Bette Nesmith Graham for USD $47.5 million in 1979. At the time, her company employed 200 people and made 25 million bottles of Liquid Paper per year. Bette Nesmith died on May 12, 1980, at the age of 56, in Richardson, Texas. From the start, Graham ran her company with a unique combination of spirituality, egalitarianism, and pragmatism. Raised a Methodist, Graham converted to Christian Science in 1942, and this faith inspired the development of her corporate "Statement of Policy". Part-code of ethics, part-business philosophy, it covered everything from her belief in a "Supreme Being" to a focus on decentralized decision making and
John Nesmith them. His purchase being made soon after the formation of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, he sold the property to good advantage. While carrying on these varied and arduous undertakings Mr. Nesmith still found time to devote to mechanical study and experiment. Several of his discoveries and inventions were of great importance and value—among others the well-known machines for making wire fence and shawl fringe. Though naturally averse to mingling in politics, and never stooping to the acts by which popularity is often won, he was elected to various offices in the city government of Lowell, where his sound practical sense