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 lakes in New Hampshire as reservoirs for the Lowell Mills in dry seasons and letting the water into the Merrimac River when needed by artificial canals. This brilliant conception was at first scouted by the manufacturers along the river, but Mr. Nesmith, satisfied that they would eventually require the water, bought the right to use both these lakes for the purpose and before long the manufacturers had to buy of him at a handsome profit. Mr. Nesmith was the first to discern the natural fitness of the site now occupied by the flourishing city of Lawrence on the Merrimac River