Graham, Bette Nesmith, 1924-1980

Bette Nesmith Graham; born Bette Clair McMurray, March 23, 1924, Dallas, Texas, U.S.; died May 12, 1980 (aged 56), Richardson, Texas, U.S.; married Warren Audrey Nesmith (1919–1984); child (Robert Michael Nesmith, born December 30, 1942), Robert was musician and music producer; divorced (1946); moved to Dallas; support herself as a single mother, she worked as a secretary at Texas Bank and Trust. She eventually attained the position of the executive secretary, the highest position open at that time to women in the industry; To make extra money, she used her talent painting holiday windows at the bank; Graham secretly used her white correction paint for five years, making some improvements with help from her son's chemistry teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas. Some bosses admonished her against using it, but coworkers frequently sought her "paint out". She eventually began marketing her typewriter correction fluid as "Mistake Out" in 1956. The name was later changed to Liquid Paper when she began her own company; Mistake Out started the 1960s operating at a small loss, with Nesmith's home doubling as company headquarters. As the product became an indispensable tool of the secretarial trade, Nesmith relocated production and shipping from her kitchen to a 10 foot-by-26 foot portable metal structure in her backyard, where packaging, shipping, and production were centered; Bette Nesmith married Robert Graham in 1962, divorced, 1975; she sold Liquid Paper to the Gillette Corporation for USD $47.5 million in 1979;