Joan Crow Lathrop publishes fourth family history book

Published 5:00 pm Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Most people are fascinated by their own familys history and stories of ancestors, and if they are lucky they have someone like Joan Crow Lathrop in the family to collect and write it all down.

Lathrop, 79, recently finished and published her fourth history book, The Family of John Richard West, covering the years 1817-2012.

I had to get it done in time for the reunion, she said, referring to the annual Lathrop-West, which is held the second weekend of every September.

The historians other three books are The Lathrops of Wallowa County, which came out in 2003, The Crow Family in 2004 and the Ben Davis Family of Wallowa County in 2008.

The first two books were published by Bear Creek Press in Wallowa, but thanks to digital images and easy-to-use software, Joan is now a self-published author, producing her latest book with the help of Central Copy in Enterprise. She was also helped by Linda Bauck. Her intended market and biggest customer pool are members of different branches of the large families of both herself and her husband, Melvin.

The latest book is the story of the six children of Melvins grandfather, John Richard West, including his mother Hazel, one of two daughters who married Lathrops.

Born a mile west of Lostine and a 1950 graduate of Lostine High School, Joan moved nine whole miles into the Leap area, where she and Melvin continue to be involved in the family farm.

Lathrop has belonged to the South Fork Grange since she was 10 and is a past Homemaker of the Wallowa County Fair. The Lathrops led a 4-H Livestock Club when their four children were young. The couple has 12 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Lathrop said she started collecting family history when her grandfather, S. Mark Crow, then 93, was in the Wallowa County Nursing Home in the 1960s.

He told me to get a notebook, and then started telling me when all his family was born, she said, recalling many hours spent transcribing family lore from her grandfather, who died when he was 96. He had a wonderful memory, she said.

Her real motivation to turn family photos, memorabilia, papers and memories into a book wasnt entirely planned. It came because of an accident. I broke my leg and didnt have anything else to do, she said.

With a new computer, plus lots of memorabilia, photographs and family history papers, Lathrop kept bugging family members for even more stories and photos, and gradually her longest book, the 98-page The Lathrops of Wallowa County, now out of print, took shape.

Some of the material in that book was gladly contributed for the Leap section of Irene Barklows recently published history about Lostine.

While Lathrop puts her heart into each book, and takes satisfaction in preserving family history, she admits that her overriding emotion with the completion of each book is relief.

She will be selling copies of her latest edition at the family reunion (for around $15, she thought), but will probably have extra copies. For information, give her a call at 541-426-3213.