On July 27th, 1940, Joe Sheriff, age 27, and Pauline Callaway, age 21, both of Harmon County Oklahoma, "eloped" to Sayre, Oklahoma to be married in the parsonage of the First Baptist Church. Little did they know that 19 years later they would return to Hollis as the owners of Joe Sheriff Chevrolet. Pauline said she never knew why they eloped. They were both old enough to be married, Joe was driving a truck, and Pauline had a good job at the Edwards Abstract Agency. When they returned to Hollis after the wedding, they kept their marriage secret for several weeks, each living and working where they had before the elopement. Soon they did tell their folks that they had married and they left Hollis to begin looking for a way to make a living.
During the time they were away from Harmon County they tried many jobs, as Joe put it, "to put food on the table". They hauled cattle, ran a filling station, owned a skating rink, and Joe was a traveling salesman for an auto parts supply company. It was through his job as a parts salesman that Joe became acquainted with the Chevrolet dealer in Lawrence, Kansas. Joe and Mr. Ship Winter partnered together to buy the Chevrolet dealership in Tonganoxie, Kansas, a small town between Lawrence and Kansas City. Joe was the managing partner and through the years eventually became the majority owner. Joe and Pauline were in the Chevrolet business in Tonganoxie for nine years.
In 1958 the opportunity they had always dreamed of presented itself and they pursued it. As of March 15th, 1959, Joe and Pauline took over ownership of Caswell-Cole Chevrolet in Hollis, Oklahoma and the name of the dealership became Joe Sheriff Chevrolet. Pauline and the three kids, Wendell, Mary Paul, and Tommy, remained in Tonganoxie until May for Wendell to graduate from high school. When school started the next fall, Wendell would attend Cameron Junior College, Mary Paul would enter Hollis Junior High as an 8th grader, and Tommy would attend Sallie Gillentine Elementary School as a 5th grader.
The grand opening for Joe Sheriff Chevrolet was on Saturday, April 9th, 1959 from 8 am to 8 pm in the same location it had been for many years�the corner of 5th and Broadway, where the Dollar General Store is now located. The phone number was Murray 8-3346 and the mailing address was Box 747. The building was then owned by Bob Moran and Joe continued to rent the building from Bob in the years to come. Some of the other dealerships located in Hollis at the time were: Bill Hall Motor Company, Ed Masters Buick-Pontiac, Dick Cummins Oldsmobile, and Dixon-Kirchoff International Trucks.
Through the years there were many wonderful employees who Joe and Pauline worked with very closely. They became not only employees but also life-long friends. Pauline always considered herself especially fortunate to have some extremely capable and very special ladies who worked with her in the office. They were Verble Nesser, Vicki Plummer, and Wanda Masters. It was through working with Pauline and these ladies that Mary Paul�s interest in bookkeeping began. Pauline was such an outstanding bookkeeper that after she and Joe retired, several dealerships in the area asked her to come and help them with their General Motors books.
Joe's head mechanic was J.C. Crawford. Other employees that have been remembered were: C.C. Crawford, Ernest Miranda, Hoyt Ellis, Lewis Ellis, Claud Richardson, Cos Richardson, Glynn Masters, Buzz Schulz, Jesse Hays, Kenneth Woods, Ronald Zimmerman, Clay Hubanks, Dale Swaim, Dean Crenshaw, Johnny Ross, Sammy Dansby, Jr., David Redelsperger, Johnny Bartlett, and, of course, Tom and Wendell Sheriff. A very important part of the Joe Sheriff Chevrolet team was Orvel Bryant. Orvel had been Joe's shop manager in Tonganoxie. Not long after getting established in Hollis, Joe and Pauline made a trip back to Kansas to convince Orvel to join them in Oklahoma. Sometime in 1960 Orvel and Dorothy Bryant moved their family to Hollis. Their children at that time were Sharon, Ronald, and Mary. Dorrie was not born until later. Probably this list of employees is not all inclusive, but hopefully not many were left out. There were also several DE students who worked at the garage at one time or another.
J.C. Crawford was one of the strongest people that Tom Sheriff said he had ever known. When the Sheriffs moved from the temporary rent house on Hollis street to a house on Lamar street, they had an upright piano they had brought with them from Kansas that once again had to be moved. Tom said it took three men struggling to move one end while J.C. could handle the other end by himself. J.C. was quiet and unassuming and put up with all sorts of harassment from "Tommy". When Joe started the Toyota dealership in Altus, J.C. went too, and then as Joe finally retired from the automobile business, J.C. went to work for Wilmes Super Store in Altus as their shop foreman. During the late 50�s and early 60�s there was still much racial discrimination across our country. Wendell remembers that one time traveling to a General Motors school, J.C. was refused the right to eat at a restaurant. There was no way Joe was going to eat if they wouldn�t allow J.C. to eat also. Joe said he was leaving and the establishment quickly reversed themselves and allowed J.C. to eat too. J.C. remained a lifelong family friend and was a pallbearer at Joe and Pauline�s funerals.
One year for Christmas the employees began giving Joe and Pauline pieces to a silver coffee service. Verble went to Green's Jewelry in Altus and picked out the pattern. Each Christmas a new piece was given. Verble remembers Pauline being so thrilled that she cried when she received the first piece. The pieces are now the silver tray, coffee pot, water pitcher, and sugar and creamer. The coffee service was always something Pauline treasured, not just because of how pretty it was, but because of the people who gave it to them.
Joe and Pauline were thrilled to be back in Hollis and the dealership flourished. Old friendships were renewed and new friendships were made. One of the highlights every year was the new car showing in the fall. Cars with new body styles were kept covered up under lock and key until new car showing day. Hours were spent hand addressing formal invitations to most of Harmon County and to customers in neighboring counties. People turned out in droves to view the new cars and to share in the food (always coffee & doughnuts + assorted other treats), fellowship, and door prizes that were being given away. Some of the items that we can remember being given away were: yardsticks, metal 12 inch rulers, cloth measuring tapes, roll-up rulers, window scrapers, decks of cards, hot pads, oven mitts, coasters, pocket knives, key rings, calendars of all kinds, pocket mirrors, rain caps, books of matches, small desk mats with information on them, plastic and ceramic coffee mugs, money clips, pencils and pens, model cars, metal & glass ashtrays, expandable travel cups, sun visor mirrors, almanacs, booklets of Christmas songs, and fly swatters. Verble says she can remember long-time salesman Claud Richardson, on very rare occasions, taking a really good customer for a sneak peak at the new car before showing day�but only if he thought they were seriously interested in buying one. Tom says he can remember that one year at new car showing there was a contest to guess how much gas mileage a new Chevy II would get. The car was up on stands and got somewhere around 50 miles to the gallon. He also remembers hand waxing the show room floor before new car show day.
Another highlight of each year, but not nearly as enjoyable, was the annual inventory count taken at the end of December. Right after Christmas everyone who could be coaxed (or coerced) into helping would get to share in physically counting every part in the parts bins and every car accessory on the premises. That was one of the real privileges of being a part of the Sheriff family that wasn't revealed to Jimmy Williams until it was too late for him to change his mind.
Work at "the garage" (as the family called it) was never ending. Days began early at 7:00 am with "Tommy"� Sheriff being one of the early day broom pushers. The shop, showroom, and offices were all swept first thing each morning. Joe took great pride in his dealership being as well-kept and clean as was possible. It was open six days a week from 7 am to 6 pm, or until the last customer had been helped, or the last repair work that had been promised for that day was finished. Service to customers and honesty in trades was a top priority. Every day after lunch (Younger�s caf� was just across the street to the west on the north side of Broadway with the best ice box pie in the world-you better reserve your piece when you went in or it would all be gone by the time you finished your meal) the cash drawer and petty cash were balanced and the trip was made to the Gould bank to make the daily deposit. This was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the bookkeeping job!
In the early years Joe and several employees wore shop coats. They were white, three-quarter length coats that had the Chevrolet emblem on the back with "Sheriff" embroidered in blue stitching inside the emblem. A few years back Candy Masters found a shop coat in her parents' belongings and gave it to Mary Paul. If you ever spent much time at Joe Sheriff Chevrolet there were sights and sounds that will forever be in your mind. Red shop rags were in abundance, the brown leather sofa & chair always had someone in them drinking coffee and talking trades, Pauline�s adding machine seemed to never stop, and the echoes of the sounds from back in the shop continually drifted up into the showroom to mingle with the sound of the ever-ringing phone.
By early February, 1963, Joe had purchased the Oldsmobile dealership from Dick Cummins. However, the name remained Joe Sheriff Chevrolet until May of 1966 when the announcement was made that two new lines, Buick and Pontiac, were being added. These had been purchased from Ed Masters. At this time the name would become Joe Sheriff Motors. In addition to carrying four lines of General Motors vehicles, the dealership offered used cars and trucks, irrigation engines, all kinds of mechanical and body work, and a complete line of parts and accessories as well as installation of glass on all makes of cars.
One of the best parts of being a member of a car dealer�s family was getting to drive a new demonstrator all the time. Before her senior year in high school, Joe let Mary Paul pick out what kind of demonstrator she wanted to drive during the coming school year. It was a beautiful 1964 white Chevrolet Impala Super Sport with red interior that made many trips circling the streets of Hollis from the Daisy Queen through town, making a U-turn at the Harmon Electric corner, and returning to the Daisy Queen. Her freshman year at OBU Mary Paul didn�t have a car because freshman women weren't allowed to have cars�boy have times changed!! Two year later when Mary Paul was at OSU she got a new Chevy II to drive. Jimmy thought that car was part of Mary Paul�s dowry�little did he know that it was a demonstrator and as soon as he said "I do" the car returned to the dealership.
After closing the dealership in Hollis, Joe and Pauline opened the Toyota dealership in March of 1971 in Altus. Their memories of their time in business in Hollis were some of the best and most cherished of their lives. Thanks to four very dear people for their help in recalling the history of Joe Sheriff Chevrolet�Jimmy Williams, Tom Sheriff, Wendell Sheriff, and Verble Nesser.
