Taking Care of Business

Florence Eanes, co-owner with her husband of Sid’s Cafe

Guess when the first woman started a business in Georgetown? Well, no one knows the exact woman or date, but you can be sure that women were involved in business as long as men were. From women working side-by-side with men who “owned” the family business to women heading businesses themselves to informal businesses operated out of homes, women were turning the wheels of Georgetown commerce.

Aspiring businesswomen of yore faced incredible challenges here as elsewhere. Powerful cultural norms proscribed that women should not work outside the home, although women in lower income families often did, sometimes “off the books.”

Women couldn’t access basic business needs, such as opening a bank account or getting a loan or credit card. They needed to set up these things through a husband or male family or friend. It wasn’t until 1974 that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act gave American woman, married or not, the right to open her own bank or credit account.

And just to make clear: Women who did not “work” worked plenty at home! Families were larger then, and on top of taking care of all the kids and everything to keep the family fed and clothed and housed, women almost always volunteered for projects that improved our children and community.

Childbirth itself took a sometimes fatal toll on women, and life itself seemed more deadly for women. It’s not unusual to run across men who outlived three dead wives. Which maybe also raises the question of who worked harder and had more health-endangering stresses—him or her? Something to ponder.

Guess when women started their own women’s business league? Nope, not in the “You’ve come a long way, baby” times of the 1970s. It happened just as soon as women got the primary vote in 1918, thanks to a long suffrage battle with the final chapter led by Jessie Daniel Ames and her mother Laura. These two widows ran the Georgetown Telephone Exchange.

Learn more about Jessie here and here and here).

Jessie Daniel Ames, business owner and more

Laura Daniel called together a meeting in February, 1919, after business hours at their telephone office at 824 Austin Avenue. The women declared in the Williamson County Sun report that the Business Women’s League (BWL) would work for “the betterment of the workers, both employers and wage earners, among the women of Georgetown.”

The BWL members got plenty out of meeting and sharing ideas and resources. But over the years they also helped other women aspire higher, giving out scholarships and loans to young women for their education. They’d give money to civic projects and sponsor Girl Scout troops and Little League teams.

Here is a sampling of women taking care of business: They are owners or management at businesses or as professional women or women whose work was vital to the family income.

The pioneer BWL members were far from the only Georgetown women working outside the home. Plenty of women worked when their husband died, just as suffragist Jessie Daniel Ames did. Some turned to work because of family financial needs. Some just wanted to work! All these working Georgetown women likely shared the goals of workplace equity with the BWL.

Laura Daniel and her daughter Jessie Daniel Ames

Their Georgetown Telephone Exchange kept 600 Georgetown phones and 2,000 in rural Wilco ring-a-dinging. Both lost their husbands and needed to support families, and they also worked hard on top of being business owners. Jessie worked for gender and racial fairness and Laura worked with women’s groups including one group that got Georgetown’s first hospital, the Kings Daughter Sanitarium, built.

Ida Cluck (left) receiving the BWL Women of the Year award from Pearl Neas in 1961; photo courtesy of the *Williamson County Sun*

Ida Cluck, the first BWL president, started out as a Travis County public schoolteacher who was also a secretary and collector for an Austin law firm. After moving to Georgetown, she got married and took a short break to have two children. Back in the saddle, she created and ran Georgetown’s Retail Merchants Association.

Ida had the idea to start a farm animal auction barn, seeing that the auction barns were moneymakers in other places. It was an uphill battle. City authorities were reluctant, so Ida had the idea that the city could partner with the Schwertner brothers in Jarrell who already owned an auction barn. But the bros wanted the city to first fund a new barn. The city continued dragging its heels. When Ida told the bros that she was still persisting with her idea, one Schwertner said, according to the Sun, “Mrs. Cluck, you are a hard loser.” To which Ida said, “I have not lost, because I think you men are too farsighted to pass up a wonderful opportunity like this.”

Ida pushed for a profitable auction barn that would also showcase kids selling animals. Photo courtesy of the *Williamson County Sun*

The Schwertners then relented to Ida, saying they’d build a barn IF she could find land for it. Within three hours, Ida got a deal for a five-acre site. The barn went on to be a big financial win for the city. By 1959, sales surpassed $40,000 weekly, and the barn employed 25 people.

Ida’s auction barn made a mint for Georgetown!

Woman-owned (Rachel Cummins) Sweet Lemon, once Ida’s digs

Ida continued to work for the rest of her life, on top of loads of volunteering and lobbying the city to do needed projects such as improved garbage pickup to Georgetown’s Black neighborhood. She traveled widely in retirement and loved fishing, especially deep-sea fishing.

By the way, if you’ve enjoyed the fare at Sweet Lemon at 812 S. Church Street, you’ve been in Ida’s home! She and husband John moved in there in 1918 as newlyweds.

Pearl Neas became the first-ever female registrar at Southwestern University in 1923, and she was very active in the community, networking near and far, including close friendships with then-congressmember Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird.

Her connections helped save SU from financial disaster when she helped SU become part of the government’s V-12 program to place officers-in-training at many colleges to train and replace the exodus of men learning for WWII. Some 400-some Navy men came to SU to fix their bad enrollment deficit. Learn more about Pearl.

Minnie Wilcox was a piano teacher for 35-some years who presented community musicales with her students. Here’s coverage of one from 1898.

Mary Shipp Sanders did post-graduate work after leaving Southwestern University at the University of Chicago and Columbia University. She returned to teach at SU and was also appointed county supervisor of public education. Learn more about Mary and her work improving county schools for minority children with Jessie Daniel Ames here.

Estella Byrom became City Treasurer in 1923 and served for nearly 44 years. She also did some realty work, and she was instrumental in creating BWL’s scholarship program for young women.

Estella and many other Georgetown women were active in the Women’s Defense Corps during WWII. The WBL took on the Corps project, which was under the command of Captain Julia Kerlin. Julia, a WBL member, was Georgetown’s deputy tax assessor and collector.

The local Women’s Defense Corps members were among hundreds of thousands of women who joined civilian support groups to fill in jobs typically done by men as they left for war. Women would coordinate blood drives, conduct first aid, and take over along with the Red Cross for local healthcare and emergencies.

Georgetown women also signed up with the Women’s Army Corps with another 150,000 female troops nationally who served here and overseas in combat areas with WAC. Georgetown women also joined and served with other branches such as the United States Marine Corps Women’s Reserve and the Navy WAVES troops.

Linnie Campbell was the first female tax collector elected in Wilco. Find out more about this single mom whose Old Town house is honored with an historical plaque in her own name here.

Her daughter Linnie Lucille graduated from Southwestern University and married Samuel Page Duke, who worked to improve access to high education for women in Virginia.

Margaret McKennon was Southwestern’s first librarian—learn more about Margaret here. She build the library from a room of books donated by professors to a professional collection that numbered over 60,000 when she left.

A scholarship in her name funded by her son-in-law Judge C. R. Starnes gave many local young people access to SU. And Margaret brought leading authors to SU for the community to enjoy.

Let’s meet more business and professional women in this sampling of female go-getters. Some were part of the Business Women’s League over the years as they met and networked to help each other during times not always friendly to women leaders. Others made their way on their own. And of course, more and women gained ground in the workplace until these days it’s a commonplace to see lady bosses. Thus, this is just a sampling of women taking care of business, back then and more recently.

Hotel owners from then til now

Back in the day, hotels were centered downtown. Emma Dieckman Makemson owned and ran her hotel in what became the Steele-Makemson-Weir building at 800 S. Austin Avenue. Emma had worked with her mother in Round Rock at a grocery and started a grocery here on this block before running her hotel from the early 1900s to 1924. Learn more about Emma here.

Put on your imagination hat for this one. Stand at the corner of 7th Street and Austin Avenue and look toward the drive-thru area for the Bank of America. Picture this elegant woman-owned hotel, the Commercial Hotel.

Guests enjoying the fine pleasures of Lola and Martha’s Commercial Hotel.

Lola Hemphill Wright was widowed shortly after the birth in 1883 of her daughter, Johnie. Lola raised Johnie with the help of her sister, Martha Hemphill. The two operated the Commercial Hotel, which helped them send Johnie to Southwestern to get a degree in music.

Johnie went on to start the Lola Wright foundation in her mother’s name, which funds projects helping children, public health, education, and arts and culture. The Foundation notes that the hotel “had a reputation for being charming and genteel with an elegant dining room known for its good southern cooking.” Men were required to wear tie and jacket to dine. It was destroyed by fire around 1930.

Ottelia Swenson and her husband C. H. (Claus Henning) owned the Swenson Hotel that was once at Austin Avenue and 6th Street. But Ottelia ran it and won praise in the newspaper for her businesswoman skills.

Both were born in Sweden and were quite enterprising when they made their way to Georgetown. In addition to the Swenson Hotel, they had farm holdings and Ottelia ran a clothing and millinery store on the Square. She opened up a branch store in Hutto, too. Here’s a 1911 ad for her hat business. Learn more about Ottelia here.

Seen this gorgeous event center at 511 Main Street?

The Wish Well was once Coco Dickson’s Texas Hotel!

Coco Dickson took over the Texas Hotel in the 1940s, adding on rooms to make this a 15-room hotel. Two of the original hotel rooms remain, now bridal suites for the Wish Well venue for weddings and other events. Katy Bohl, who owns Wish Well along with husband Justin, notes that what’s now the reception area is where Coco and her helpers would do laundry for hotel guests.

Coco was so well-loved that her hotel retirement in 1975 was quite the last hurrah for her fans!

Coco would entertain her business-sisters from the Women’s Business League at the hotel and its lovely garden. Meetings in the hotel and garden were filled with great food, games, and oh yes, a business meeting.

When Coco closed the hotel in 1975, she reminisced about famous people who stayed there, including actor Lillian Gish, actor and playwright Cornelia Otis Skinner, big game hunter Frank Howard Buck, and Margaret Speaks, soprano soloist on the radio program Voice of Firestone.

The original owner of the Texas Hotel is Wilco Sheriff Lee O. Allen, who helped County Attorney Dan Moody investigate and successfully prosecute the KKK in 1924 after a group of Klanners beat up a white man after accusing him of adultery. Allen had the house built for his family, and his son expanded it to start the Texas Hotel.

Jennie Shaw and her husband A. W. Shaw owned the Sherman Hotel at 1008 Main Street. Jennie ran it for 18 years while A. W. was busy with his railroad jobs, which he started as a waterboy for the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas railroad and ending up as train engineer. The Sherman was bought by Southwestern University during the WWII years when they needed a place to room the nearly 400 Navy men brought in for the V-12 college training program.

Looking Good: Hair

Women kept Georgetowners looking good, selling clothes and hats starting long ago in Georgetown. And “beauty parlors,” as hair salons were called back in the day, were and are frequently owned by women.

Olivia Castillo-Lopez was born in 1937 and got into the hair business first in Round Rock. Her Round Rock salon remains open. She expanded to Georgetown, and by the 1970s had three salons going in Georgetown. Her store openings were gala, marked by mariachi bands and local dignitaries. She started a chapter of the American Business Women’s Association in 1976 to advance and support other women business owners.

Olivia was featured in a section recommending spots for Georgetown brides to prepare for the big day. Photo courtesy of the *Williamson County Sun*

On top of business growing, Olivia was an avid watercolor artist and leader in the Williamson County Art Guild and the Southwestern Watercolor Society. Here’s her watercolor that won a prize in 1988 from the prestigious Southwestern Watercolor Society.

Maggie’s salon has been operating since 1987.

When Olivia died in 2014, she was writing her first book. She was curious and always a student at heart, her family said. She loved to travel, visiting many places in the U. S. and abroad.

Maggie Mendez Lopez is another pioneer female Hispanic Georgetown hair salon owner. Maggie’s Hair Design at 607 N. Austin Ave. has seen plenty of tresses beautified over the years since Maggie opened in 1987.

Rachel Vasquez Harris headed her Georgetown salons for 45 years, starting with Mane Street downtown at the square opening in 1977. Then she opened Haircuts Plus and ended up with Rachel & Co on Williams Drive (now closed). Rachel died in 2021, and her family tells of her hard work before owning the salons, working two and three jobs to take care of her two children and as her husband Bill Harris noted, falling asleep on dates because of her exhausting work.

Ethel Mae Moore owned her very popular Mae’s hair salon in the Ridge neighborhood for decades, always busy as the go-to place for customers young and old. “Mae” studied at a Texas beauty school that was one of nearly 200 schools started by the amazing Madam C. J. Walker, an entrepreneur of beauty products for Black people. See more about Mae here.

Looking Good: Clothing and accessories

Women made and sold clothes and hats going way back. Here are a few ads from the Williamson County Sun in 1888.

Laura Buchholz, said to be a woman of charm and excellent taste, opened the Buchholz Exclusive Shoppe in 1933. Her husband, Feydor Buchholz, owned a variety store on the square, which he turned into a fabric store.

The two, along with son Ransom, lived in the house on Church and 10th that was once the home of suffragist and racial justice advocate Jessie Daniel Ames.

Bertha Swenson was the person to see for women’s clothes in the mid ‘40s and ‘50s. She was in charge of ladies’ wear at Hoffman and Sons Dry Goods Store. She took over her mother Ottelia’s millinery business as well.

Bertha was very active with the Business Women’s League, serving as president. Here’s Bertha with the other presidents at the BWL’s 41st anniversary in 1960.

Hail to the chiefs! Presidents of the Business Women’s League L-R seated: Agnes Wilcox, Bertha Swenson, Pearl Neas; standing: Mrs. O. W. Rader, Lorene Gilmore, Mrs. Felix Melburn, Mrs. Edgar Miles, Sarah Brookshire; photo courtesy of the *Williamson County Sun*

Nationally, the 1960s and ‘70s saw more women starting businesses, and that was true in Georgetown as well. Women-owned businesses noted that they’d be open during more evening hours so that working women could shop. Women were wearing the pants more and more, metaphorically and literally.

One venture came from the mother-daughter duo, Rin Etter and her daughter Dorothy Mills. Rin had her shop, Rin’s Dress Shoppe, on the square for years before the two started Dor-Rin’s Dress Shoppe on Williams Drive in 1974.

Rin Etter (left) and Dorothy Mill owned and operated Dor-Rin’s clothing store. Photo courtesy of the *Williamson County Sun*

Providing Goods and Services

Eva Evans was a saleswoman extraordinaire in the store that she and spouse Ed Evans owned. Henderson’s was a magnet on the north side of the Square in the H. C. Craig building. Henderson’s later moved to the corner Lockett building where Goodfolks is now.

Georgetowners bought everything from the first TVs sold here to work clothes to baby bonnets to sparkplugs.

Eva was a force way before she came to Georgetown, Georgetown librarian Ann Evans recounts in a look at Henderson’s history she hosted with former Georgetown city planner Britin Bostick. Eva joined the Women’s Army Corp, along with 150,000 other American women. The New Hampshire native was sent to Foster Air Force Base near Victoria, Texas.

Eva met Edward, who’d joined the Army Air Force. They married and moved to Georgetown. Ed and his brother Wallace used to work for the Hendersons, and the store was up for sale. The brothers and Eva bought the store.

The U. S. government had a post-WWII PR campaign to get people buying things and boosting the economy, and they asked the vivacious Eva to be a spokesmodel. Here she is making shoe purchase look quite enticing.

The store sold something for everyone, so everyone from bachelor farmers to moms to teens flocked there.

Henderson’s closed in the mid-1970s, victim as many Square businesses were to the trend of bigger stores locating away from the Square and on the interstate, taking away traffic from smaller downtown businesses.

Sallie and Genevieve also ran Atkin Furniture.

Sallie Atkin was another working partner in a popular business on the Square, S. T. Atkin Furniture. Her husband S. T., who was also an inventor, started the business in 1917. He died of a heart attack in 1925. Like many other women in this situation, Sallie took over. She ran the store for nine years until their son J. Thatcher took over. Sallie was a member of the Business Women’s League.

Genevieve Atkin, Sallie and S. T.’s daughter, was married to J. Thatcher and also worked at the store. She also used the store as a spot for meetings of the Square-saving bunch of mostly women. Genevieve was a pillar of that group who helped preserve historic buildings and resuscitated the Square towards its current splendor.

Kathleen Woodfin had worked for years with her husband at their Western Auto store that was once at 704 Austin. When her husband A. C. Woodfin died in 1964, Kathleen wasn’t worried about handling “man” topics such as auto parts—she was an old hand! Kathleen, a member of the Business Women’s League, took out an ad in the Williamson County Sun to assure customers that she would keep offering the same customer-focused experience as her husband.

Clara Gallaway, a president of the Women’s Business League, worked with her husband R. L. Gallaway in their insurance business. Clara took over the business when he died.

Feeding Georgetowners

Georgetown women were perpetually putting food on the table for their own families, but many cooked for money. Hotel owners at the turn of the century such as Emma Dieckman Makemson and Lola Hemphill Wright ran their elegant dining rooms. Other women had small enterprises such as these.

As the 1900s rolled on, women got busier with restaurant ownership and managing. Ever wonder what the initials of our well-loved L & M Cafe stood for? That would be . . .

Lessie Lou Cole and Minnie King! This pair would go on to own and run an amazing number of other Georgetown eateries.

The two friends teamed up in the 1940s when they managed the fountain at Cooper’s Drug Store on the Square. Then they bought a fruit stand downtown from the Labenski family (look below for more on Eula Labenski). They sold fruit (including sought-after bananas being rationed at the time) and starting frying burgers outside.

As the duo told the Williamson County Sun in 1973, “When we would put a pile of onion slices on that grill and the odor went all over town, we would have folks lined up for a block to get a hamburger, a big good hamburger for a quarter.”

Next came the Red Top Cafe at Austin and 11th streets, housed in a quonset hut. They gave it a new name: the L & M Cafe. People flocked to the cafe; check out a menu.

Diners sought out the King and Cole cooking.

Martha Tilden had put her Tilden’s Cafe next to the Palace Theater up for sale, so Lessie and Minnie bought it and named it the Lasso Cafe. Diners gathered for grub and meetings; the Women’s Business League met there on occasion. The pair switched to beauty, snapping up the Alcove Beauty Shop. Then it was back to the restaurant business, with the King Cole Cafe, named after their last names.

The gals turned their business whiz to Taylor then, running the cafe at the auction barn there. They told the Sun they eventually tired of hauling water out to the Taylor barn.

So they returned to rehab a filling station at Austin Ave. and 9th to create Grandma’s Drive-In and Grocery. They took over Paul’s Fruit Stand on Austin and University (now Little Caesar’s Pizza) and called it Grannie’s Last Stand.

Lessie and Minnie ran Grandma Drive-In on Austin and 9th St.

THEN they took over Curlee’s Grocery, located in the block where Gus’s Drugs is on University. They named it K & C Grocery for their last names, King and Cole.

The K & C team (L-R): Elizabeth Williams, Gary Riske, Minnie King, Katie Salyer, Lessie Lou Cole, Ronnie Lockhart; photo courtesy of the *Williamson County Sun*

Eula Labenski Morrison had a passion for the Dairy Hill Drive-In that was once where the Papa John’s now stands on north Austin Avenue. So she went to work there, and added to the wealth of biz knowledge she’d already acquired. She and husband Carroll Labenski owned a filling station, dairy store, and fruit stand downtown (later bought by Lessie Lou and Minnie).

Eula would juggle raising their kids while working. Son J. C. would take a nap in a cubby under the bread table, and she’d send the kids off to movies at the Ritz Theater next door. Carroll would get produce every day from San Antonio and Austin; Eula would then “get rid of it,” she told the Sun in 1977.

When Dairy Hill was up for sale in 1968, she bought it. Business blossomed, and Eula credits the crack female team helping her: cooks Elizabeth Marak and Hildegard Richter and business manager Bernice Bielss. And she credits her business background: She “knew what to do and how to do it.”

Martha Tanksley was one of the most sought-after cooks in Georgetown, but she never had a restaurant. Martha catered out of her home for some of the city’s most noted citizens, and that at times caused a bit of friction with other restaurants and bakeries. Martha recalls one instance where someone called in to report that she was selling food without a license, and one of her customers with clout nipped that in the bud. Check out Martha’s story here.

Florence Eanes was half of Sid's Café on Austin Avenue, holding a storied spot where Emma Dieckman Makemson once ran her hotel at the northwest corner of the Square. Florence and her husband Sid opened their cafe in 1941 and ran it for fifteen years. They also ran a taxi service.

Florence had the idea, her family says in her obituary, to install a nickelodeon and some booths in a back room that made a popular hangout for Georgetown kids, young people, and Ft. Hood soldiers. Florence and Sid each sponsored women's softball teams which competed all over Central Texas. Georgetowners flocked to watch games at the home field located where Stonehaven is located, west of Austin Ave. and south of 17th St.

Patricia Shoemaker stands in front of Sid’s Cafe in this wonderful photo found at the awesome Portal to Texas History from the University of North Texas. The photo got there via the Southwestern University Special Collections contributions to the Portal. Check out SU’s fascinating trove of Georgetown and regional photos, historic documents, and more at the Portal.

Florence and Sid started a dog breeding and showing business, and after Sid died in 1970, Florence opened Eanes Kennels and ran it until she retired at age 89.

Bertha and Bennett keep Georgetown donut fans happy; photo courtesy of the *Williamson County Sun*

Bertha Carter was up early with husband Bennett to hand out hot donuts at the Dixie Cream Donut Shop they ran. Dixie Creme was across from what was the Georgetown Post Office and now the City Post Chophouse. The two sold as many as 400 dozen donuts on a good Saturday, using a donut-making machine that could make 80 dozen an hour. Bertha and Bennett put in long hours—the shop was open from 7 am to 8 at night.

Women often were in charge of getting food to Georgetowners as managers of grocery stores. Georgetown had a handful of smaller grocery stores around the Square in the early years. As bigger supermarkets became the mode, the Piggly Wiggly was a go-to for many residents. Many lady bosses were in charge over the years at Piggly Wiggly.

Jewel Guthrie Carter was one of those Piggly Wiggly women in charge. Jewel was born in Bartlett, one of 11 children. She started working at a smaller grocery store for a dollar a day as a young married woman and mom.

She went on to manage the Piggly Wiggly Grocery downtown, as well as owning and running the (see above) L & M Cafe.

Look on the left for the Piggly Wiggly sign, right next to the Palace theater sign.

Jewel (third from left) raised money for the library along with these other leaders.

Jewel was also a mover and shaker in improving Georgetown, leaping into plenty of civic projects such as expanding the Georgetown library. She was the first woman on the board of directors of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce. She was a four-term president of the Georgetown Business Women's League. It’s not surprising that Jewel was awarded Georgetown’s Woman of the Year in 1977.

And when Jewel died in 1993, the Texas Senate passed a resolution honoring her for her devotion to Georgetown and its residents.

Piggly Wiggly moved to the more well-traveled University Avenue/Highway 29 at around 600 University where the current strip mall includes the Family Dollar store. The former Piggly Wiggly spot was taken over by HEB for its first Georgetown store. And the legions of Georgetown HEB fans should thank Florence for the grocery chain that blankets Texas.

Florence Thornton Butt was always a go-getter. Born in 1864, she graduated from Clinton College in Mississippi—the only woman in her class, with the highest honors.

Florence Thornton Butt, grocery entrepreneur

After marrying Charles Butt, a pharmacist, she began raising their three sons and two stepsons.

When Charles got tuberculosis, they moved to Kerrville for the warmer, drier climate. With a houseful of boys and a very sick husband unable to work, Florence got work, initially going door to door as an A & P Tea Company salesperson.

She decided to start a grocery in 1905, renting a small house and setting up a grocery on the first floor and their apartment in the upstairs. The boys pitched in, making deliveries in a handwagon.

Name this lady who would rise and make dough for her family!

Florence ran the store for several years until Charles Jr. was big enough to provide adult help. Florence established the practice of HEB’s generous support of community projects that continues on today. She died at home in 1954 at 89, just a few blocks away from that first Kerrville store.

Look right to see another food pioneer who grew a huge business with the bread so many Texans still love. Can you guess who she is?

Ninnie Baird was another woman who found herself in need of supporting her family. When William Baird’s health failed in 1908, Ninnie figured out that the breads, cakes, and pies she’d been making for family and friends could bring in some sizable cash. Her boys helped her deliver by foot and bicycle. By 1928, Ninnie had grown Mrs. Baird’s Bread to one of the largest baking facilities in Texas.

She faced stormy seas with the Great Depression, but Ninnie kept her megabakery biz on track. She was actively involved in the business throughout her 80s until failing health led to her death at 92.

Rockin’ Realtors

It’s easy to presume that the business of buying and selling land and buildings was a men’s club, especially back in the day. Most of our historic buildings with markers have men’s names on them, and most historical accounts detail realty transactions between men.

But women realtors were in play going way back. You just have to look a little harder. Georgetown librarian Ann Evans and former Georgetown city planner Britin Bostick did just that. They dug and found long-ignored documents to highlight several awesome female realtors in this excellent video. Let’s meet a few realtors.

When you’re down on the Square, take a look at the stone building at the southeast corner with the marker labeling it “The Old Dimmitt Building.” Indeed, P. H. Dimmitt did have it built in 1901, but guess who owned it after he died two years later? That would be Phillip Dimmitt’s only child, his daughter Lil.

Lilburn Dimmitt Atkinson Eubank Douglass managed several Georgetown properties she inherited, including the Old Dimmitt building. She shepherded the building as it housed a dry goods store, movie house, and Cooper’s Drugs (with soda fountain), where LBJ would frequent and schmooze the locals as his star rose in Texas politics.

At a time when realty and most any other manly pursuits were off-limits for females, Lily leveraged her own position to create a legacy that would provide for her family. She outlived every single one of her husbands and lived to the age of 92.

Wander down to University and stop at one our town’s most magnificent buildings at 304 University Avenue. It fittingly has a historical marker. But the story of the lady of the house is one rarely known.

Mattie Hughes Cody was already learning the realty business from her dad, Thomas P. Hughes. By 1925, she had parlayed her realty savvy into creating her own subdivision or “addition” to growing Georgetown. She was the first woman to “plat” or subdivide her property into lots and sell them. Most assume that all of old Georgetown’s platted subdivisions are named after a man, but in this case, the Cody subdivision is the MATTIE Cody subdivision. It runs all the way from University to 17th St., between Myrtle and Church.

Now walk a few blocks east to the block where Gus’s Drugs is. Stop at 706 University and think about the woman who once lived here.

Katharine C. Hudson was having a very tough time in 1914. Her baby died that year, and two years later, her husband J. A. Hudson died as well. The young widow needed to make a living on her own. Buying and selling homes seemed like a good option, but as a woman, she couldn’t get a loan to get started.

A sympathetic male at her church offered to help, getting the loan and passing it on to her. Katharine scraped together $100, and she promised to pay four more $100 installments each year on a house in this block where she lived. Over the next several years, she got loans and leveraged her home investment into buying more houses and building more homes. By 1940, she owned nearly this entire block!

Elizabeth Jane (Glasscock) Logan Talbot was the daughter of Georgetown founder and wealthy land baron George Washington Glasscock. She finessed her inheritance into a number of real estate deals, including building her house on 4th Street and Austin Avenue. At one point, that entire block was owned entirely by Elizabeth Glasscock and other women!

This 1906 home got moved to Bastrop, where its beauty lives on in the bed and breakfast mansion pictured below.

The law back then assumed male ownership of a wife’s assets upon marriage, but with some savvy forethought, women could make their ownership claims explicit and unclaimed by husbands. Elizabeth played things smart, Britin and Ann report. She was married at 16 to Alonzo Logan, possibly a business associate of her father; her dad may have pressured her to marry Alonzo.

Elizabeth’s beautiful home is now a Bastrop B & B.

Turns out Elizabeth’s instincts were good. She was a friend of Union advocate Sam Houston, but Alonzo favored secession and went off to fight for the Confederacy. Plus, he seems to have never came back to live with her, residing a while in Austin and then in Washington, DC—where he married someone else, report Ann and Britin.

Elizabeth decided she could play that game, too. Without a divorce, she married Sampson G. Talbott in 1876. But before the “I Do,” she made sure her real estate assets were in her name and her wealth in her control. She divorced Talbott in 1881, and she lived to be 76 and still in charge.

Fierce Farmers

Women also brought food to the table of Georgetowners over the years and continue to do so as farmers and ranchers. Across Texas, some 156,000 female farmers currently put food on our tables. Let’s meet just a few food-providers from the past, dairy farmers who brought us milk and cream and all of the delights that come from dairy.

Did you know that dairy farming was a big financial deal years ago? In 1961, dairy-generated dollars provided one in seven dollars fueling Georgetown’s economy, the Sun reported. The article notes, by the way, that the Round Rock Cheese Company was a primary customer for Wilco’s total milk sales, which rang up over $735,000 annually in 1961.

The Cheese Co. cranked out the queso for years, often using Georgetown dairy farmers’ milk.

The Sun credits 27 “dairymen” for bringing all things dairy to our tables then; truth was, some of those dairymen were ladies.

Roselle Elaine Maxwell had just graduated from UT in 1950 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts when she married Curtis T. Braun of Georgetown and moved out here to farm with him and raise five children. When Curtis died in 1966, she took over the family farm and dairy business.

As her family notes in her 2019 obituary, she became a dairy boss at a time when women did not do such things. She improved the herd and ran the dairy successfully, earning respect everywhere she went. When her father-in-law died in 1974, she took over management of the A.G. Braun Ranch with the assistance of Ray Braun.

The family sold the dairy in 1976, and Roselle turned to healthcare, getting degrees to do physical therapy to help people in rehabilitation in Austin facilities while she lived in Georgetown. On top of her job, she supported her kids as a band booster, Aggie Mom, and was awarded the first “Magnificent Mom” by the Texas Tech University Dads and Moms Association. She traveled, volunteered at St. John’s Methodist Church in Georgetown and supported the Kairos Prison Ministry with her cooking and baking skills.

Margaret and Walter Lehmann were Wilco’s Most Worthy Agriculturalists in 1963.

Margaret Lehmann was imminently qualified to be lauded as half of Wilco’s “Most Worthy Agriculturalists” in 1963! As the Sun cutline below the photo read, she and Walter “do all the work” in their dairy. And when Margaret died in 2017, her family noted in her obituary that she “was truly a partner in all facets of the dairy operations and it became, along with her role as a housewife and mother, a very important part of her life.” Often when Walter was off tending to the cattle, she’d handle all the milking operations.

Margaret younger and older in her obituary photo

Margaret and Walter had their first dairy on land that’s now the Berry Springs Preserve, and they later relocated to a Wilco spot less flood-prone. The two were honored with other agricultural awards regionally and statewide.

Margaret was a stronghold in her church, St. Peter Lutheran Church in Walburg. She loved music and played the piano and organ and taught Sunday school. She was a member of the Ladies Aid organization until her health failed.