By Patty Montagno

Staff Writer

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The Sachse Historical Society welcomed local Sachse resident, Real Estate Broker and historian of sorts, Odie Hall, to speak at their March 6 annual meeting at the Charles W. Smith Chapel.

The esteemed businesswoman has played an important role in the development and growth of city over the years. She embraces learning about history “because it’s the past meeting the future,” she said.

Originally from Farmersville, Hall moved to Sachse in 1956 and became a real estate broker. She opened her own business in 1962, and as she explained to the audience, it took her a while to open her own business because credit wasn’t available to women until the 60s.

Hall said moving to Sachse taught her family about community and community values, learning early on that one’s land is sacred.

“We all raised our kids together,” she said. “We shared vegetables, potatoes, milk and eggs. And my oh my, everyone loved a good baloney and cheese sandwich.”

She said she always liked to cook and a family favorite was fried chicken.

“We were always trying to raise money for the fire department by auctioning off stuff,” she said. “I would whip up a batch of fried chicken and wrap it in the comic book papers because I was too poor to buy a fancy box with ribbons. But the auctioneer loved my chicken so much he bought the whole thing himself.”

Early on, Hall also caught up on the history of the town and read all about William Sachse.

“I’ve known most of the Sachse family since my family and I moved here,” she said. “Some of the family lived right down the street from us in their little house. We would sit outside and drink sweet tea. I loved that tea,” she said. “ My neighbor, Ruth was a great lady. She had a clothesline (which was very important back in the day) and would take me with her to the Sachse house.”

Hall emphasized that back in the day everyone was very poor and they would all take turns hauling water to their homes from Wylie – but the best thing was to use the Wylie Wash-A-Teria, which prompted Hall to hang her family’s clothes on her friend’s clothesline to dry the wash.

For full story see The Sachse News at http://www.etypeservices.com/Sachse%20NewsID248/default.aspx

Attendees at the annual Sachse Historical Society meeting pose for a group shot in front of the museum.