Bette Nesmith Graham ( McMurray, March 23, 1924 – May 12, 1980) was an American inventor, entrepreneur, businesswoman, and philanthropist Bette's sister Yvonne described her as "strong-willed".
In 1942, McMurray married her high school sweetheart, Warren Nesmith. During his deployment in World War II, she continued working as a secretary and attended night classes to complete her GED. On December 30, 1942, she gave birth to her son, Michael Nesmith. Nesmith was a musician who later became the guitarist of The Monkees. She divorced Warren Nesmith in 1946 after he returned from the war, and she spent the following years working in various secretarial and design positions.
McMurray mixed white water-based tempera paint to match the color of her workplace stationery; she then applied it over errors with a watercolor brush. Using this method, she successfully concealed mistakes, though it could be seen as cutting corners or cheating at her job. "I tried to keep it a secret," she said, adding that "for five years I did just that". About a dozen colleagues asked McMurray for the product, so she created a label and the name "Mistake Out". McMurray hired her son and his friends to assemble bottles of the product in her garage for $1 an hour.
McMurray developed alternative formulas for quicker drying times and better application brushes. Sales were about 100 bottles per month in 1957; they increased fivefold when the correctional liquid appeared in The Office magazine, leading to a large corporate order from General Electric. Liquid Paper offered employees extensive benefits, including a retirement program, a continuing education program, and an employee-owned credit union. An additional portion of Graham's estate financed the Betty Clair McMurray Foundation, which funds programs such as the "Texas Women, A Celebration of History" exhibit, career guidance for unwed mothers, shelter and counseling for battered women, and college scholarships for mature women.
Death
On May 12, 1980, at the age of 56, Graham died due to complications of a stroke. In 2018, The New York Times published a belated obituary for Graham as part of its "Overlooked No More" series.