Ebby Halliday*

Born in 1911, Ebby Halliday spent her earliest years in Leslie, Arkansas. Her father was an engineer on the Missouri-North Arkansas Railroad, which ran through their hometown. Halliday, the middle child, had an older brother and younger sister. When she was five, her father died, and she and her siblings went to live with their grandparents. Her grandfather was a circuit-riding preacher who instilled in her the values of worship and respect for elders. Her mother remarried two years later, and the family moved to her stepfather's farm in Kansas.

After her second marriage, Halliday's mother had two more children, reared all five on the Kansas farm, and spent many hours cooking and canning and helping her children with their homework. Halliday's stepfather was an athletic man who taught the children to ride, run, and wrestle.

The farmhouse in which Halliday grew up had a well on the back porch, and the family used carbide lights for illumination, which seldom worked. Usually, the children studied at the kitchen table by lamplight. Halliday helped with the many chores necessary to keep the farm running, including riding a horse to bring in the cows. She loved riding so much that she daydreamed of one day becoming a bareback rider in the circus. Her favorite job was riding her horse from farm to farm so she could sell Cloverine salve, which she bought for 5 cents and sold for 10 cents.

Halliday attended a one-room schoolhouse, which she loved. A self-described "voracious reader," she was influenced by the books that she read in front of the schoolhouse's big stove. Halliday was a good student and excelled in English, history, drama, and sports. She attended high school in Abilene, Kansas, which was 18 miles from the farm. For the first two years, a bus picked her up, but for the last two years she boarded with the postmaster and his wife. During that time, she worked after school on Saturdays and in the summer, she sold dry goods for J. C. Penney. Halliday enjoyed her time on the high school debate team and wanted to go to college, but she graduated in 1929 at the beginning of the Great Depression, and her family needed her income, making college out of the question.

Unable to find a job in Abilene, Halliday took a bus to Kansas City, Missouri. She got a job with Consolidated Millinery Company, which leased space in the Jones Department Store. She earned $10 a week selling hats in the basement. Soon, Halliday's dedicated work ethic earned her a promotion to the main floor of the store, where the nicer hats were sold. Next, she was transferred to another department store in Omaha, where she managed the "Hat Box" on the main floor.

After meeting with success there, she was again transferred, this time to Dallas, and was put in charge of the main department of the W. A. Green store. During her lunch hours, Halliday often went across the street to Neiman Marcus to study that store's more expensive hats. She then returned to the designer in her department and had cheaper copies made. After seven years, Halliday had saved $1,000. She wanted to invest her money and asked her doctor, who was scheduled to take out her tonsils, what he would recommend. "I wanted to be in business for myself," she said. "I wasn't sure how to spell entrepreneur, but I knew I wanted to be one." Her doctor told her to look into cotton futures. Halliday rapidly parlayed her money into $12,000 and leased space in a large Victorian house that had been converted into shops and offices.

She took many of her customers with her, along with her designer, to open her small hat shop. Before long, the husband of one of her customers told her about his new home development that used an innovative type of construction called insulated cement. He was having trouble selling the houses and told Halliday, "If you can sell my wife these crazy hats, maybe you could sell my crazy houses." Intrigued, Halliday went to see the houses. It was 1945 and very few women were in real estate, but Halliday felt excited and passionate about the prospect. She sold her hat business to her designer and quickly set about selling all 52 houses in the development. Halliday went on to build the largest independently owned residential real estate firm in Texas and one of the largest in the United States.

Even after being in business for 60 years, Halliday never forgot her roots. "My philosophy came from my mother and grandparents, who taught me to do my best, give thanks to God for the blessing of life itself, practice the Golden Rule, help those less fortunate, and reward those who have helped me along the way," she said. "I also try to make gratitude my most often-used word."