Marble Falls businesswoman collected antiques, friendships for 50 years

DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR

MARBLE FALLS — After 50 years in the antiques business — 33 of them at the same shop in Marble Falls — Betty O’Connor is retiring.

“It’s age-related, that’s what I tell people,” she said, sitting in a room adorned with just a small percentage of her overall collection. To clear out her antiques, which easily number in the thousands, O’Connor is auctioning off most of them.

Her son, Mike O’Connor, laughed.

“She’s really doing it so she can have more room for more stuff,” he said.

“Oh, don’t say that,” chimed in Mike’s wife, Judy. “We don’t want people bringing in more things.”

The three exchange banter, sometimes at Betty’s expense (Mike ribs her about her cooking or, more appropriately, lack of cooking skills), but she takes it and gives it right back.

“I’ve had a wonderful life, and people have been so good to me,” Betty said. “It’s hard selling some of this, but I guess I have to.”

Betty recalled her start in the antique business. She was living in Kansas and wanted to make some money, but she didn’t really know how. So her mother gave her some newspapers and pointed out a section of people wanting to buy things and another of people wanting to sell things.

Betty put the two together and realized she could find things people were trying to get rid of and turn around and sell those items to people who wanted them. It was simple supply and demand, but Betty admitted she didn’t really know anything about business at the time.

But, she understood people would buy something they wanted if you offered it at a good price.

Her first foray into the antiques and collectible business didn’t really require her to buy anything. She simply walked along railroad tracks and picked up the glass insulators used on overhead power poles that had fallen to the ground or been left behind.

“I found this guy up in New York who would give me 10 cents each for those things,” Betty said. “So I shipped them up to him. But you know what? The shipping, I think, cost more than I made. Can you believe that?”

Despite not making much, if any, profit, Betty found her passion.

And she quickly learned that something someone may think is worthless, another person is willing to spend money on.

“One time, I give a quarter for this basket. It has a bunch of baseball cards in it,” she said. “I didn’t really know anything about baseball cards, but now I had 2,500 of them. But I knew this man who would want them. I wrote him and asked him a penny a piece for those cards. He wrote back and said, ‘I’d give a half a cent a piece.'”

Betty closed the deal.

“So I got $12 for my quarter,” she said with a grin.

Eventually, she and her husband, Michael, moved to Johnson City, where he started selling cattle for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s ranch. He later helped start the cattle-sale facility in Round Mountain.

Betty, however, just kept buying and selling antiques. She opened a shop in Johnson City but, when the two moved to Marble Falls, she relocated to a little place on Main Street.

Her collection soon began to outgrow her space.

During her early years in Marble Falls, Betty befriended a woman related to one of the town’s founding fathers. The two grew close, and when the woman passed away, she left the house at 416 Main St. to Betty.

It didn’t take long before Betty began filling the house with her collectibles and antiques. Her business flourished in the new location.

When the family began preparing for the auction (there’s so many things that they have to hold three auctions), they found almost every drawer, shelf and surface filled with antiques.

“I’d open a drawer, and I’d find more things,” Judy said. “And she has two big buildings out back full of stuff. It’s amazing.”

Though Betty loves the antiques business, she always puts people before it.

Often, those who had fallen on hard times would show up at Betty’s shop looking to sell something to make ends meet. Betty bought their wares, whether she thought she could sell them or not.

“She often paid more than they were worth,” Mike said. “But that’s just the way she is. She would go out of her way to help somebody.”

When it came to buying something she wanted for her store or one of her numerous doll collections, Betty wasn’t afraid to tap her family. Judy and Mike were living in another state when Betty called her son.

“She called me and said, ‘There’s a woman over there who has these three dolls I want. Go over and get them,'” he said. He found the three dolls, but the woman wanted $60 for them, so he didn’t buy them.

“I said there wasn’t any doll I was going to give $60 for,” Mike said. His mother, however, was undeterred.

“She called me and said, ‘Go over and get those dolls for me,'” Judy said. “So I did. I packed them up and shipped them off and didn’t tell (Mike).”

Mike shook his head but couldn’t help but grin.

“You know what? One of those dolls was worth $300,” Betty said.

Which goes to show, mother does know best.

Throughout the years, Betty developed friendships with folks who walked through her door. One woman from Victoria began trading with Betty in the 1970s. Soon, Betty was trading with the woman’s daughter.

“Now, I trade with her granddaughter,” Betty said.

When Judy began calling antiques shops, both locally and across the country, to let them know Betty was auctioning off her wares, several people recalled walking through those doors at 416 Main St.

“I called somebody in Michigan to tell them about the sale, and they said they came in here just about every summer,” Judy said. “And one woman in Johnson City, who has a antique shop, said, ‘I remember that lady. My mom used to take me into her store.’ So, a lot of people know (Betty) and this store.”

In 1992, Betty suffered a stroke. After the stroke, she couldn’t get out and hunt antiques, something that’s usually a necessity in the business. This should have ended her antique shop, but the benefits of the relationships that Betty built and fostered during the three previous decades returned tenfold.

People just began bringing antiques and collectibles to her store.

“Can you imagine somebody having an antique shop and not have to go out and buy anything?” Judy asked. “They just bring it here.”

Betty has accepted the end of her business. She isn’t sure she’ll attend any of the auctions, though they will be just in back of her store and home, but she’s ready for them. She’s not getting rid of everything. Betty plans on keeping her doll collection and other things dear to her.

“I’ve had a great time running this business,” she said. “I’ve been blessed. People have been so nice to me.”

So does the sale and closing of her shop mean Betty’s antiquing days are over?

“Impossible,” her son said.

Betty smiled and nodded. “I’ll do some on the sly.”

daniel@thepicayune.com