The Story of Lattie and Kate

Lattie Buchanan Montgomery was born July 26, 1877, in Appleton, Arkansas, and was married Nov. 8, 1896, to Katharine (Kate) Louether Rowland, 17-year-old daughter of Josiah and Rebecca Jane Rowland of Appleton.

Lattie and Kate had these children: 

• Lattie Bliss Montgomery
• Beatrice Kathryn Griffin
• Moody Everett Montgomery
• Rowland Fernando Montgomery
• Mary Willie Lee (Bill) Crawford
• Edna Evelyn Burris
• Joseph Dee Montgomery
• Euna May Spears
• Naomi Jack Gilbert
• Scottie Hope Allen
• Buchanan Montgomery

Lattie, like his father, Fernando Dee Montgomery, was a farmer in Appleton. Lattie, in time, also raised cattle and sorghum cane, sent large cans of milk by bus to the Russellville Creamery for use in ice cream, and was noted for hosting periodic auctions of horses and other farm animals in the corral near his big two-story home on the hill in Appleton.

Kate, a true Proverbs 31 woman, raised children and chickens, helped manage a big garden, assisted in making sausage when hogs were slaughtered, helped cure hams in the family smokehouse and kept everyone well fed and well dressed for church on Sunday.

Lattie was a principal in establishment and construction of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Appleton (his name is in a list of founding elders on the cornerstone). A coal-oil (kerosene) lamp provided light for him to read from the Bible almost every evening near a large fireplace used for heating the living room on cold winter evenings. (Electricity for lights, and a radio, arrived in the early 1940s.)

Kate died April 29, 1947, in the family home. Lattie died May 30, 1958. Both are buried in the graveyard adjacent to the church. (Fernando Montgomery also is buried there.)