Beatrice Fox Auerbach was born on July 17, 1887, in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Moses and Theresa Fox and granddaughter of Gerson Fox, one of two brothers who founded I, & G. Fox Co., the predecessor of G. Fox & Co., a grand department store in Hartford. She met her future husband, George Samuel Auerbach, on a buying trip to Europe with her father. George Auerbach was involved in the operation of Auerbach's, his family's store in Salt Lake City, Utah and Beatrice moved to Salt Lake City to be with him.

In 1917 a fire destroyed G. Fox & Co. Moses Fox, experiencing overwhelming community support, rebuilt the store and Moses and Beatrice moved back to Connecticut so that George could help his father in law run to store. Upon her father's death, Beatrice joined her husband in running the store. George died in 1927 and Beatrice became the driving force behind G. Fox. She proved to be a most adept merchant and led her store, a store whose name became synonymous with her own.

Not only was Mrs. Auerbach a visionary merchant, she was also leading philanthropist and civic leader and pioneered efforts on behalf of her "family" of devoted employees. She made sure that the store had its own hospital and full-time nurse, that employees could purchase their meals at cost (they could even come to the Employee Cafeteria on their days off and bring their families) - one day each week she would take her lunch in the Employee Cafeteria with employees at what was generally called "Round Table". She created a retirement plan for her employees (one of the first), provided loans to employees in need, was one of the first to employ Black people in many different jobs in the store and drew her store into the total concept of Customer Service - with this tiny yet powerful woman, the customer was truly always right - no exceptions.

By way of explaining just how far this policy went, this writer was once employed as a Service Manager at the store and was faced one day with a couple returning a "Hoover Dial-A-Matic" vacuum cleaner they claimed was broken. Following policy, I examined the machine, determined that they had forced the plastic dial too far and had broken the stop tab, explained what had happened, gave explicit instruction on the use and limits of the dial and then provided them with a new machine.

A week or so later, they returned with the same problem. We went through the same routine, and again, with policy in mind, I gave them a new machine.

After some period of time later, they returned with the broken vacuum. This time I declined to give them a new machine and they left, not pleased with my determination.

Shortly afterward, I spotted the Floor Superintendent (my boss) heading in my direction carrying the machine with the couple in tow. He instructed me to provide them with yet another new machine (I received the requisite lecture on policy after they had gone). They had obviously not left the store as I had assumed - they had gone to the eleventh floor where Mrs. Auerbach's office was located. She had personally spoken with them and had called the Selling Service Superintendent, my boss's boss, and had given very clear instruction. I never refused another customer.

Every Thursday morning before store opening, the Selling Service Superintendent would hold a division-wide meeting and we would hear various stories about our service policy - one Thursday morning, the week before Thanksgiving, 1965, my story was the lesson du jour. Although my name was never mentioned, we all knew the star of the story!

More to come.

The links below provide copyrighted information about Beatrice Fox Auerbach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Fox_&_Co.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/fox.html
http://www.fau.edu/library/bro61.htm