Erma May Torretta

A celebration of life memorial will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 27, 2014, at College Place Village Seventh-day Adventist Church at 12th and Larch Streets in College Place. Memorial contributions may be made to Blue Mountain Humane Society, Blue Mountain Television or College Place Village Seventh-day Adventist Church through Herring Groseclose Funeral Home, 315 W. Alder Street, Walla Walla, WA.

Erma M. (May) Torretta, 93, went to her rest on Nov. 28, 2014, at Eagle Springs Memory Care Facility in College Place, with family members at her side. Erma was born on Jan. 27, 1921, in Parker, S.D., the third child of Edward and Kathrina Thompson May. Erma had an older sister, Edna, an older brother, Harold, and a younger sister, Ruth. Erma and her siblings worked hard on their 80-acre family farm raising sheep and corn. The family used horses for farm work, and also kept cows and chickens along with a family dog.

Times were hard in the Depression, and Erma worked on the farm and in her father’s broom factory. One of Erma’s jobs was to herd the sheep. It was in her childhood that she developed her strong work ethic and habits of thrift.

Erma received few store-bought toys in her childhood. She and her siblings were very creative, however, and made their own toy dolls and horses out of tin, complete with articulating arms and legs. Her tin horses were incredibly realistic and skillfully made.

While the sheep took a lot of her time, Erma’s first love was horses. The family didn’t own any saddle horses, so Erma rode the light draft horses her father used on the farm. Trixie and Bessie were two favorites. Erma also loved to draw and paint, especially horses.

Erma attended grade school in Parker, S.D., and then Plainview Academy in Redfield, S.D. In 1944, Erma came west to begin a new life in Washington State. Her younger sister, Ruth, came with her. The two worked at the Walla Walla Army Air Base Post Exchange. After the war ended, Erma worked for the county infirmary in College Place.

In 1944, Erma met Louis A. Torretta, an Italian truck farmer. Though their heritage was very different, they shared a farming background and a lifelong love began. After an extended courtship, they were married on April 30, 1951, in Lewiston, Idaho. Louis and Erma then made their home in the Walla Walla Valley.

Together, Louis and Erma raised six children on a three-acre “mini farm” on the west edge of College Place. Erma then began to acquire animals — many animals. Horses, and then dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits, hamsters, parakeets and exotic birds, pigeons and doves, as well as several magpies. She also developed her own variety of long-haired guinea pigs. Naturally, this little “ranchette” became a magnet for the children’s friends and out-of-town cousins. Erma wanted visiting children to be able to ride horseback, so she would often saddle up a half dozen horses and lead riding expeditions.

After starting her family, Erma stayed home with her children until her youngest child was a tot. At that time, she went back to work to be able to provide a Christian education for her children. She worked as a cook at Sunny Valley Nursing Home, Whitman Manor, Blue Mountain Convalescent and the Walla Walla General Hospital.

Erma planted flowers and trees around her home, and raised house plants. She especially loved her many cactus plants, which she entered in the fair every year.

The most important legacy Erma left to her children was her love of God and her love for the Word of God. She spent time every day praying and reading her Bible. Her relationship to God was central to her life — her love for Him was evident in everything she did. Even as her memory diminished, she still remembered that she loved the Bible and was happiest having it read to her. Erma was a faithful member of the College Place Village Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Erma is survived by her six children, Raymond (Linda), Jeffrey (Margie), Neva (Terry) Black, Sherry (Kris) Keller, Ronald, and Gary (Emilie); one sister, Edna Brandt; a cousin, Doris White; 11 grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and numerous nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, a sister and brother, two nephews and a niece.

As a young girl, Erma was required to lie down when it was her little sister Ruth’s naptime. Her sister always fell asleep first, while Erma would toss and turn. But now at last she, too, is asleep. Though she is gone, we can take comfort in the words of Jesus in Luke 8:52 where he said, “Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth.” Erma awaits the call of Jesus as it says in I Thessalonians 4:16: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” We can comfort one another with these words.