1885: Joe Parker invested his last 25 cents in a peck of sweet potatoes last spring. From those he produced hundreds of slips which he planted in his quarter-acre garden at Alexander. On September 21, in Stephenville, he sold 10 bushels of the 100-bushel crop for $10. Stephenville Empire

1923: The Eureka persimmon, developed in Erath County by Joe Fitzgerald around 1903, ripens in two stages: :About a fourth will ripen the first week in September. These early fruits will not keep and are just for local markets. The remaining fruit grows larger, and turns from red to yellow by the first of November. These later fruits can be stored as late as February. Joe Fitzgerald, Family Papers, Stephenville, Texas

Today we have freezers that will soften and ripen the fruit in a week. I squeeze them out of their bitter skin on my oatmeal, when I can get them.