DALLAS (AP) — Ebby Halliday, a pioneering Dallas real estate broker since the 1940s, has died at age 104.
Halliday died Tuesday night of natural causes. Spokesman Cody Baker says Halliday died at her home.
She was born Vera Lucille Koch in Leslie, Arkansas, and later took the professional name Ebby Halliday.
She founded Ebby Halliday Realtors in 1945. The company, according to its website, is the largest independently owned residential real estate services group in Texas with about 1,700 associates and 2014 sales of nearly $6.7 billion. The 70-year-old company participated in approximately 19,200 property transactions in 2014 .
Halliday in 1965 married attorney and ex-FBI agent Maurice Acers. He died in 1993.
Halliday in 1996 was inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame, as chosen by the Governor’s Commission for Women. She was named a Horatio Alger Association Distinguished American in 2005. She was named a Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient for the Fort Worth Business Great Women of Texas event in 2014.
“While we grieve the loss of Ebby, our legendary founder and my friend and mentor for over 50 years, we celebrate a long life well lived,” said Mary Frances Burleson, president and CEO of The Ebby Halliday Companies. “Each of us who had the good fortune of knowing Ebby has been touched by the grace, fortitude and compassion with which she lived her life. Ebby had a very simple saying that she lived by, ‘Do something for someone every day.’ That small bit of wisdom served Ebby very, very well.” – Robert Francis of FWB contributed to this report.