John Clemmons Latas, known as Clem, was born November 29, 1889 on a farm near Rozel, Pawnee County, Kansas. He was the first of five children born to Cora L. Magee and Albert Peter Latas.

Lucille Patricia Heft was born February 28, 1898, in New Middletown, Harrison County, Indiana. She was the fifth of eight children born to Annetta Clara Benson and James Edward Heft.

Her father had inherited farms from both his mother and his father's family. But he sold the farms and bought a hardware store and a house in town.

Ruth Heft Bartelsmeyer wrote in her memoirs, "I have fond recollections of some of the Christmases we had in Indiana. One Christmas we had a tree, and I recall how careful we had to be of the candles on the tree. My older sister, Pat (Lucille) got a doll that was as big as a two-year-old child. It was so large that I don't think she enjoyed it so much, but was very proud of it. It was a beautiful doll and had lots of curly hair like she did.

"Lucille was called Pattie Lucille, so we soon shortened that to Pat. Pat was called 'Gypsy,' too, because when she was small, she had very curly hair, which she did not like to have combed, and she nearly always bawled when that was done.

"My father did not do well with his hardware business. Mother always said he fell for every hard luck story and would give his customers credit and a lot never paid, so he went broke. He decided that the West would be a better place to live. Doctors told my parents that it would be wise to move to a drier climate, as my brother, Dick (Wix) and I would never live to grow up in that climate, as we both had pneumonia several times. Father and Clyde made the trip to Kansas. Mother had some distant relatives there, the Shafers, and they corresponded, and Mr. Shafer encouraged Father and Clyde to come out and look over the country, which they did. Both got work and saved until they had enough to move us all out there. Clyde was not very old, just a young boy of 14 or 15, but he always was a man in my young eyes as he seemed grown up when I grew old enough to remember.

"We visited around with the kinfolk waiting for Father and Clyde to get a place for us and money to travel to Kansas on."

Clyde found work as a steam tractor engineer breaking sod and threshing in Pawnee and Hodgeman Counties.

"We had to go to either Louisville, Kentucky, or New Albany, Indiana, to catch the train for our trip to Kansas. The Ohio River was way up and we had to walk a long way on a makeshift board bridge, and Mother was very afraid some of us would fall into the water. The train ride was a big experience in my young life, and I remember how the train steamed and puffed up when it started. Aunt Les and Nell packed a big basket of food for us to eat on the train, but I got so sick from the motion I could not eat a thing. There was a lady on the train with two children who coughed so much; Mother tried to keep us away from them as they had whooping cough and Iva and I had never had it. We both caught it and coughed all that first summer in Kansas. We came to Kansas in April or May of 1905 or 1906; I do not have the exact date.

"We used to have cyclones quite frequently in Kansas, and everyone had a cyclone cellar built quite a ways up from the house so if one hit the house it wouldn't be so apt to pin us up in the cellar. My father was always afraid of cyclones and often when it stormed, he'd watch the skies and when those funnel-shaped clouds began to form, we all went to the cellar. Father would stay up at night if it was storming and watch, and many is the time we were all roused out of our beds and hurried out to the cyclone cellar. One time right soon after we came to Kansas, a cyclone did hit us, and took everything but the house. The next day, we found dead animals and poultry all around, some in very odd places. So I think that's why Father always watched out for cyclones. Hardly ever hear the word cyclone anymore; it's always tornado or hurricane.

"Life in Kansas was much different than in Indiana. The prairies seemed so bleak and bare. I looked and looked for trees, but there just were not any. Bess could not adjust to the change and became worse. She would run off every chance she got, and had to be watched constantly. Father set out some cottonwood and locust trees, but few of them grew. Father then found that he had to dig a new well. The one we used was contaminated by something, and that first summer or the next summer, Father, Clyde, Bess, Bill, Dick, and Lucille all had typhoid fever. Mother, Iva, and I did not have it. The others all had light cases, except Father and Bill, who were both terribly ill. Mother told me later that Father almost died of it. I remember him being so weak, he pushed a chair in front of him to walk, and later used a cane for a long time. He belonged to a lodge—I believe it was called "Modern Woodmen of the World"—anyway, some of the members and their wives came and helped and the doctor brought a trained nurse and she stayed about a month. Well, to get back to the well, Father got a man to come and witch for water. He had a peach twig he held lightly in his hands and walked around with Father. Iva and I were following. When he came to a certain place, the twig turned downward. He told Father to dig there. He did and we had a wonderful well of good cold water.

"We attended a country school (all classes in one room taught by one teacher), and a country Methodist church. There was quite a settlement of Seventh Day Adventists in our vicinity and they held their church meetings in the schoolhouse on Saturday. We would go to that service on Saturday and to the Methodist Church and Sunday school on Sunday. Those were about the only affairs we got to attend. The older boys went to barn dances. Nearly every farm had a big barn with a hayloft upstairs where hay was kept to feed the stock, and when someone had an empty loft, they gave a dance. I got to go once to watch—what a thrill!

"My brother Bill was nearer my own age, and he and Pat and I played together a lot. Bill liked to build things and one time, we three built a little wagon and it really held up, and we pulled each other around in it. Bill usually rode and Pat and I pushed and pulled. Bill had real persuasive powers. He could always talk Pat and me into the most interesting adventures. One time, we had an old wooden watering trough that was first used to water the stock, but later on, Father got a big steel round one for a water tank, so he let us have the wooden one for play (water fights mostly). One time we had a big rain and the water came up in the draws (a sort of creek), and all we had to do was to slide the wooden trough down the hill into the water. Bill got some boards to use as oars and assured us we could go for a boat ride. Well, we couldn't miss out on a boat ride—for any child raised on the Kansas prairie, that seemed like a trip to Fairyland. We got our so-called boat down on the water and got in, and the water was so strong and swift, or our oars were no good, so we got swept along until we got hung up on some bushes and rocks. Believe me, there were three very scared and wet kids. Bill used to make his spending money by setting traps to catch skunks, badgers, coyotes, and sometimes other varmints. He always wanted Pat or me to go with him when he went out to his traps to see what he had caught. I could not bear to see him kill and skin his victims. I would run as far as I could and hide some place, and the same way when any fowls were killed or pigs or cattle butchered. Father understood me better than Mother did, I think, because he always wanted me to be gone when they butchered, or when the cattle were branded. I can still smell that burned flesh and hear those calves bawl when branding was on.

"One time Bill decided we would play Barber Shop. He fixed a chair up and had chairs for the waiting list. Pat was shaved first and I sat there waiting for my turn. He had a real razor and soap, and shaved her so close she cried and cried. Mother made Bill go to the neighbors and borrow some salve. It was getting nearly dark, and he was so afraid of the dark, he begged and begged my Mother to let me go with him, but she made him go alone. He ran all the way there and back, and I never got my shave!

"In Kansas there just weren't any pine or evergreen trees in our part of the country, so at church they would put up a bare tree and cover it with cotton to look like snow, then decorate it. To me, it was very beautiful, and I would hope and pray that one of the pretty dolls would be mine, but all we ever got were useful things like new stocking caps, mufflers, gloves, etc. My mother could not see spending any money for toys, etc., At home, we'd hang up our stockings and there would be candy, nuts, and an orange in them. I never really believed in Santa Claus. I had too many older brothers and sisters to tell me it was all a myth. Well, so much for that.

"My mother had a lot of sewing and washing to do with so many girls. We wore pantywaists, made so our panties buttoned on to them. We younger girls were pretty hard on our clothing as we were all very active. Mother would take the bottom legs of our brothers' old overalls and make panties for us to wear when we climbed or rode horses, and our brothers called them Charley pants. One Sunday, Mother got me ready for Sunday school, but as it took some time for the rest to get ready, she made us put on our Charley pants until time to go. Well, in our rush and confusion getting ready to go, we forgot and left our Charley pants on. Of course we'd always have to go to the toilet (privy) between Sunday school and church, so when Iva (Jane) and I got out there (all the girls were together), and started to unbutton our panties, we discovered we still had our Charley pants on. My, there were two little girls who hurried up and got out of that privy in record time. That was embarrassment with a capital E.

"There were lots of buffalo wallows when we first went to Kansas. These were places the buffalo would pick to wallow in and dust themselves. Buffalo would often use the same place until there was a deep indentation and they were just as round as could be and I always marveled at how round they were. After a big summer rain, they'd fill up and we used to like to go wading in them. Our pasture in Pawnee County was just full of buffalo wallows. I guess they had their favorite places to go to dust themselves."

"Mother was sick so much while Pat and I were growing up and since we were the oldest girls, we had to do Mother's work. This time, we had made supper. We had just butchered not long before, and we cooked a big pan of back bones. Most of the family was still at the big table. Pat and I finished and got up to clear up the pots and pans, and Pat gave me an order I didn't like, so I sassed her and she kicked me. Well that did it! I picked up a bone and threw it at her, but Alice was in the line of fire, sitting there in her high chair. Well, the bone hit Alice, then glanced off through the big window and broke it. Alice set up a howl like she'd been killed, and Father heard the broken glass, and came tearing out of the bedroom where he'd been looking after Mother. My brothers were still home and Clyde and Ruth still lived there while their house was being built. I don't know what really happened, but the boys ended up fighting, too. We had a real knock-down-and-drag-out there for a while, but I think the fracas cured Mother, for she soon was up and on her feet again to see that we didn't get into another big fight! It just started because I resented being bossed so much. If Pat had gone at it in a different way, I'd probably have done as she said. I would do anything for Clyde because he never bossed so much. He had a way of getting around me so I'd really want to do it, but those strict ordering bosses (and I had plenty) I resented. Well, the fight ended up by me being in the dog house a good long time. But I still remember Dick taking my part. Dick was always for the underdog and in this case, I was the underdog.

"One time, the Seventh Day Adventists had a big baptism in a big pond not far from us. We all went to see the various converts get "ducked". The Methodists just sprinkled their converts. The minister had a couple of people out in the middle of the pond and was trying to duck them under when one boy in the crowd threw his dog in, and the dog really went under and was ducked just like the converts were at the same time. My father laughed so hard about that and always said that there was one dog that was going to get to Heaven.

"On the Fourth of July in Pawnee County, a big picnic was held in a big grove on the creek. We always looked forward all year to that picnic and to the big end-of-school gatherings. At the picnic everyone went for miles around all by buggy, wagon, or surrey. What I liked best was the merry-go-round, and my father always saw that we got to ride it a lot. There were different stands where you could shoot at clay pigeons or Spin-a-Wheel and get prizes. We always took a big lot of food and spread the tablecloth on the ground and ate fried chicken, potato salad, etc., but as yet no one ever heard of hamburgers, French fries, hot dogs, etc. We usually stayed until night and saw a few fireworks and would all go to sleep on the way home.

"Growing up in Kansas in the early 1900s was quite a struggle. Our transportation was by horse, buggy, wagon, spring wagon, or surrey. It took a long time to get to any place, compared with our transportation today. I know what trips and social affairs we attended in those days were more enjoyed than even the most elaborate affairs and trips this present generation experiences. I remember very well my first car ride. Pat and I were walking to Sunday School and our neighbors, the Hazletts, had just bought a car, the first in the neighborhood. It was red and had a lot of brass trimmings on it. They stopped and asked us to ride. There were just three of them, Mr. and Mrs. Hazlett and their son, Harold, so there was plenty of room. Mr. Hazlett said "whoa" when he stopped—he wasn't accustomed to driving the car yet. To me, that was a wonderful ride, and I was wide-eyed with wonder and awe. No ride since has ever compared with it."

On May 1, 1912, Pat's brother Clyde, four days before his 22nd birthday, married Ruth Amelia Latas, then 17.

"We left Pawnee County Kansas about 1913—I was about 12 years old. Father could not seem to get any place on that Pawnee County farm, so he scouted around with Clyde and they decided Comanche County would be a better place to live—that the soil was better and there was much more grazing land. Comanche County then was very sparsely settled. They leased the McDonald Ranch. It was a pretty large ranch and they built a house for Clyde and Ruth. At first, we all lived together in one house until Clyde's house was built. There was a bunk house which the boys used. Doyle was born to Clyde and Ruth on April 28, 1914, when we all lived together. I remember the event so well, because there was a baby in the house we got to hold and play with. He was a darling baby with blonde curly hair—we thought he was so smart and pretty. When Clyde and Ruth moved to their new house, Iva and I would argue and fight about who would get to hold Doyle first when we saw his mother driving old Bob in her buggy coming over the hill to our house.

"We had peddlers that used to visit us fairly regularly in Kansas. These men drove covered wagons or really spring wagon types. The peddlers were usually Syrian or Armenian or Persian. They had large covered cases strapped together, and sometimes these cases, which were really large boxes, just bulged with their contents. One man, I think his name was Solomon Bozidian, used to make it to our place to stay all night and would usually get there about dusk and then in the morning, would bring in those huge cases or boxes and show us his wares. He had all kinds of things: notions, kitchen ware, bolts of dress goods; but what took my eye was the jewelry: he had such pretty beads, rings, stick pins, cuff links, watches, and so forth. Sometimes, to pay for staying all night, they'd give Mother dress material, and one time, I was given a string of beads.

"I can remember Solomon and Father sitting on the porch one summer night. They discussed the terrible state the world was in before World War I, and I could hear them talk from my bedroom, and they talked until two in the morning, and I heard every word. I was a very serious and sensitive child, and would take everything to heart and would worry about it. I think back now that a lot of my nervous trouble had its beginning in my childhood. Things bothered me that the other children paid no attention to. I remember so well how upset I was after going to church and hearing about the devil. I would question my mother so much, asked her who had ever seen the devil and how did they know he had horns and a long tail and snorted fire. I know I must have tried her patience a lot. Father would always give me a funny answer, then laugh, so to get down to the nitty gritty, I always went to Mother.

"My father could always find something to laugh at, and what a sense of humor any of his children had came from him. Mother was always so deadly serious; she worked so hard and had such a hard life; I guess she never saw anything to laugh about.

"My father had a wonderful sense of humor. One time, he took Pat and me along with Mama to town and we were sitting in our rig waiting for Mama to come. Two ladies who knew us, the wives of prominent businessmen, went by. When they saw this old farmer and his two clean little girls sitting there waiting, up went their heads and noses and they did not speak to Father. He said loudly, "My, what long tails our cats have," and they heard him. I often wonder if that remark soaked in, but Father couldn't care less.

"My father accumulated quite a herd of cattle. A couple of summers when the crops were poor and Father was hard up, he told Pat and I that he would pay us to herd the cattle instead of hiring a hand, so we became cowgirls. We each had a good pony and were in the saddle from April until September. That was quite a job, but we were anxious to have a little money of our own.

"A lot of the grazing land was not fenced, so we had to keep the herd (about 100 head) on our grazing pastures. Grandpa Bartelsmeyer told me once that in every organization there has to be a Bell cow, a leader. Well, we didn't have a Bell cow, but we had a Bell bull. He was the leader and gave us a lot of trouble. One time, we decided to cut him away from the herd. Pat had him cut off from one side and I was on the other. The only way he could go was straight ahead. We drove him to a cliff where all he could do was go over it. At the bottom of the cliff about 50 feet or more was a deep water hole on the Salt Fork. Well, he jumped and landed in the water hole and went under. We could not see a thing of him when we got to the edge of the cliff. Pretty soon, though, he came to the top, snorting and pawing the water, but he swam across to the other side and we just let him roam. As long as he wasn't around, the herd was very easily controlled. We wore overalls (men's) to herd in and in those days, for a woman or girl to be seen in men's clothing was a disgrace, but we were out miles from any place, so no one saw us."

"Father got discouraged there in Comanche County, too. If the wheat wasn't hailed out, it would be ruined by smut—either too much rain or not enough. One year the wheat grew so tall, it looked like there would be a good crop, then the rain started. Father had hired the extra men they needed to help with the harvest, but sometimes it was too wet for them to get in the fields. One day my brother Bill and the hired men decided they would go swimming as the old Salt Fork Creek was way up. They went up the creek around the bend and stripped off their clothes and went swimming in the nude. It was wild plum ripening time, and Mother sent Pat and me out to pick plums. They made very good jelly and were about the only fruit around on that ranch. We set out with our buckets and in due time, came upon this pile of clothing the swimmers had left behind. We tied them up in all the knots we could, and I climbed a tree and Pat threw them up to me and I threw them up higher so that they would not be seen from below. We hid their shoes, too. Mother fixed a big dinner (we had breakfast, dinner, and supper in those days). She waited but they didn't come to eat. About 2 p.m., Bill swam down close to the barn, ducked in real quick and found a gunnysack and wrapped it around him and came to the house and mother made us tell where their clothes were. When they were all dressed and came back, they threw Pat and me in the creek, clothes and all. That was a pretty exciting time. The water was so swift and deep and neither of us could swim, so the boys had to jump in clothes and all to save us. We never hid anyone's clothes again.

"Father gave up ranching, turned over what stock and implements he had to the boys and started looking for carpentry work. Sometimes he sent home money, and sometimes it would be a long time before we even knew where he was. Clyde was on his own then. Dick did not like the arrangement, so he worked on ranches and farms for wages. Mother, Bill, and Pat did the farming. Finally, we had to give it up and we had to leave that ranch."

Clem Latas grew up on a farm in rural Pawnee County, Kansas. He played baseball on the local team, and he played the mandolin.

In October 1915, "Fred and Conard Spreier, Clem and Bert Latas and Clarence Kinberlin came across a prairie dog town which seemed alive with rattlesnakes. They killed 56 rattlers, some vipers and bullsnakes. Sunday morning the hunt was resumed resulting in twelve more dead reptiles."—History of Browns Grove & Burdett Kansas, 1876-1976, by Arlene Notestine Todd & Jean Brindley Thompson, p. 72

Two weeks before her 18th birthday, Pat Heft moved back to Pawnee County to marry 26-year-old Clem Latas on February 13, 1916.

Not quite ten months later, their first child, Glenn Dwayne, was born on December 10, 1916.

Eleven months after that, their second child, Evelyn Faye, was born on November 30, 1917.

Eighteen months after that, their third child, Muriel Winnifred, was born on July 07, 1919.

Eighteen months later, their fourth child, James Clemmons, was born on January 09, 1921.

Twenty-two months later, their fifth child, Forrest Fayne, was born on October 02, 1922.

Twenty-five months later, their sixth child, Robert Bruce, was born on November 06, 1924.

Twenty-one months later, their seventh child, Ralph Willard, was born on August 21, 1926.

At the age of 28, Pat had bourne 7 children in 10 years.

In 1928, the family joined the Rozel Baptist Church. A year later, they moved to Jetmore, in neighboring Hodgeman County, Kansas. In 1931, the family settled on a farm near Quenemo, Osage County, in the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas.

Clem died suddenly on October 03, 1934, at the hospital in Halstead, Harvey County, KS. He was 44 years old.

At the age of 36, Pat was left a widow with seven children, ages 8 through 18. She lived in Lyndon, Kansas, and moved to Wichita around 1940. She enrolled in a Boeing defense school, learning a trade for the factory, where she and her daughter Muriel worked building airplanes during the war. Her five sons and her other daughter all joined the Navy.

Pat always had a garden, even in the city, and made a great dish with green beans and potatoes.

Pat died of cancer on July 29, 1979, at the age of 81. She is buried at Burdett, Kansas.