Raymond A. Latting

Attorney R.A. Latting was a prominent member of the City for decades. He lived in a grand home at 304 West Jefferson. In 1913 he built the Latting-Porter House for his daughter in his own side yard. This lovely home at 238 W. River Street has sweeping views of the river below. We learn more about Latting from his 1936 obituary: “All of Grand Ledge was shocked and saddened when the word went out Monday afternoon that Raymond A. Latting, a leading citizen, had passed on. Mr. Latting, one of Michigan’s outstanding attorneys and one of the best known men in this locality had conducted legal business from Lakes to the Gulf and from coast to coast. Raymond A. Latting was born near St Johns in Clinton County Nov 1, 1873 and passed away Monday afternoon (10/05/1936) at St Lawrence Hospital. He was of early American stock, his Quaker ancestors having arrived in this country soon after the landing of the Mayflower and settled in Oyster Bay, near which is a town bearing the name, Lattingtown. As a boy he attended school at St Johns, after which he spent a year at what was then Michigan Agricultural Collage (MSU). He then took his law course at the University of Michigan and it is much to his credit that he worked his way through and was graduated in 1896, in a class that has furnished a number of Michigan’s outstanding men. After a year in Grand Rapids he came to Grand Ledge and entered into partnership with W.R. Clarke, which continued for twelve and one half years after which Mr Latting continued the business alone. He was a leader in civic affairs, president of the Chamber of Commerce during the term just passed, was president of the Grand Ledge Face Brick Co, and president of the Eaton County Bar Association. The funeral was held at the Smith and Hoag Funeral Home, Wednesday afternoon at 2 o’clock, with Rev. Ray W Caldwell of Lansing officiating. The body was buried in the Latting crypt of the Mausoleum at Oakwood Cemetery. The funeral address given by Rev Caldwell was most beautiful and appropriate and the great banks of flowers looked as if heaven had fairly opened up and strewed the path to the beyond with the choicest of floral beauty. Those who bore the remains to their final resting place in the mausoleum were: Lem Dunkin, Howell Bouck, Frank Thoman, W.R. Clarke, Wayne Robinson and Floyd Bair. A Great Civic Loss If we take a picture of the last third of the century, and see what has been accomplished in Grand Ledge along civic lines, we will see the figure of R.A. Latting in the important promotion roll. The responsibility of putting over every project of any size has always fallen into his lap! Grand Ledge has suffered a bigger loss then we at first realize in the demise of Raymond A. Latting.”