Celebrating Ebby
Today marks what would have been Ebby Halliday’s 106th birthday. While we miss Ebby dearly, we celebrate the remarkable life she lived and all she did for her adopted hometown and far beyond. At the Ebby Halliday Companies, we know just how large Ebby’s “footprint” was – and we seek every day to follow her extraordinary example.
We were recently reminded of Ebby’s significant impact on the world of real estate – but more importantly on people’s lives – when Pam O’Connor, president and CEO of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, spoke on nurturing relationships at the organization’s annual conference, held just last week in Miami Beach. She said, “Ebby Halliday was Wikipedia before there was a Wikipedia. If you want to be successful, be like Ebby.” We could not have said it any better.
Ebby founded Ebby Halliday Realtors in 1945. Today, the Dallas-based company is the largest independently owned residential real estate services company in Texas and ranks 10th in the nation. The 72-year-old company, with approximately 1,800 sales associates, participated in over 19,700 property transactions last year with a sales volume of $7.8 billion.
For Ebby, a successful life was about so much more than extraordinary sales figures. She often said her most successful sale was when she “sold” Maurice Acers on marrying her on April 18, 1965. Ebby and Maurice met in a chance encounter while both were on business trips to Beaumont, Texas. A former FBI agent and successful lawyer, Maurice was truly the love of Ebby’s life and her eyes would twinkle whenever she spoke of him.
Ebby’s other great passion was service to the community she proudly called home. Simply put, she and the Ebby Halliday Companies’ philanthropic impact on North Texas cannot be overstated.
Each of us who had the good fortune of knowing Ebby was 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.
Credit Ebby.com
