In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the
International Women's Day, March 8, 2010
Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities: Progress for all
Copyrights TexasOnTheGo.Com
Co-founder of Neiman-Marcus department stores.
She encouraged the establishment of weekly fashion shows,
fall fashion expositions, and, beginning in 1938, the annual
Neiman Marcus Awards, given to designers for distinguished
service in the field of fashion.
She entered business as a blouse buyer and saleswoman at A. Harris and Company, a
department store.
By age twenty-one she was among the highest-paid working women in Dallas.
She married Abraham Lincoln (AL) Neiman and resigned her sales position to become a
partner with her husband and her brother, Herbert Marcus, in a sales promotion business in
Atlanta, Georgia.
In 1907 the partners sold the successful enterprise for $25,000 and returned to Dallas to open
a specialty shop for high-quality women's ready-made garments.
Businesswoman
Divorce and with three children she went to work in the direct sales business for 25
years. In 1963 she resigned a position as a national training director when yet another
man she had trained was promoted above her – at twice her salary.
Frustrated and decided to write a book to assist women in business. The book turned
into a business plan for her ideal company. By the end of the year Ash and her son,
Richard Rogers, began Mary Kay Cosmetics with a $5,000 investment. The company
originally operated from a storefront in Dallas which opened in 1968, but grew rapidly,
particularly after Ash was interviewed for CBS's 60 Minutes in 1979.
Ash was widely respected, if not always understood, for her unconventional approach to
business. She considered the Golden Rule the founding principle of Mary Kay
Cosmetics, and the company's marketing plan was designed to allow women to advance
by helping others to succeed. She advocated "praising people to success" and her
slogan "God first, family second, career third" expressed her insistence that the women
in her company keep their lives in balance.
Her business philosophy, Mary Kay on People Management has been included in
business courses at the Harvard Business School.
Founder of Mrs. Baird's Bakeries, Inc.
Orphan, she lived with her aunt until she
met William Allen Baird, who was also an orphan. They were
married in 1886, when Ninnie was seventeen years old and
William was nineteen.
He was in the restaurant and bakery business. In 1901 the family
moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where William introduced the first steam popcorn machine
to the city at Seventh and Main streets. The bright red machine with its brass fittings and
steam whistle became an instant success, and within eight months another one followed,
at Fifth and Main. The success of the popcorn machines gave William the capital to buy
another restaurant, for which Ninnie was the baker. She gained a reputation for her
excellent bread, cakes, and pies.
Not long afterward, William became ill with diabetes, an untreatable disease in those days.
By this time, the family had grown to eight children, and the three oldest, Bess, Dewey,
and Hoyt, worked with their father and mother in the restaurant learning the bakery trade.
All of the baking was done with a four-loaf, wood-burning oven that required splitting of
wood and stoking to keep a constant temperature. The restaurant was recognized for its
bakery products and had a thriving business in the neighborhood. With her husband's
failing health, Ninnie recognized that she could make a living baking bread. She sold the
restaurant and in 1908 founded Mrs. Baird's Bread. William Baird died in 1911.   
The children all helped in various ways. The boys helped bake and deliver by bicycle, and the girls
took care of chores and the smaller children. Bess worked outside of the house to bring in extra
money, as the business was still just getting off the ground.
In 1915 Mrs. Baird's Bread purchased a used commercial oven from the Metropolitan Hotel for $75,
paid by $25 in cash and the balance in bread and rolls. This oven had the capacity of 40 loaves.
The business acquired a horse and wagon in 1917, with Hoyt Baird as driver. A new bakery was
built in 1918 at Sixth Avenue and Terrell. Business expanded to Dallas in 1928. By now Ninnie Baird
was turning the operation over to the boys, but kept a tight hand on the operations as the country
was in a depression. In 1938 the business expanded to Houston and built a new bread plant in
Fort Worth. Each of the boys was now running a plant.
World War II brought many changes to the bakery business due to the shortage of ingredients and
personnel. Ninnie and the boys limited their products to the bare necessities—white, wheat,
and buns. After the war, the business continued to expand with a new plant built in Abilene in
1949 and acquisitions in Victoria, Lubbock, Waco, and Austin.
By the 1950s Upon her death on June 3, 1961,
the company had grown to nine plants with over
2,500 employees and was the largest independent,
family-owned bakery in the country.
H-E-B chain
Her grocery store was the first link in the H-E-B chain founded by her son
Howard Edward Butt. She later enrolled in Clinton College and, as the only
female in her class, graduated with highest honors. In 1889 she married
pharmacist Clarence C. Butt. The couple moved to Texas in 1904 in search
of a more suitable climate and better medical facilities to treat Clarence's tuberculosis.
With her husband unable to work, Mrs. Butt became an agent for the A&P Tea Company, taking and
delivering grocery orders door-to-door. She accumulated a small stock of groceries and invested sixty
dollars to open the C. C. Butt Grocery on Main Street in Kerrville (November 26, 1905) . The store has 750
sq. ft. was on the ground floor of a two-story building, which Mrs. Butt rented for nine dollars a month.
She established a credit and delivery system and carries only groceries products.
She combined her business and domestic responsibilities by moving her family into the second floor of the
building and using her sons as delivery boys. In 1906 Mrs. Butt invests in the company’s first
transportation system by purchasing a horse and wagon to make grocery deliveries.
The business was a family business, until they hire it’s first employee in 1913. In 1916 they add more
horsepower to their transportation fleet with the purchase of a Model T for deliveries.
She continued to run the store until 1919, when her son Howard returned from the navy and took over as
manager. By the end of the twentieth century the H-E-B stores were the largest privately owned food chain
in the nation.
After her marriage on September 9, 1847, to Alexander Cockrell she lived in Dallas County until 1852, when
Alexander purchased the remainder of the original head right containing the settlement of Dallas. After the family
moved into the town, Cockrell started a construction business, established a sawmill and gristmill, and erected a
building for rental to business firms. His wife, in addition to her homemaking duties, kept the records, managed
the money, and handled the correspondence for the businesses. After Alexander's death in 1858, Sarah took
over the family enterprises. In 1859 she opened the St. Nicholas Hotel under her own management. When it
burned in the fire that destroyed most of Dallas in 1860, she opened the Dallas Hotel, which later became the St.
Charles.
In 1860 she received a charter from the Texas legislature to build an iron suspension bridge across the Trinity
River. Construction was delayed by the dislocations of the Civil War so that not until 1870 did she find investors
for the Dallas Bridge Company, in which she retained the majority of the shares. In accord with social convention
she never served on the bridge company's board but left formal membership to her son Frank and son-in-law,
Mitchell Gray. In 1872 the bridge opened, linking Dallas with all major roads south and west; building this bridge
has been called Sarah Cockrell's most significant contribution to the economic life of Dallas.
In 1872 she purchased a one-third interest in the city's second commercial flour mill, Todd Mills, and in 1875
bought the remaining mill stock. In partnership with her son and son-in-law, she formed S. H. Cockrell and
Company at a time when flour milling was Dallas's major industry. During the 1880s she turned her attention to
real estate and handled numerous deals each year; she not only purchased but sold, leased, and rented lands to
railroads, business firms, churches, individuals, and the city of Dallas. In 1889 she handled fifty-three separate
land deals and in both 1890 and 1891 more than twenty. In 1884 she opened the Sarah Cockrell Addition, a
residential subdivision, and in 1885 she and her son Frank commissioned construction of the five-story Cockrell
Office Building. In 1892 she owned approximately one-fourth of downtown Dallas, plus several thousand acres in
Dallas County, as well as smaller properties in Houston, Mineral Wells, and Cleburne.
In 1868 she was a member of the Dallas County Agricultural and Mechanical Association, which then had only
four other women among its 100-odd members.
From a Tamale Stand into the El Chico Restaurant Chain
In 1892 she and Macario Cuellar crossed into Texas and were married in
Laredo. At the time they spoke no English. They worked on ranches in small
Texas towns before settling as sharecroppers in Kaufman. In 1926, with twelve children to support, Mrs.
Cuellar decided to supplement the family income by selling homemade tamales at the Kaufman County Fair.
The tamale stand was a success, and the venture was repeated the following year. Soon after, sons Frank
and Amos opened a Mexican cafe in Kaufman with Mama Cuellar, as she was called, doing the cooking.
The cafe closed after two years, as the Great Depression tightened its grip on the community. Eventually,
using her recipes, several of the sons opened Mexican restaurants in the East Texas towns of Terrell, Wills
Point, Malakoff, and Tyler, as well as in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Shreveport, Louisiana. All of these
ventures closed by the end of the 1930s.
In 1940 Mrs. Cuellar's sons Macario and Gilbert moved to Dallas and opened a restaurant, El Charro, in the
Oak Lawn neighborhood. The menu featured Mama's tastiest recipes, and eventually most of the family
moved to Dallas to help with the popular business. Within three years the restaurant was profitable, and the
family began to expand its interests into other parts of Dallas and Fort Worth, Waco, and Houston. By this
time, the restaurants had become known as El Chico and the Cuellar sons as "Mama's boys." The family
expanded and diversified the business rapidly, entering the frozen food business in 1955 and opening
restaurants throughout the Southwest.
By the time Mama Cuellar died, the El Chico Corporation was involved in twenty separate business
enterprises, from restaurant franchising to canning.
First licensed female truck driver and trucking-firm women owner in Texas (and the United States).
Born in Galveston, her mother gave her up for adoption.
Lillie dropped out of school in the fifth grade. At the age of thirteen she obtained employment as a
telephone operator.
She married when she was fifteen years old and have a baby, but was divorce in lest than two years. She
married Willard Ernest Drennan in 1917 and started a trucking business with her husban in 1928. By that
time she had lost most of her hearing ability. To take advantage of an oil boom near Hempstead, they
purchased their first truck, a used, open-cab Model-T Ford, which her husband drove. As their business
rapidly prospered, they bought a second truck, a closed-cab Chevrolet driven by Lillie. Later they added
other trucks and hired additional drivers. After their divorce in 1929, Lillie became the sole owner of the
Drennan Truck Line and, until 1934, a soft-drink bottling plant in Hempstead that the couple had also
acquired.
Lillie received her commercial truck-driver's license in 1929 after the Railroad Commission began
supervising the motor-freight business in the state. Commission examiners appeared reluctant to grant her
a license, contending that her hearing impairment would make her a safety risk. But Lillie perceived sex
bias and effectively argued her case, based on her driving record: "If any man can beat my record I'll just
get out of here."
She operated the Drennan Truck Line for nearly twenty-four years and withstood opposition from unfair
competitors, dishonest shipping clerks, and others who believed that a woman lacked the fortitude to
manage a trucking company. She and her drivers, most of whom were black men, hauled oilfield
equipment, explosives, soft drinks, and general freight throughout East Texas, braving mud and ice.  
On occasions Lillie drove over forty-eight hour stretches with virtually no sleep or rest, but apparently she
never had an accident. Joe Carrington, a well-known insurance carrier for Texas trucking companies,
wrote in 1946 that he knew of "no other truck owner" who enjoyed a safety record comparable to Lillie's.
Carrington also praised the excellent reputation of her other drivers.
Lillie received safety awards from the Railroad Commission and the Texas Motor Transportation
Association. She also demonstrated her driving skills as a guest participant on a Texas Motor Transport
Association "Roadeo" obstacle course at the state fairgrounds in Dallas in September 1950.
Lillie Drennan achieved national fame for her colorful personality. Attired in her khaki pants and shirt,
laced work boots, and a ten-gallon hat, she placed a loaded revolver by her side when she drove,
although she never used it. She insisted upon training every driver she hired; she sometimes kicked her
employees in the seat of their pants and threatened, in her foghorn voice, to "pistol-whip" or "brain them
with an iron bar" for violating her rules. When criticized for her cursing, she responded, "Me and God
have an understanding." During World War II the United States Army praised Lillie's success in its
recruiting campaign to attract women truck drivers for the quartermaster corps.
During her long career Lillie received media attention in periodicals, newspapers, and radio broadcasts.
In 1943 she visited Hollywood, where the Los Angeles Times hailed her as a "dry land Tugboat Annie."
Although Lillie entered into negotiations for a movie based upon her life, the production apparently never
occurred. On May 17, 1946, the Hempstead News dedicated a special oversized edition to Lillie, whom a
trucking trade publication described as "a twentieth-century pioneer who has all the color of an Annie
Oakley, and who lives the life of a hard-hitting frontiers-woman." The city of Hempstead, sometimes
known as Six-Shooter Junction, honored Lillie with a banquet on Six-Shooter Junction Day, May 23,
1946; such luminaries as Texas Department of Public Safety director Homer Garrison and future governor
Beauford Jester attended.
She also was a member of the Texas Transportation Association and an honorary member of the Houston
Freight Carriers Association. She sold Drennan Truck Line in September 1952 and operated the Six
Shooter Junction Novelty and Package Store on U.S. Highway 290 in Hempstead afterward.
Born in Carthage, Texas.
As the great-grandchild of a slaveholder and the grandchild of former slaves, she was moved by the
stories of slavery she heard from her grandparents to desire to improve the lives of blacks. As a child she
lived in poverty in a two-room house and worked in the cotton fields with the rest of her family. As a young
woman, she worked as a domestic in Galveston, where her family moved in 1904, and later in Houston.
Married with Clarence A. Dupree the Dupree's moved to Houston, where she learned hairdressing and
later became a beautician at the Ladies Beauty Shop. Eventually Anna Dupree was employed by a beauty
salon in the exclusive white neighborhood of River Oaks and made personal calls to the homes of
customers in both the River Oaks and Montrose districts of Houston. She earned enough making house
calls to quit her salon job, but she and her black colleagues were eventually prevented from continuing
their independent employment by the establishment of a white beauticians' protective organization.
Living simply and saving what income they could, the Duprees began to invest in real estate. In 1929 they
opened the Pastime Theater on McKinney Street. In 1936 Anna built her own beauty shop, equipped with
a Turkish bath, a sweatbox, and massage services. Then in 1939 the Duprees built the El Dorado Center,
which included the El Dorado Ballroom, one of the first clubs for blacks in Houston and a showplace for
black entertainment. The Duprees contribution to the African American community are immensurable. In
1946 the Duprees donated $11,000 toward the construction of the first permanent building on the campus
of Houston College for Negroes, now Texas Southern University.
Born in San Antonio.
She left St. Joseph's Academy after the seventh grade to contribute to the family income by working as a
watchmaker in her father's jewelry store, the first in San Antonio. Her father died when she was twenty,
leaving the family in severe financial difficulty. His store closed, and her mother rented the bedrooms and
the parlor of their home to boarders while the family slept on the back porch.
In 1907 Petronila became the first woman employee at Eli Hertzberg's jewelry store in San Antonio. Her
salary of five dollars a week was barely enough to support her mother and younger brother and sister. She
owned a blouse, a skirt, and a pair of shoes with newspaper soles. Thirty-three years later she became the
president and sole proprietor of Hertzberg's, the largest jewelry company in the city.
When Hertzberg died in 1908, his brother-in-law Max Goodman became president of the business, and for
the next twenty years Goodman and Pereida worked together. In addition to making watches, she worked
in the sales, shipping, and bookkeeping departments. When she demanded that Goodman raise her salary
to equal that of a male employee with the same job, he agreed. He and Pereida were married in 1927,
when he was fifty and she forty. In 1931 Goodman died of a stroke. Petronila continued to work at
Hertzberg's, and in 1940 she became president and sole owner by buying controlling shares of the
business from Hertzberg family members and employees.
Petronila Goodman earned respect from the business community as Hertzberg's president during the
1940s. In 1941 she hired Annie Laurie Ector, one of the first black sales clerks in San Antonio. Eventually,
the growth of chain stores and their ability to reduce prices by purchasing in volume prevented her from
competing successfully as an independent store owner. In 1964 she sold Hertzberg's to the Zale Jewelry
Corporation.
Mistake Out, Liquid Paper
Born in San Antonio.
Divorced with a small son to support Bette moved to Dallas where she attended
secretarial school and after a lot a hard work in 1951 she began working as
secretary to the chairman of the board of Texas Bank and Trust and as a
freelance artist.
She proved to be adept with the new electric typewriter, but fixing mistakes was a problem—hand-erasing
left ugly smudges. Bette knew that artists often paint over unsatisfactory parts of their canvas. “I decided to
use what artists use. I put some tempera water-base paint in a bottle and took my watercolor brush to the
office, and used that to correct my typing mistakes.” Soon every secretary in the office was begging for a
bottle of the magic fluid.
Hoping to market her invention, she converted her house into a production facility. A high school chemistry
teacher helped improve the formula into a faster-drying solution. Bette blended ingredients with her kitchen
mixer. Using a catsup squeeze bottle, son Michael transferred the batch into tiny bottles to sell as Liquid
Paper.
Bette’s break came in 1958, when an office magazine featured Liquid Paper as a “new product of the
month.” A flood of orders followed from major corporations including General Electric, General Motors, and
Bethlehem Steel. Production increased fifty-fold from 100 bottles per week in 1958 to 5,000 bottles per
week by 1964. As it outgrew its home base, the operation expanded into several portable buildings. In 1968
Bette established a fully automated plant, and in 1975 she inaugurated a 35,000-square-foot international
headquarters in Dallas that could churn out 25 million bottles per year. The new headquarters was
designed as a comfortable work environment with airy corridors, potted plants, and art by Bette and others.
Workers had access to an on-site library and child-care center. Bette retired as chair of the board in 1976.
In 1954 she transferred a technique from art to her secretarial work: she stopped erasing typing errors and began
using tempera paint to cover them. Two years later she was sharing her mixture, which she called Mistake Out,
with other secretaries. With the encouragement and assistance of an office-supply dealer, a local chemistry
teacher, and an employee of a paint-manufacturing company, she experimented in her kitchen, using an oldfashioned mixer to combine paint and other chemicals to refine her product. Her son and his friends filled bottles
for the fledgling company. In 1957 she attempted to persuade IBM to market her invention, but without success.
Finally, a brief description of the renamed Liquid Paper in a 1958 office trade magazine produced 500 orders from
across the United States. The General Electric Company placed the first single large order, for over 400 bottles in
three colors, four times her monthly production. Nesmith's interest in her invention and her company backfired,
however, when she was fired for accidentally putting her own company's name on a letter typed for her employer.
She then left full-time secretarial work to devote her energy to Liquid Paper. In 1960 her company's expenses
exceeded its income, but in 1963-64 Liquid Paper increased its weekly production tenfold, from 500 to 5,000
bottles. In 1968 the company sold a million bottles and moved into its own plant.
In 1962 Bette Nesmith married Robert Graham, who joined her in the business. By 1975 the Liquid Paper
Corporation had built an international headquarters in Dallas and was producing 500 bottles a minute, but the
Grahams' relationship had deteriorated, and they were divorced that year. Bette Graham resigned as chairman of
the board, and Robert Graham took her place. When the board of directors changed the Liquid Paper formula and
eliminated Bette Graham's royalties, she disputed the decision. The disagreement was resolved in 1979 when the
Liquid Paper Corporation was sold to the Gillette Corporation for nearly $48 million.
Bette Graham later regretted her decision to leave, saying that she would not have done so had she realized that
her corporate philosophy would not survive her absence. She said she built her company to foster the cultural,
educational, and spiritual development of its employees. To this end, she designed company committees
composed of a cross section of employees and urged their participation in decision-making processes. She also
helped design the company's plant and office complex to foster communication and comfort as well as
productivity. It included a child-care center, a library, and a greenbelt. She also displayed her own and others'
works of art.
She described herself as a "feminist who wants freedom for myself and everybody else.”
The sizzling Tex-Mex dish known as fajitas—grilled marinated meat inside a
flour tortilla—jumped in popularity after being served in the Houston restaurant
of Ninfa Laurenzo. Ninfa grew up in the Rio Grande Valley and married an
Italian American. Beginning in 1948, she and her husband operated a pizza
dough and tortilla factory on Houston’s east side. At age 46 Ninfa found
herself a widow with five children to support. She converted a section of the wholesale factory into
a 10-table restaurant and, with her offspring‘s help, began serving home-cooked meals in 1973.
The rest, as they say, is history. The little restaurant soon gained fame for its tasty fajitas—called
tacos al carbon in the early days—as well as for its signature green sauce and parrot décor. Ninfa
opened a second restaurant in 1976 and eventually expanded her business to a chain-restaurant
empire with 51 outlets in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, and Germany. But, along the way,
the cheerful family presence and “from-scratch” menu were lost. Overextended, the business filed
for bankruptcy in 1996. Another corporation bought the rights to the Ninfa name and logo, although
Mama Ninfa and her children and grandchildren continued to operate a cantina called El Tiempo in
her later years.
Ninfa had lost three sisters to breast cancer, including her twin. When diagnosed with the disease
herself, Ninfa took the offensive in breast cancer prevention. She chaired the Tell-a-Friend
campaign, urging women to get annual mammograms. She served on numerous boards and
foundations and gave a speech seconding the nomination of George Bush at the 1988 Republican
National Convention. The stalwart entrepreneur received many honors including "Woman
Restaurateur of the Year" from the Texas Restaurant Association, "Business Woman of the Year"
from the National Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and induction into the Texas Women’s Hall of
Fame.
Fashion-store owner
She apparently moved to Dallas in 1920 with her family. She lived in New Jersey after her
marriage, then returned to Texas in the late 1920s after her husband's company closed.
During the Great Depression Leavell, who had never worked outside of her home, determined to
survive the times by selling clothes from her living room in Dallas. At the end of the decade she
invested $500 to open her own dress shop, and within a year she had made a net profit of
$15,000. A few years later she moved her shop to the exclusive Highland Park area in Dallas.
In 1949 she opened a second, larger store in a new Dallas shopping village on Lovers Lane; she
eventually closed her Highland Park store. She aimed to provide direct competition to Dallas's
best-known couture fashion store, Neiman-Marcus, by providing quality goods and specialized
service. She succeeded largely through word-of-mouth advertising from satisfied customers.
Leavell promoted her store more than herself; she was rarely photographed, but her name was
known throughout the nation's merchandising circles as well as by her devoted customers, many
of whom had the luxury of extravagant clothing budgets. Her abilities with her own store enabled
her also to become part-owner of a large international fashion store, the Jane Engel Company.
A frail and shy girl at the beginning of her life she became one of the stronger business owners in Texas
and nationwide.
Mary married very young to a senior Mr. Northen. A young widow she dinner almost every day with her
father when her mother pass away, and since 1942 she served on the various boards of directors of the
Moody interests.
In an unusual practice for the time, her father groomed her, not his sons, to take care of the financial
empire he has build and she was named executor of her father's will, which cut off the other heirs with
token sums and left Mary the brick mansion and a fortune of $400 million. In 1954, at age sixty-two, she
became president of the American National Insurance Company; the Moody National Bank; the News
Publishing Company, publishers of the Galveston News and the Galveston Tribune; the American Printing
Company; W. L. Moody and Company, Unincorporated Bankers of Galveston; and Commonwealth Life
and Accident Insurance Company of St. Louis.
She also chaired a number of boards, including the National Hotel Company and the thirty-seven hotels
belonging to Affiliated National Hotels; W. L. Moody Cotton Company; Silver Lake Ranches; and the
Southern Trading Company.
Quiet like her father, she relied on efficient managers to direct the many companies.
She also chaired the Moody Foundation, founded by her parents in 1942. Subsequent court battles
reduced the fortune but did not touch the foundation, which in 1965 ranked third in endowment size
nationwide. Mary Northen continued to chair the foundation, and still sat on the board of the Moody
National Bank when she was eighty-five. Her personal interests included subsidizing many of the
historical activities in Galveston, projects that often qualified for funds from the foundation. Besides
helping in a number of worthy restorations, her money and influence provided some unusual Galveston
institutions. She commissioned Lone Star, an outdoor historical drama, and gave money to build a
suitable theater in Galveston State Park.
Financier, Real Estate Developer & Philanthropist
She married William Oliver, industrialist and principal stockholder of Mississippi Mills, then the South's largest textile
manufacturer.
In 1890 Melissa visited Amarillo for the first time, on invitation from her merchant brothers, John and James Callaway.
After her husband's death in 1891, she returned to the Panhandle on several occasions and purchased land in Potter and
Randall counties; where she moved permanently in 1895.
She caused a stir among townspeople when she arrived with her fine horses, carriage, and household servants, who were
said to be the first blacks in Amarillo. Soon her spirited chestnut horse, elegant attire, and aloof public manner caused her
to be labeled the "Duchess“, but later she was known for her warmth and generosity. Her personal fortune exceeded the
combined capital of all the area banks, and she began to contribute funds to the town at a time when money was needed
for growth. Because the entrance of a woman into the financial world was unusual at the time, she used the name M. D.
Oliver. Those to whom the banks lent money on her behalf were rarely aware that the actual lender was a woman.
She remarried in 1902 to O. M. Eakle, an organizer and director of the Amarillo National Bank and first president of the
Amarillo Board of Trade. In 1903 Dora Oliver-Eakle, as she was henceforth called, filed with the city a residential plat that
comprised part of the land she had bought in 1891. The initial development of the M. D. Oliver-Eakle Subdivision extended
from Fifteenth to Thirty-fourth streets and from the Santa Fe tracks to Washington Street. The land on which Amarillo
College and Memorial Park are located was part of her original holdings, and she also gave the city Oliver-Eakle Park with
its colored light fountain. She helped finance the Amarillo Opera House, establish the Tri-State Fair and the Public Library.
Because of her firm stand against liquor, Chicago mobsters made several kidnapping and extortion attempts against her,
after which she carried a revolver in her purse. In 1927 she completed Amarillo's first skyscraper, the ten-story Oliver-Eakle
Building, later renamed the Barfield Building.
She immigrated to the US with her family when she was on her teens. On 1927 she married and
moved from San Antonio to Houston. She raised eight children, three of whom were adopted. Her
husband, Joe Reyna, worked as a mechanic in various garages and eventually owned his own
business, Reyna's Garage.
During the 1930s she sold clothes from door to door, and during the early 1940s she operated a
fruit stand. She also volunteered at various florists' shops around the city in order to learn the trade.
Finally, in 1947 she opened her own flower shop. The shop prospered over the next thirty years, a
notable accomplishment considering that few women or members of minorities operated their own
businesses during this period. Reyna's Florist became one of the most popular businesses in
Magnolia Park, and over the years it provided the floral arrangements for thousands of banquets,
weddings, and quinceañeras. Mary Reyna often donated her materials and services to families
and charitable organizations that had limited funds. Because of her generosity, both she and her
business acquired the nickname "la reina de las flores," "queen of the flowers."
She became a leading figure in civic, cultural, religious, and political affairs in Houston. She was
one of the founding members of Ladies LULAC Council 22 and others organizations as the Comité
Patriótico Mexicano, Magnolia Park YWCA, the Hispanic Business and Professional Women's
Club.
She received numerous local and international awards and recognition during her lifetime.
She married Guadalupe Rodríguez, Jr., who with his father established in 1918 a bottling factory in
San Antonio called Rodríguez and Son Bottling Company. The company produced the
Rodríguez Root Beer.
In 1929 Guadalupe died, and Herlinda joined her father-in-law in business. She bought him out in
1933 and became company president and sole owner of the enterprise. As the business grew, her
brothers, Armando and Melchor, assisted in operations. They produced new soft drinks and in 1934
changed the name of the business to Dragon Bottling Company. By 1939 the business was one
of the most prosperous owned by a Mexican American in the state. Its equipment and vehicles for
transportation were modern, and it had developed twelve soft drinks; the factory produced 120
cases of soft drinks an hour, distributed by twelve trucks to points within a 160-mile radius of San
Antonio. Dragon Bottling Company was rated excellent by Frost National Bank, Dun and
Bradstreet, and Retail Merchants. Unlike most businesses owned by Mexican Americans Dragon
served all of San Antonio and outlying towns. In 1942 Herlinda operated three bottling companies:
Dragon, Hernández, and Rodríguez, but by 1962 all these companies had ceased to exist;
competition from large corporations may have forced her out of business.
She was one of a handful of women in Primer Anuario de los Habitantes Hispano-Americanos (First
Yearbook of the Latin-American Population of Texas), published in 1939. The Anuario noted that it
was unusual for a Mexican woman to be involved in light industry and to sell a product not
specifically consumed by women. In San Antonio in 1930, 27 percent of Mexican women were
employed, mostly in the garment, pecan-shelling, manufacturing, food-processing, and domestic
and personal service sectors. Of these women 41 percent were widows.
Herlinda was one of a few women in the Mexican Chamber of Commerce in San Antonio.
Real Estate Developer
Donna lived in El Paso while growing up. As a young woman, she was interested in pursuing
a career and moved to Dallas to work as a secretary. In the 1930s she worked briefly for the
Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., before returning to Dallas.
She continued her secretarial career in the 1930s and 1940s after marrying William S. Taylor,
Jr., of Dallas, a produce and, later, real estate broker. The couple had two children.
After World War II Donna became interested in the home-building and real estate business.
She initially sold the home she had built for her family and quickly discovered her ability to sell
other homes. She eventually founded her own company, Donna Taylor Realtors, and worked
with it for the rest of her life.
As one of the first women builders and developers in Dallas in the early 1950s, she was
responsible for the development of the Preston Hollow area in the city. She was also a
founding member of the Multiple Listing Service, a service of the Greater Dallas Association
of Realtors, and was a graduate of the Realtors Institute of Texas.
In the 1950s she was recognized nationally for her outstanding achievements as a woman in
construction.
Great Texas Women, The University of Texas at Austin
Texas Woman’s University
Governor’s Commission for Women & the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame
The Texas State Historical Association and TSHA Online
http://www.tshaonline.org