At some time around 1895, this family moved to Ellis County to a farm owned by John Forehand, located about 3 miles north of Palmer on the Dallas Ennis Road. All of the folklore and stories I ever learned about them began in and concerned life in this period. A stretch of this road from Brushy Creek south for a couple of miles became known as `Greasy Street`. Inhabitants of the time were Fisher Smith family, the Whitleys, Tom and Eula Britton, Granny Hilton, Willis & Minerva Loe and their young marrieds, Tom and Maude Wilson and Joe and Odes Loe. The name given was by Joe Loe. He spun tales for years about how Eula Britton threw her dish water out the back door and greased up the place. He and the Whitley boys would tell everyone they lived out on Greasy Street. Willis Loe and son Jim died there. Joe married Odes Grantham and set up their first home there. Don, their first child, was born there in the Britton house which they took after the Brittons moved away. It is the house Joe joked of so much in his campaigning years for sheriff. Saying he had lived in a a house with cracks in the floor that everytime the baby fell out of bed, he had to send a boy under the house after it. Odes has memories of the privations and hardship of those times the lot of share crop farmers of the era. She and Minerva could chuckle out a remembrance of Cohen the peddler who frequently came through with his piece goods and things to trade for her eggs, chickens, or whatever! He never counted the eggs? just poured them into a box like potatoes. Then there were those wonderful Smiths. They owned their house- a nice white bungalow had two boys and 4 beautiful girls. I`ve known them all and seen them any times in later years. The youngest we called Peck worked some forty years in my company. She and Mineola got jobs in the office at Western Electric. Mineola left at marriage but Peck continued to retirement. She had a way of putting me down on occasion by remarking in the presence of others, "I know this guy. I put diapers on him when he was a baby." Minerva worked the farm some years after Willis died. She, Tom Wilson and the girls made it somehow. They would say the Joelie wouldn`t work, he liked town too much! Must have been rowdy enough! I assume that perhaps Uncle John moved them into Palmer after a while so that the girls Pud and Minnie could find work in the stores. For a time Mineola worked for Barrons, a general store. She remembers fondly her cousin Ben, a coffee salesman (Ben Yarbrough), came often. Pearl worked at a confectionary and I think the bank for a while. They both took jobs in Dallas later (telephone operators), went to business school, then began careers at Western Electric and the Federal Reserve Bank (Pearl). Minerva went to Dallas with them of course and lived with one or the other the rest of her life. Mostly with Mineola and the Doc. These girls were hard workers as well as hard bargainers and indeed prospered. In the early thirties they moved Maude Wilson`s family out of poverty and into Dallas finding jobs for the boys and education for all seven of the children. The last years of Pearl`s life were spent with Maude`s family in her home and willed her property to them and Mineola. Wilsons, of course, are another story. Those now living are doing very well. Joseph Leonard Loe of this period my knowledge of his youth and childhood is almost nil. I`m told he was born in Austin. The family must have moved about a lot. They once lived in Dallas, where Willis drove a mule drawn street car. Odes tells me that Minerva knew James and Nellie Loe then. They used to speak of Ben Loe in Dallas, but none seemed to know much about him. Some time around 1908, Joe met Odes Grantham who lived at Trumbull, a few miles up the road. It has been said that she was the prettiest girl in the county. Maybe so, because I can imagine Joe could find them! Granthams were by no means wealthy, but her father did own an interest in the bank and cotton gin with John Newton. Her youngest sister married son Claude Newton who now owns most of that country nowadays. But to Joe and Odes they set out to try farming and kept at it, moving year to year for 7 years where Joe gave it up for good. It was then he took up police work. Took a night watchman job for the city of Palmer. Later became constable, was member of two lodges: Knights of Phy and Master Grand of Oddfellows. Resigned constable`s office to fill vacancy as deputy to Sheriff George Sweat, who died in office, leaving Joe without a job. Now a new venture. A decision to run for sheriff. The beginning of a long hard way up and down again. The depression years up again. Years of achievement and turbulence, which, on reflection, now seem to be roots of an oft recurring feeling that life was impending disaster. This the year 1924 at 14 years of age, I began to know my father Joseph Leonard Loe, the man he was; the weakness, the strength, the moody, petulant, humorous and indeed a most lovable character. Yet all the while there was Odes the stable, who he loved so much and fussed to but never at. She always kept the ship afloat. It was Joe the man with zero capacity for business acumen, technology, arts, nor sciences with Odes the manager, quiet, long suffering, visionary, hopeful, kind, whose faith yet endures in the belief that tomorrow must be a better day. On the pluses for Joe he loved people and trusted them at times far too much and could count and pull names of his friends into the hundreds. One time at dinner, he said he knew 500 people who would vote for him. Upon our jestful challenge, he had us count and he named them. Written by Don Loe, October 13, 1977 in Dallas, Texas.