Bette Nesmith Graham 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 feet-by-26 feet portable metal structure in her backyard, where packaging, shipping, and production were centered. Bette Nesmith married Robert Graham in 1962; he joined her in running the company. They divorced in 1975. She sold Liquid Paper to the Gillette Corporation
Michael Nesmith in choral and drama activities during his years at Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas. He also began to write verse poetry. When he was 15 he enrolled in the Dallas Theater Center teen program, where he was featured in several plays. Without graduating from high school, Nesmith enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1960. He completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, was trained as an aircraft mechanic at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, and then was permanently stationed at the Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base near Burns Flat, Oklahoma. While