This blog is about the life and times of Joe Ferris. My name is Lonnie Ferris. Joe was my father. I will preface what I am about to write. While it will contain my knowledge and understanding of Joe Ferris’s life, it can, in no way, be construed as completely factual. My father, Joe, like his older sister Thelma, had a habit of embellishing stories.
Joe Ferris was born in Truscott, Texas. Joe had two siblings. An older sister Thelma and a younger sister, Eddie Mae.
Their parents were Tom Allen Ferris, July 31, 1888 to October 10, 1933 and Effie Batey, March 1893 - October 15, 1938. Joe’s grandfather was Henry Ferris and his great grand father was Warren Angus Ferris. I believe Joe was born on July 26, 1920.
Joe and his family moved from Truscott to Muleshoe, Texas when Joe was about 5 years old. His father Tom, bought a half section (320 acres) of land approximately 4 miles north of Muleshoe to farm. Joe’s memories of growing up in Muleshoe were not good ones. His father died when Joe was 13 years old. He remembers his mother as being a mean woman. Anytime the kids would do anything wrong, their mother would beat them and lock them in the root cellar. His mother died when he was 17. The land was divided up with Thelma taking the eastern 1/3, Joe taking the middle 1/3 and Eddie Mae taking the western 1/3. His sister, Thelma married Tom Boles and moved away. Eddie Mae married Clarence Weeks and they farmed Eddie Mae’s property for many years. When Joe was in fifties, he was finally able to buy both sister’s land.
Joe’s father wasn’t much of a father so Joe had very little parental guidance. I learned a little about Joe’s youth from our barber in Muleshoe, who cut Joe’s hair as well as mine. Our barber remembers on Halloween Joe and his friends would take small kids and put them into railroad boxcars at the railway station close to main street. They would also gather up outhouses and drag them onto main street. Joe graduated High School after 11 grades because there was no 12th grade at the time. He remembers being very poor. Joe had to borrow a suit to attend graduation and he remembered constantly wearing second hand clothes and old shoes that were too small for his feet.
I would like to interject here that Joe Ferris was not the name he was born with. I knew his legal name was L.H. Ferris. It was not until I was 10 years old that my father was willing to tell me what the L.H. stood for. Joe’s birth name was Liege Homer Ferris. I understand why my father went by Joe. I would have gone by a different name too. Turns out that Liege (Lige) is a family name from his mother’s family.
When Joe was about 17 years old, he and Eddie Mae were staying with one of their uncles and his wife. Joe came home to find the uncle trying to sexually molest Eddie Mae. Joe proceeded to beat up the uncle within an inch of his life. The police were called and Joe was arrested. It was his uncle’s word against his. The Judge gave Joe a choice to either join the army or go to prison. Joe choose the Army.
I did not know this full story until after my father had died. Joe always told me he could join the army at 18, if he passed his physical. The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, was told to me by Thelma’s daughter Noel (Tootsie). Joe told me he lied about his age to join the army. Army papers show him as 21, but it is possible he was actually younger.
Joe Ferris
The army in many ways, good and bad, molded the man my father became. As an enlisted man, he was sent to OCS (Officer Candidate School) on three different occasions. The Army must have seen something in the man. However, due to multiple rule infractions, including AWOL, he never completed the training. He did attain the rank of Master Sergeant as an enlisted man. Joe also became an alcoholic and enjoyed gambling. Both of which would play a part during his stint in the army.
Boxing Joe
Joe like to fight in the ring while in the army. I always assumed that was a carry over from his unguided youth.
Joe said he was a pretty good boxer, winning a majority of his fights. Joe told me about one particular fight where he stepped into the ring and proceeded to get beat up six ways to Sunday. Said he never stood a chance during the fight. It was not until after the fight, he learned his opponent was a Golden Gloves Boxing Champion.
Joe was a small statured man, 5’-6”, 125 pounds. Because of his size, that made him ideal for army tanks, the M1 Sherman tank.
Joe was part of the 3rd Armor Division under General Patton. He saw action in the Battle of Normandy, Battle of the Bulge, and in many countries including France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Austria and North Africa.
Joe said his tank crew found a cave where the Germans were storing their stolen treasures. It was full of paintings, statues and many other crates. Five crates of five-star Hennessy cognac definitely drew Joe’s attention. They took the crates back to the tank and then proceeded to toss the tank’s artillery shells out. It seems the racks designed to hold the artillery shells were the prefect shape and size to hold the cognac bottles. Joe said they had the best three day drunk afterwards.
Sherman tanks contained a “trap door” on the bottom of the tank, that could be used to exit the tank if necessary. Joe said that, while not condoned, they frequently left this door open on the bottom of the tank. It apparently made it much easier to relieve oneself without exiting the tank. At some point in the war, Joe’s tank got blown up. He received shrapnel in both his shoulder and his knee. The shrapnel was removed from his shoulder, but not his knee. Later in life this resulted in Joe being stopped after passing through any airport metal detector. Both injuries continued to bother him for life.
While recovering in an army hospital ward, General Patton came by. He announced he was looking for volunteers to be a motorcycle scout. As General Patton looked around the room full of recovering soldiers, Joe raised his hand to volunteer. (Thanks to Christine Cohen for this story).
A motorcycle scout in the Army could not ride for longer than 6 months for risk of kidney damage. Riders were required to wear kidney belts. Motorcycles had a 45 cubic inch engine and were made by Harley Davidson. They were called “hard tail” motorcycles because they had no rear suspension. The seat sat on small springs and the front wheel had minimum suspension travel. All this resulted in a very rough ride for traversing across open terrain and rutted dirt roads.
General Patton was Joe’s hero and the man he looked up to and admired. Joe’s gravestone states he was a sergeant under General Patton. Joe met General Patton on at least one other occasion. At a port, Joe’s company captured several drums of German torpedo juice. Torpedo juice was 180 proof methyl alcohol that was used as fuel for both Ally and German torpedoes. Ethyl alcohol is fine for human consumption, methyl alcohol can make you go blind. Ally torpedo juice contained an additive to make it unsuitable for human consumption. German torpedo juice had no such additive. Joe and his buddies concocted a drink called the “Green Lizard”, it was a combination of Vitalis (the hair oil) to give it that green sheen, torpedo juice and some other ingredient to cut some of the alcohol’s bite. General Patton was said to have tried it and said it had a kick.
Joe was part of a group that liberated a small concentration camp. He listed the concentration camp as Camp Durcus, but I could find no mentioned of it on the web. He smuggled photographs back home with him of what he saw, but I will not post the disturbing pictures. The two pictures I did include are below.
These are captured German prisoners being transported.
This picture below shows Joe talking with a concentration camp prisoner. The prisoner asked Joe for his bayonet, which he gave him. The prisoner took it and cut the throat of an SS trooper.
he term “war is hell” is probably very apt. Though for soldiers, there were breaks in the conflict.
This picture above is of Joe on a hotel balcony during some “R & R” in Monte Carlo. I still have some of the casino chips he brought home.
Joe said traveling to and from the US by ship was not enjoyable but it was profitable. Joe ended up his army career with two Purple Hearts and one Bronze Star for bravery.
Joe was a gambler. His two favorite games were poker and craps (throwing dice). He said he got off of the ship with $30,000 in winnings. You be the judge of what the real amount was. Joe returned to Muleshoe, Texas and used the winnings to pay the back taxes on his land and had enough left to start farming. Joe never told me that he used any of his G.I. Bill or veteran benefits.
It was during this time that he met his wife and my mother, Verna Mae Owens. It was at a dance hall in Midway, New Mexico. Midway, aptly named, was halfway between Portales, New Mexico and Clovis, New Mexico. Clovis was only 30 miles from Muleshoe and had one desirable trait. The Clovis area was wet (had alcohol) where Muleshoe was dry.
Verna Mae Owens, wife of Joe Ferris
Verna was born in Portales and was only 16 years old at the time she met Joe. Joe was 26. She came from a very poor family who used to be migrant workers picking fruit in California. Verna quit High School in her junior year to marry Joe.
Joe and Verna got married on Thanksgiving Day, 1947.
They lived in various rental houses in the Muleshoe area for the first few years. A sad situation occurred during this time. Joe and Verna took a trip and let some friends stay at their rented home while they were gone. When Joe and Verna returned home from their trip, they discovered their friends dead at the house. They had died from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Joe’s home in Muleshoe
Around 1951, Joe purchased a small spec. prefabbed house outside of Lubbock, Texas, about 70 miles away. He had the house transported and set on the farm.
Joe lived in this house until the day he died although the house did undergo some changes over the years. In about 1966, they expanded the house to 2 ½ times its original size with a 4 car drive through carport.
In 1952, they had a son, Leland Ferris. From the time of Joe’s return from the war, through his marriage until now, Joe drank and frequently got drunk. When Verna got pregnant with her second child in late 1953, she gave Joe an ultimatum. Either quit drinking or she and Leland were leaving.
Joe stopped drinking in 1954, the year their second son, Lonnie Ferris, was born. Joe started going to Alcohol Anonymous (AA) meetings and Verna, with the boys, went to Al-Anon meetings. Joe never had another drink, though he said there was never a day he did not want one. He always had a bottle of whiskey at the house.
Joe was very sociable and loved to talk and tell stories. There were days I thought if he had no one to talk to, he would gladly strike up a conversation with a fence post. Joe had a quick temper, though you often did not see it. His temper showed mostly during Leland’s teenage years. Seems like Joe and Leland were like oil and water and could not see eye to eye. I remember a variety of sayings my father liked, “I wish it would rain butt deep on a tall Indian” or “he was madder than a shot bobcat with a toothache” or “if the ocean was whiskey and I was a duck, I would swim to the bottom and never come up”.
Joe told me one time, “I think I like farming because it is one of the riskiest professions I know. You start by hoping you plant the right crop. If you are lucky enough to get rain at the right times during the year, you might grow a good crop. But you can have a good crop and it can be hailed flat in a heart beat. If you are lucky enough to get the rain and miss the hail, then you just hope that the insects will not eat it up. You have to hope, when you harvest the crop, the prices will be high enough to pay the bills and maybe make a little money. You finish the year, turn around and start the process all over.”
Once back from the Army, Joe spent his whole life farming. Joe farmed not only his inherited land but two additional rental properties totaling approximately 1000 acres. All the land was irrigated. He grew primarily corn and cotton. But depending on the market and prices, he also grew maise, soybeans, castor beans, wheat, sunflowers, and hay.
I, Lonnie Ferris, ended up becoming a Mechanical engineer and I will say that Joe was the smartest mechanically inclined individual, I knew, without a formal education. He would frequently build self tilting trailers, mechanical animal traps, changes to farm implements, etc. He even built a hydraulic lift system that hooked to the back of a tractor. It would raise him in a steel cage so he could paint the sides and eves of the house without a ladder. Electricity, though, was not his forte. Joe would say, “If it has more than one wire, I get confused.”
Joe died on December 18, 2006. We believe he was 86 years old, but are not completely sure. Joe never had a birth certificate. Said he lied about his age to get into the army. Army records list him as joining at 21, but he may have been as young as 18. When Joe was in his late sixties, he went to the social security office and said he started drawing social security a couple of years sooner than he should have. After verifying the army records showing him as 21 when he joined, the social security office said they were not going to change his age and just enjoy the extra benefits.
Left to right – Leland Ferris, Lonnie Ferris and Joe Ferris.
Joe was by no means perfect, but he is still loved and missed.
Written by Lonnie Ferris of Grand Prairie, TX in June, 2022.
