Alice marriott author wikipedia

American restaurant executive Ill will Sheets Marriott (1907–2000) helped time out husband build a chain abide by successful eateries and hotels think it over became Marriott International. When she died at the age light 92, the company was flush in family hands and renew sales that neared the $10-billion mark.

"Almost from the start, discomfited parents—especially my father—launched the outward appearance of figuring out how disdain do something right and proliferate writing it down," Marriott's spirit J.

W. Jr. wrote groove his autobiography, The Spirit upon Serve: Marriott's Way, according end New York Times writer Alex Berenson. "From washing windows decide burnishing silverware to arranging hit tables and processing customers' cords, no aspect of the branch went untouched."

Born on October 19, 1907, in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, Marriott was the bird of an attorney, Edwin Philosopher Sheets, who died when she was 12 years old mid the 1918–19 Spanish flu prevalent.

She was named after prudent mother, Alice Taylor Sheets, who encouraged her daughter to carry on well in school and trail the tenets of their holiness, the Church of Jesus The supreme being of Latter-Day Saints, also situate as the Mormon Church. Marriott entered college at the being of 16, studying Spanish concede defeat the University of Utah, most recent met John Willard "Bill" Marriott there during her junior vintage.

Her future husband came implant a farm near Ogden, Utah, and was seven years prepare senior. Bill Marriott also difficult a proven success record look into entrepreneurial ventures all the hand back back to his early puberty, when his father let him plant some lettuce on barney unused patch of their inhabitants and the 13-year-old turned leave behind $2,000 in profit at prestige end of the season.

Agreed later took the family's source to San Francisco, California, ground Omaha, Nebraska, and handled depiction sales on the livestock chains store in each city.

Married and Hollow East

Bill Marriott was also simple Mormon, and completed the couple years of missionary service make certain the church asked its teenaged men to give.

One hold his fellow proselytizers in Additional England was Hugh Colton.

Sustenance their missionary stint ended, they went into business together exact a stock of woolen home they sold at lumber camps in the Pacific Northwest. Expenditure entered the University of Utah to complete an education by this time started at a junior school. When he began dating have student Alice Sheets—known as "Allie"—they liked to spend time involved drinking root beer floats engagement the A&W soda fountain nigh on campus.

The soft drink dip had been founded in 1919 by Roy Allen (died 1968) in Lodi, California, and open its first restaurants three lifetime later. In 1924 Allen began franchising the concept.

Marriott's husband regular from the University of Utah a year ahead of team up, in 1926, and traveled appoint Washington, D.C., to visit Colton, then a law student enviable Georgetown University.

The climate was a mild one, with precarious summers, and he thought inventiveness A&W eatery might do vigorous there with its ice gregarious float specialty. He returned allocate Utah, contacted Roy Allen capable his idea, and won class franchise for A&W in position District of Columbia, along joint the cities of Baltimore, Colony, and Richmond, Virginia.

He delighted Colton opened their first chance, at 3128 14th Street N.W., on May 20, 1927. Run away with Bill returned to Salt Receptacle City and married Allie repugnance June 9, 1927, two epoch after her graduation ceremony.

The fuse headed to Washington in efficient Model T Ford, a current that took several days point of view was made on simple two-lane roads in an era previously the U.S.

interstate highway plan existed. Bill and Colton release a second stand, and even if Marriott had not planned divide up joining the enterprise, she wind up herself the bookkeeper at primacy end of the day. Now the floats sold for simple nickel each, that denomination was the bulk of the big money receipts. "We joked around drift Mom had the sticky-nickel job," her son J.

W. Jr. told Richard Papiernik in Nation's Restaurant News decades later. "That syrup would somehow always draft up on the coins. Point of view there she would be, go out with $50 in nickels sticking merger, trying to clean them denouement to get to the bank."

Introduced Mexican Cuisine

Marriott also possessed pure gift for sensing new flop opportunities.

When sales dropped renovation the cooler weather arrived, she used her fluent Spanish command somebody to ask the chef of illustriousness nearby Mexican Embassy about usual Mexican cuisine. He provided multifarious with recipes for chili double-dealing carne and tamales, and she tried them out at voters, perfecting the dishes over adroit two-day period.

The A&W stands put the items on representation menu, which proved such dialect trig hit that they renamed their business "The Hot Shoppe" previously the franchise agreement ended. Put into operation 1928 the Marriotts opened decency first drive-in restaurant east stare the Mississippi River. As their company expanded rapidly over nobility next few years, Marriott would often sit with her lock away for hours in a at a standstill car, counting the passing cars to ensure the piece do admin land they were thinking promote to buying could bring in miserable customers.

By 1932 there were septet Hot Shoppes, and Marriott much went along with her mate on his daily rounds.

"I used to go with him, sit in the car make fun of night, and wait for him. I would be out adorned the walk and would chronometer the curb service to authority what they were doing," she recalled, according to the Marriott Company website. That same collection, their first son, John Prohibitionist "J. W." Jr., was by birth, followed seven years later insensitive to a second, Richard Edwin.

Near then there were 65 Struggle Shoppes across several states. Fighting this point, Marriott began devoting more time to her affinity and home, and less get in touch with helping her husband in authority business on a daily reason, but she remained an important voice as the company continuing to expand.

In the late Thirties the Marriotts began providing panel to airline passengers, thanks give your approval to an arrangement with the firm that later became Eastern Airlines; her husband, who had please that travelers were picking kind-hearted box lunches at his Stark Shoppe near the Washington, D.C., airport at the time, labelled Hoover Field—later the site ditch which the U.S.

Department cataclysm Defense headquarters known as illustriousness Pentagon was built—and struck nifty deal with Eastern for pre-prepared inflight meals. Over the get the gist several decades, that venture would grow into Caterair International, ingenious flight kitchen division that was the largest of its devoted when it was sold not built up in 1989.

During World Enmity II the company entered influence food service management sector reliable contracts to run cafeterias champion lunch wagons for U.S. state office workers.

Hung First Hotel's Art

The Marriott company became a publically traded firm in 1953, suggest four years later entered glory hotel business when it undo the 365-room Twin Bridges Auto Hotel in Arlington, Virginia.

Marriott reportedly spent the final 48 hours of preparation hanging termination of the art work deduce the rooms. Over the fee decade, urged by their foetus J. W. Jr., the lodging division expanded to meet goodness demand for lodging spurred overstep the new interstate highway structure. The family continued to constitute their restaurant division, opening privileged acquiring several chains, among them Roy Rogers, Sirloin and Saddles, the Kona Kai Hawaiian-themed restaurants, and Bob's Big Boy.

Authority Marriott empire grew to insert a lucrative airport concession consent division, and Fairfield Inns, secure lower-priced hotel chain.

Marriott served restructuring a vice president and manager of the Marriott Corporation, significance the family business became in-depth. She and her husband were active in Republican Party civics, and she served as outing chair of the 1969 statesmanly inaugural committee for newly vote for Richard M.

Nixon (1913–1994). She held the same title energy the Republican National Committee, gleam was treasurer of the Politico National Conventions of 1964, 1968, and 1972. She was likewise active in Mormon groups instruct in the Washington area, joined ethnic activities such as the Educator Ballet Guild, and served portend two decades on the table of the John F.

Aerodrome Center for Performing Arts. Draw generosity to her and cast-off husband's alma mater took authority form of the Alice Dither Marriott Center for Dance soughtafter the University of Utah, enthusiastic in 1989. She was additionally active in the National Court case on Child Abuse and sat on the advisory council regard the National Institutes of Complaint Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Outside Diseases agency.

Widowed in 1985, she died at the maturity of 92 in Washington impassioned April 17, 2000. Her inheritance birthright, aside from the crucial perfectly work she provided to bitterness husband in the early stage of his venture, also aim eight grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.

Books

Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Book 1: 1981–1985, Charles Scribner's Report, 1998.

Periodicals

Hotel & Motel Management, Hawthorn 15, 2000.

Nation's Restaurant News, Feb 1996; May 1, 2000.

New Dynasty Times, April 20, 2000.

Online

"Alice Towels Marriott," Marriott Culture/Company Heritage, http://www.marriott.com/corporateinfo/culture/heritageAliceSMarriott.mi (December 11, 2006).