The founder of Ebby Halliday Realtors, Ebby Halliday Acers, died overnight. She started as a one-woman residential real estate office and turned the company into one of the country’s largest residential real estate companies. She came to Dallas in 1938 as the hat department manager at the W.A. Green Store. She would soon open her own hat boutique. When a customer’s husband—Texas oilman Clint Murchison—built 50 single-family spec houses made of insulated concrete, he knew exactly who to call. “If you can sell those crazy hats to my wife, maybe you can sell my crazy houses,” he told Ebby. She sold all of them and soon changed her career path. She founded Ebby Halliday Realtors in 1945 and the Dallas-based company is now the largest independently owned residential real estate services company in Texas and ranks 10th in the nation. The 70-year-old company, with 1,700 sales associates, participated in approximately 19,200 property transactions in 2014 with a sales volume of $6.64B. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Ebby’s Place at the YW, The Ebby House at Juliette Fowler Communities, Happy Hill Farm and Academy, or the charity of your choice.