‘Betty’ among early female entrepreneurs

On Oct. 10 1931, an ad ran in the Fort Frances Times offering dress-making services by Betty Anderson.
The Depression was in full swing, but it was an early sign of the business that Anderson would work hard to build in the following decades—and what would become one of Fort Frances’ landmark stores.

Almost 80 years later, thousands of women have followed in Betty’s path by starting their own business.
Four out of five businesses in Canada are started by women, according to the RBC Group, and there currently are more than 821,000 self-employed women across the country, making a contribution of roughly $18 billion to the economy.
In fact, businesses owned and led by women now create more jobs than Canada’s top 100 companies.
With the theme for this year’s Women’s History Month being “Women in the Lead,” it’s women like Betty whose stories are being highlighted.
A copy of that first advertisement still hangs near the front of the Scott Street store that still bears her name, right next to her portrait.
“She was more on the ball than Martha Stewart ever was,” said Betty’s grandson, Blair Anderson, who now runs the business with his brother, Doug. “She had to do it for a living.”
By the end of World War II, her businesses would be incorporated and she opened up her first storefront, selling lady’s hats.
“She never gave up” Anderson said. “When all the odds were against her, she didn’t give up.”
It wasn’t always easy running a business, especially at a time when women traditionally stayed at home.
“Heck, people would laugh at her,” Anderson recalled. “She’d be scrubbing the floor and people would knock on the window, she’d look up and they’d just point and laugh, and that made her all the more determined.
“They underestimated her.”
The first store was a small space on the 300 block of Scott Street, said Anderson, but business kept on growing into more than just hats and sewing, moving into bigger and bigger spaces.
After moving into one of the new storefronts, there were some Mary Maxim Canada items left behind, Anderson recalled. His grandmother and father didn’t know what to do with them, so they ended up putting them out on the floor to sell.
“And people started buying it,” said Anderson.
Now North America’s largest mail order company for needlework and craft kits, Mary Maxim sweaters were popular items. Bob Hope even had been seen wearing one.
“All of a sudden, they had to order so much. They didn’t have the space to store it, they had to store it in the ballroom in the Rainy Lake Hotel.”
As the 1950s drew to a close, Betty’s moved for one final time to the storefront at 266 Scott St., where it still is to this day.
Anderson remembers his grandmother as being very short and white-haired, but also very mighty. “She had a good sense of what to do with people,” he said.
If he were to comment on how terrible and ugly the weather was, Anderson remembers the response he got from her: “Blair, it’s better than no day at all.”
If she was tired and they suggested she head home to take a rest, she would say, “No, no, I won’t do that because you’re a long time dead. I’ll have lots of time to rest later.”
“She would buy more ribbons than she needed,” Anderson recalled. “One time my dad went back and he opened up a drawer and it was full of ribbons. There were ribbons here, and ribbons there, and he said, ‘Mom you’ve got so many ribbons, why did you get so many ribbons?’ and she said, ‘Never you mind! Never you mind!’ And that was that.
“She sold ribbon like crazy, it was unbelievable how much she would sell,” he added.
Wedding gowns also were popular, both sewn and altered by Betty. “We’d have third generations come by to buy wedding gowns from us,” Anderson noted, although they aren’t sold anymore at the store.
And as the business grew, it became a destination for all people, he said.
“People wouldn’t have to phone to see if we had it, they knew we had it, knew Betty had it, and knew Betty would tell them how to do it,” said Anderson.
People often would drop by just to swap recipes with her, he added—recipes she would write down on gift paper and he still has.
Betty worked at the store just up until months before she passed away in April, 1995 at the age of 93. While newer residents of the town don’t know her now, Anderson said old-time customers still come in to talk about her and how she ran the store.
It was the way she treated people that made her a good business woman, he added.
“She didn’t care if she made a profit, she just loved helping people.”