Ms. Martha Taylor

The Henry and Mildred Schmidt Scholarship was established in their memory by their son-in-law Paul Poston and daughter Susan Schmidt Poston, all of whom are SFA graduates. The Schmidt’s grandchildren Jennifer and Matthew Poston were also SFA graduates.
Henry and Mildred were the driving force that built Schmidt’s of Nacogdoches, Inc., into the widely known and highly successful operation that is being continued by their daughters, Marty Taylor and Susan Poston.
Unbeknownst by most people, Paul Poston said that Henry was responsible for quietly helping many deserving young people attain a college education.
The Schmidt’s home, which until the mid-60’s was located just off of the SFA campus where the present Kroger Family Center now stands, was always open to their daughters’ friends. Over the years Mildred and Henry were mentors to many of them who sought their advice, even after they grew into adulthood.
Paul Poston recalls that Henry loved to tell scary stories to younger children and was a great prankster with the older ones. Once some Nacogdoches boys baked him an Exlax chocolate cake in gratitude for the jokes he was pulling on them.
Mildred always had an open kitchen and offered great hospitality to many local young people as well as those away from home. Their’s was a home where you felt the warmth of a true, loving family, Poston says.
After World War II Mildred and Henry took what had been a declining family business and turned it around. They were able to maximize Henry’s great business sense, Mildred’s exceptional ability to know what to buy, and unsurpassed personal service to build one of the largest privately owned women’s ready-to-wear retail operations in Texas.
In spite of their great success, they never failed to treat everyone the same. Even small children grew up calling both by their first name and over the years would make a point of coming into Schmidt’s to say help when coming back home or to homecoming.
Mildred died of cancer in 1979 and Henry of leukemia in 1986. Poston says that both would be both surprised to see Schmidt’s in the hands of their daughters and run in the tradition for which they were known for so long, and to have their memory honored by a scholarship at the school where they met in the late 1930’s.