Part of a series for Women’s History Month…
By Allan Jamail
Florence Thornton Butt, whose first grocery store was the first link in the now H-E-B chain founded by her son Howard Edward Butt, was born in Buena Vista, Mississippi, on September 19, 1864, the daughter of John and Mary (Kimbrough) Thornton.
Florence spent her youth in Buena Vista, where she often assisted her two pastor brothers in holding revivals. She later enrolled in Clinton College and, as the only female in her class, graduated with highest honors. Afterward, she taught school. In 1889 she married pharmacist Clarence C. Butt. The couple lived in Mississippi and Tennessee before moving to San Antonio, Texas in 1904 in search of a more suitable climate and better medical facilities to treat Clarence’s tuberculosis.
Florence with her husband, their three sons, then moved to Kerrville, Texas. Initially, the family lived in a canvas tent near the Guadalupe River. Tent camps were full of tuberculosis patients and their families trying to get adequate fresh air and sleep close to the ground, as doctors recommended. As she tended to her family in this primitive setting, Florence had to find a way to provide for her ill husband and her children in a town where she knew no one.
Mrs. Butt became an agent for the A&P Tea Company, taking and delivering grocery orders door-to-door.
She said, “I came to Kerrville to make our home. I came with a sick husband, three boys– 10, 12, and 14-years-old — to our capital to start out with was approximately $60.” She accumulated a small stock of groceries and invested sixty dollars to open the C. C. Butt Grocery on Main Street in Kerrville in 1905. The story of her new store appeared in the Kerrville Times in a special section celebrating the opening of a new store.
“I had such good friends to advise and help me out. After I opened our first store, our first delivery was made with a baby buggy with the top taken off, and a box placed on the wheels. Then it was run over by a wagon, and we had to get a child’s play wagon, costing $3.00, which was much for our limited capital. Then the rains came in the winter, the little wagon wheels would fill with mud, and it could not be pulled any longer. So we bought a horse that cost $20, a wagon costing $5, a harness $2.50 — $27.50 total cost for the first delivery wagon. Every month was growth, but hard work,” Florence said.
Florence continued, “Our store had rooms above to live in, and a store room, all for $9 a month. In preparing the little grocery store, I found a small Bible on a shelf. A good omen, it was kept there. So, on the morning of the store opening, before the front door was opened, the little Bible was read. Then a prayer was given to the Great Father and Giver of all things to be our partner to lead and guide us. We then opened the front door.”
When her son Howard returned from the navy, he took over as manager. She then concentrated on religious and civic efforts in Kerrville. She was a devout Baptist and a leader in the Eastern Star and the local Baptist church. She endured the death of her husband and one son, and developed a reputation as a generous community leader.
She died at her Kerrville home on March 4, 1954, after suffering a stroke, and was buried in Glen Rest Cemetery. Her survivors include her sons Howard and Eugene. By the end of the twentieth century, the H-E-B stores were the largest privately owned food chain in the nation. And the rest, as they say, is history. 111 years later, HEB has annual revenues of close to 25 billion dollars.