Vernon John Latta

and his wife

Mary Elizabeth (Miller) Latta

1939

These are my parents, a year before they were married. I was so blessed, so very blessed to belong to them. They made sure that my life was grounded in faith in God and Jesus Christ, our Lord. We went to church Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, and usually on Wednesdays. Youth groups and summer church camps were a main part of my life. Dad was the chief organizer in the construction of both the Trinity Brethren Church in Canton and the Beach Baptist Church at Fort Myers Beach. He was a deacon and superintendent of the Sunday School. They made sure that I practiced my acrobats during those grade-school years even when I was less than cooperative. We gardened--both flowers and vegetables. We canned. Mom was president of the Canton Garden Club, and I was involved in Little Gardeners. She made arrangements for church almost every Sunday. She taught me to sew. She took me to the YWCA for various crafts and sports. (Swimming at the Y in the 1950s meant wearing the Y's tank suits, and caps were required--neither of those impressed me much.) Practicing for synchronized swimming shows was routine for several years. When I was 11, they got me a Hackney pony. Blaze sure liked to run! They showed interest in my coin and stamp collections, and all my craft projects. By the time I was in high school, Dad had built a boat in the basement, and weekends were then centered on water skiing so we sold the pony. He saw to it that I learned to play tennis, which I still play today (not so good, but still on the court in 2015). From my teen days through adulthood, we played euchre (a card game) together. (Grandpa Schaub taught Vern to play.) Yes, I was blessed indeed.

This photo is from the collection of my aunt, Janedith Ellen Latta, my loving Aunt Jan, Aunt Janie. It was in a box of about a hundred slides taken in the 1930s, 1940s, and a couple from 1952. I had them converted to a CD and to paper prints a couple years before she passed in 2006. She did the identifications on all the pictures. I think Aunt Jan took most of them. Some were probably taken by her father David Wilson Latta. When he was a young teenager, he had a blackroom there at home in Monroe County, Ohio, and developed his own photos. He even thought he might like to be a professional photographer when he grew up, until a cousin said, "Give me a nickel's worth, Dave." He became a mechanical engineer instead.

Last modified November 29, 2015 by BK.

Provided by Betty Latta Kitchen

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