol was born.

    Ida seemed to be a typical housewife.  She was a good cook,
churned her own butter and baked bread.  There were always a few
Plymouth Rock hens around that she raised for their eggs.  (In
those days one could take eggs to the grocery store and exchange
them for other food.  Mother told the story of her visit to her
grandmother in New Hope.  She was a city girl and was greatly
embarrassed when her grandmother gave her an egg and asked her
to go to the store and exchange it for a spool of thread.)  Ida
left home at an early age to do housework for others.  She was
about 5 feet tall with dark hair.
    When she was in her sixties, she developed cancer of the
thyroid gland.  She refused to have anything done for it, because
she was terrified of surgery.  When it was too late, she changed
her mind and wanted the operation.  She died at the age of sixty-
eight on July 13th, Graydon's birthday.
    She had four children;  Frederick, Elsie, Madge and Francis.
    It had been her custom to make fruit cake a year in advance.
In the interval, it was kept moist by occasional basting with
liquor.  I still remember the solemnity with which the family ate
her last fruit cake on the Christmas following her death.

My father, Hubert Isaac Latta, was a quiet man but dearly
beloved by his daughters.  After a third son, his mother gave up
hope of ever having a daughter, so taught Hubert some feminine
pursuits, such as cooking and sewing.  He was in precarious health
since he had rheumatic fever at an early age.  It damaged his heart
to the extent that his doctor told his parents he would never live
to adulthood.   Hubert didn't know this, of course.
    His mother kept him in dresses and curls in his earliest
years.  (This was not an unusual custom at the time.)  One family
story is of his going alone to a barber and getting his hair cut.
He convinced the man that he had his parents' consent
by asking that his curls be saved.
    His parents were rather permissive with him.  They probably
wanted his short life to be a happy one.  He was allowed to play
football in high school, which surely was dangerous.  He went to
a military school for a year but didn't like it and didn't return.
He decided he wanted to be a farmer and raise chickens, so he
went to Morrisville Agricultural School.
    He was married at the age of twenty, and had his first indication
of heart trouble while he was being fitted for his wedding suit.
I was born within the year on a farm in Warners, N.Y., so he
quickly had family responsibilities.  We didn't live there
very long for some reason.  We lived briefly at Vernon and Utica
where Lorraine was born,
    Another family story was the flu epidemic of 1918.  Dad was
especially sick.  The doctor tried his best to get him into a hospital,
but they were all filled.  Mother and Lorraine were also ill.
Nothing was done to care for them between the doctor's visits
but what they could stagger around to do for themselves.  I was
nearly 4 years old, and under mother's direction, went out to
get milk from the porch, or any food the neighbors might have
left for us.  I slept in bed with mother every night but never
caught the flu.  We all recovered.  Praise the Lord!  The death
toll was high for this plague.
    Next we lived in Sherrill for a few years, and dad worked at
Oneida, Lmtd. silver factory.
    When I was seven years old, dad finally got his chicken farm.

(Note from page 4: military school was Culver Military)

We lived at Red Creek for ten years, I had a happy childhood there
in spite of having severe attacks of asthma and hay fever,
(For some reason, I never again had asthma after the age of sixteen.)
    Dad had large incubators and sold hundreds of baby chicks
he had hatched each spring.  He kept about a thousand laying hens
and raised broilers.  These were male chicks that he fed for six
weeks, then dressed and sold to a hotel.  I remember one weekend
we plucked the feathers off from ninety-seven broilers.  There
were always eggs to gather and spots of dirt to wash off of them
with a damp cloth and baking soda.
     There were apple and pear orchards on the farm.  He planted
cherry trees too.  Cherries are an important crop in that area.
He raised strawberries and brussel sprouts, which were crops
we all helped to harvest.  We worked hard enough to succeed.
I guess it was the depressed times that defeated us.
    Grandpa Latta died in the late twenties and left dad $10,000.
He wanted to pay off the mortgage on the farm, but the former owner
would not agree to it, preferring a steady, monthly income.  Dad
bought a railway car of chicken feed, which could have been a great
saving.  He stored it in an empty section of a chicken house.  The
place became infested with rats that destroyed much of the feed.
    Tines were getting hard,  We moved to Cortland one winter and
dad worked in a factory in order to get some cash.  I was a sophomore
in high school that year.  Then we returned to the farm.  In 1932,
dad had one of his many heart attacks.  Finally he lost the farm
through foreclosure and we moved to Cato.
    Prospects of going to college didn't look good, so I used a
$500.00 inheritance from my grandmother to go to the Crouse Irving
Hospital to study nursing.  It was not my choice of a vocation but
I didn't think I would be any good in business, if typing were any
indication,  I flunked out in 10 weeks,  I was doing well scholastically,
but it was discovered that I had a 4 plus tuberculain test.
That was interpreted to mean that I was very susceptible to
tuberculosis.  Since this disease was still very common among the
hospital patients, the authorities didn't want me there.
    Through friends, mother and dad hear about the Syracuse State
School and its need for couples to be house mother and father to

homeless boys.  They were accepted and went to work in Syracuse.
They were on duty day and night except for a few days off each month.
Lorraine and I could not stay with them, so we went to Houghton,
Lorraine a senior in high school and I beginning college.
We were allowed to room together in a college dormitory.
    Dad really found his niche in the State School.  The boys
liked him because he was fair and impartial.  He enjoyed teaching
them farming skills, arranging work schedules so they could ear
money working for neighboring farmers, and helping them become
self-supporting and free young men.
    The folks bought the old Morris house in New Hope to have a
place to live on their days off as well as for their future
retirement home.
    I don't know how many years it was after we finished college
that dad had such a severe heart attack that he couldn't resume
working.  In order to be nearer doctors,  my parents sold the New
Hope house and put in with me to buy a house in Syracuse near my
work.  George, a crippled young man from the State School came to
live with us to be company for dad and to do housework, while mother
and I were working.


    As mother's retirement neared, she got the necessary retirement
papers, filled them out and kept them at home. I
guess dad felt guilty about her working so hard in her sixties,
for he sent the papers to headquarters without her knowledge.
Neither of the could have guessed, tht if she had worked only
two more years, her job would have been covered by Social Security.
All state employees were covered at that time.


    We could see that dad was becoming pretty frail, but he had
a wish to spend one more winter in the Florida sunshine,  Mother wanted
to grant him his desire, although she was afraid he might die so
far from home.  I took some vacation time and dad and I took turns
driving 100 mile stings and got to Florida.  I came back to Syracuse
by bus.  Dad told me when I said goodbye to him that he was afraid
that he could never drive back home alone.
(This rather haunted me but I didn't see what I could do about it.
 I figured he could take all the time he needed to do it.)
    He did enjoy a quiet winter basking in the sun.  The motel
owner allowed him to go into the orchard and pick grapefruit for
his breakfast.  He had his fill to steatk and fresh strawberries,
On his way home he died in a motel in Pennsylvania.  That was in
1955 and he was sixty-two.
    Our father was not successful in a material way, but he had
courage.  Over half his life he lived with the threat of sudden
death hanging over him, yet he was thoughtful, kind, humorous and
never unpleasant to live with.

    Mother, Madaline Murdock Morris, better known as Madge, was
a strong-willed personality and had a brilliant mind.  As the
middle of three daughters in a lower middle class home, she was
the only one ambitious to get an education.   My opinion  is that
she was a social climber also and wanted to make a good marriage.
She graduated from high school and was eligible to teach.
    At the age of eighteen she went to New Hope to teach in a
one-room school.  Many recent teachers had been driven out of
that school by unruly farmboys among the students.  She was
warned never to go through a doorway immediately after opening
the door.  Once, while she waited, an ax fell and bit into the
floor in front of her.  The boys didn't drive her out, however.
She was about six feet tall and extremely thin.  She told me that
she wore ruffles under her shirtwaists to disguise the fact.  During
this period, she also taught in a smal school near Oneida lake.
    She and dad had been acquainted for many years.  They were
married when she was twenty-two.  She wasn't aware of his heart
condition.
    She was a capable housewife but rather domineering.  I believe
she made most of the decisions for the family.
    After we had moved to Red Creek, she finished a normal school
education by riding with a friend who drove back and forth to
Oswego Normal School every day.  This gave her a permanent
teaching certification.
    I don't remember how many years later it was that she taught
at the Onondaga Indian Reservation in Nedrow for a year during
a low point in our finances.  She got home only on weekends.  Dad
cooked for us and kept Lorraine and I going to school.  A favorite
dish was creamed salmon on toast -- sometimes a little burnt.
I still like it.

She was determined that her daughters were going to have a
college education, whether he wanted one or not.  (Lorraine was not
enthusiastic.)  She was right,   of course.  My life would have been
much poorer without the education to get a good job.  Lorraine, too
used her education to teach for many years at the college level.
    Dad had six major heart attacks in all.  There was no Medicare
then.  Mother said every time they had a little money ahead in
the bank, he was in the hospital again and used it all.  I know of
at least one time when dad's expenses were paid for by the county.
He had been some distance from home serving on jury duty whe he
had the heart attack.  That was hard on us because we didn't have
any way to get to the hospital to see him.
    Mom was a stalwart soul, but when we lost the farm she really
broke down.  She told my sister and I that if it hadn't been for
us, she would throw herself in front of a train.  The only other
time I saw her as despondent was at dad's funeral.  I am telling
you this to remind you we all have bad times.  Hang on!
There will be a brighter tomorrow.
    Out parents made great sacrifices to put Lorraine and I through
college.  The borrowed money.  They went without.  Mother didn't
even have a warm winter coat.  Our clothes were all home made.
I am still ashamed to remember how I hated to wear that brown,
woolen coat that looked home made.  Mother didn't sew as well as
Lorraine and I do now.
    Dad really kicked over the traces in celebration after we
finished college.  He bought a new car without consulting mother
beforehand.  She never forgot his extravagance and mentioned it
upon occasion.
    Mother lived for twenty-five years after father died.  For the
first five years we remained in our home and she took in two state
school girls so they could break away from the school and work on
their own.  There were a number of them, most of the fine, young
women who had been brought up in the school through no fault of
their own.  I became tired of yard work, snow shoveling, etc.  We
sold our home and moved into an apartment complex where we lived
for sixteen years.

    Then mother was free to go to St Petersburg, Fla. in the winter
to a retirement hotel.  The same people came back there every year.
She reveled in the freedom to go out with her friends and enjoy
herself.
    When she was eighty years old, it was suspected that she had
cancer,  She refused to be operated on at that time and miss Carl's
wedding.  After that was over, it was discovered
that she did, indeed, have cancer on a kidney.   The whole organ
was removed.  She lived for nine years before cancer broke out
again.
    The last four years of her life were spent in Arizona, near
Phoenix, much against her will.  She made the best of it and became
acquainted with neighbors on the block.  She refused to do any
sightseeing, however, because she didn't trust my driving.
    You may not believe what I am about to tell you, but I do.
A good friend of both of us told me that mother appeared to her
later on the same night she died.  She was carrying a clutch
purse and wore a dress of a small blue flowered print.
Edna described the dress in detail but it was not one I recognized.
Mother exclaimed, "Oh Edna!  I am so happy!"  Edna insists that
she was awake.  In fact, she was unable to sleep at all that night.
(At that time she wasn't aware that mother had died.)  This
apparition was especially significant to me because I remember
a discussion that Edna, mother and I had about life after death.
Mother said she didn't believe in it.

    Perhaps you think i have been unkind in some of my assessments
of these people.  I have tried only to be honest, as I saw them.
I love them all.
    Our ancestors were good people.  No, I shall say,
"They are good people."  We can be proud of our family tree.

Composed and mangled by your Aunt Virginia in 1989.