Through multiple episodes of Little House on the Prairie, Hester-Sue and Joe had kind of a love-hate relationship. In the episode Hear a Joyful Noise, Hester-Sue was about to be married to the funeral parlor owner Hertzell Lundy.
Before they are about to get married, Hester-Sue learns that Hertzell did not actually like children, so Hester Sue decides not to marry him. However, despite the fact that they do not marry, she does not marry Joe Kagan either.
An interesting trivia fact is that in the very first episode that Joe Kagan appeared in, The Fighter, the actress who plays Hester-Sue actually played his character’s wife in that episode as well. She was later cast as the Hester-Sue character.