Florence Thornton Butt

Many might associate South Texas with the popular grocery store chain, H-E-B. Whenever I was in Houston to visit my then-girlfriend (now wife), I certainly shopped at H-E-B due to its food quality and low prices. This blog concerns the life and times of Florence Thornton Butt (1864-1954), the mother of H-E-B’s former chief executive, Howard Edward Butt.

Florence Thornton was born on September 19, 1864 in Buena Vista, Mississippi. Raised in a religious community, she frequently spent her youthful years assisting her two pastor brothers in holding local revivals. After basic schooling, the young girl enrolled in Clinton College and, as the only female in her class, graduated from the institution with the school’s highest honors.

After her college education, Thornton received a job at the local school and taught English there for several years. In 1889, she married Clarence C. Butt, a local and popular pharmacist. The couple lived in the Mississippi countryside before moving to Tennessee and finally to Texas in 1904– the couple was in search of a more suitable climate and better medical facilities to treat Clarence Butt’s tuberculosis. In between the moves, Florence Thornton Butt still found time to tutor children and have three children of her own, all boys. The family soon settled in the small town of Kerrville in 1906.

When Clarence Butt was unable to work, Florence Butt became an employer for the A&P Tea Company, delivering grocery orders door-to-door in the local area. Over time, she accumulated a small stack of groceries for herself and invested sixty dollars to open the C.C. Butt Grocery store on Kerrville’s Main Street. The store was the ground floor of a two-story building, which Florence Butt rented out for nine dollars each month.  As the business grew, she combined her business and traditional domestic responsibilities by moving her family into the living quarters on the second floor of the building and using her sons as delivery boys.

The Butt grocery store thrived in a growing food market and soon became a staple of the Kerrville culture. Florence Butt continued to run the store until 1919, when her son, Howard Butt, returned from the navy and took over responsibilities as the store’s manager. After a brief period of teaching, Florence Butt retired and concentrated her energies on promoting religious and civic efforts in Kerrville. As a devout Baptist, Florence Butt regularly attended the local Baptist church and volunteered at many Sunday School events. Moreover, she was a leader in the Baptist group, the Eastern Star.

Florence Thornton Butt died at her home in Kerrville on March 4, 1954 after suffering a stroke. She was buried in the Glen Rest Cemetery. Though memorialized only as a local figure, her legacy and efforts to create a top-quality grocery store live on today, as millions of Texas shop at H-E-B stores every day.

For more information on Florence Thornton Butt- visit Debbie Mauldin Cottrell’s article on this local woman at the Texas State Historical Association site: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbu84

Mrs. Florence Thornton Butt behind the counter in her grocery store in Kerrville, TX. San Antonio Express-News.