Francis Amsler: The Face of Scarbroughs and Austin Civic Leader

If almost all Austinites were once connected to Scarbroughs department store in some way, many of them were certainly acquainted with Francis Amsler, a smoothly skilled manager of merchandise, personnel and finances at the downtown location for nearly 60 years.

"Everyone in this town knew him, and he knew them," says Charles Reiger, 80, whose time at Scarbroughs overlapped with Amsler's during the 1970s and '80s. "Especially when he was credit manager. This was back in the days of 30-day credit, not today's revolving credit."

Amsler was not only the face of Scarbroughs — many thought he owned the store — but he also was involved in countless civic improvement projects, from the Better Business Bureau to the Boy Scouts of America. Even after he retired in 1982, he continued to lobby Austin City Council members, mayors, governors, congressmen and presidents for all sorts of civic projects.

Given Amsler's nephew's forward-looking gift of his papers to the Austin History Center earlier this year, it's gratifying to note that, in a letter written soon after his death, his wife earmarked a substantial portion of his estate to the center.

He might not have served as Austin mayor or university president, but Amsler was a front-row witness to the city's way of life for much of the 20th century.

As store president Al Mider said upon his death: "Mr. Amsler was Scarbroughs personified."

A young man with a future

Amsler was born April 22, 1907. By the time he left Hempstead, west of Houston, in 1923, his family had been active in Texas for almost 100 years. In the short book "The Amslers of Austin County," Barbara Schaffer Amsler relates how part of the family immigrated from Switzerland in the early 1800s.

Amsler came from a large family. He started work at age 10 in his family's businesses — a cotton-seed gin, waterworks, bank, grocery store and farm. He was hired right out of high school by Scarbroughs as a cashier-wrapper in the drapery department.

By 1930, he had already risen to head the department store's credit division. That was no small thing, since 80 percent of sales were made on credit.

"Scarbroughs started giving credit during World War I," Rieger says. "Some of it was bartered."

Amsler was a student of retail philosophy. He was already giving speeches on the latest merchandising practices to groups such as the Texas Retail Merchants Association as early as 1930.

Through the Great Depression and World War II, he fired off memos on the fragile state of retail trade in Austin and Texas, especially the tenuous future of retail credit, the lifeblood of a business based on impulse purchases.

Records show that, in the early days during tough times, Scarbroughs carried their customers' debts on the books from one fall season to the next. Payment was due when crops were harvested. When it was a dry goods store, Scarbroughs also purchased the farmers' cotton, and in doing so, acted like a banking service.

"Our customers, in thinking of our store, think of it not only in terms of good merchandise," Amsler said in a May 1935 speech in San Antonio. "But of a credit sales department, intelligently giving, in a friendly manner, an added service."

Life at Scarbroughs

In 1935, Amsler married Jane Johnson, who had a daughter, also named Jane. Their small wedding took place in her parents' house at 504 W. 10th St., where the Travis County Jail now rises. The newlyweds moved into a honeymoon cottage at 203 W. 33rd St. in the then-new Hemphill Park district. It still stands.

In 1940, the couple built their dream home at 1616 Northumberland Road in the tony Enfield neighborhood. Later attempts to save that house from demolition proved unsuccessful.

The Amsler Collection contains countless references to the store manager's involvement in civic causes.

• In the 1940s, Amsler was named chairman of the Community War Chest. Some 320 local firms pledged to raise a total of $161,599 for the war effort.
• In 1946, he was elected to the board of directors of the Retail Merchants Association of Texas.
• In 1947, he was selected to join the board of the Austin Community Chest, an umbrella charity group not dissimilar to today's Austin Community Foundation.
• In 1950, he was among the founders of the Austin Better Business Bureau. Later, he became the group's president.
• In the early 1960s, he served as chairman of Downtown Austin Unlimited, a predecessor to today's Downtown Austin Alliance.
• In 1966, Margaret Scarbrough Wilson, president of Scarbroughs, named Amsler vice president and store manager. From that position, Amsler was able to represent the city's premier department store before municipal and financial groups that sought to staunch the flow of businesses from downtown Austin.
• At various times, he served on the boards of the Austin Advertising Review Board, Capitol Area Council of Boy Scouts of America and Austin Chamber of Commerce.

In 1977, Amlser wrote "Metamorphosis of a Store (1893-1977)," an in-house history based in part on what he found in the Scarbroughs fourth-floor vaults. It marked the beginning of a long goodbye from the company. He retired in 1982, the year the Scarbroughs downtown store closed.

"It affects me emotionally," Amsler told the American-Statesman about the store closure at the time. "But when you put the figures on the piece of paper, there wasn't any alternative."

His first wife, Jane, had died in 1974. She had also been active in civic and religious groups, including Helping Hand, Red Cross and Central Presbyterian Church.

One point of confusion in the Amsler papers is the name "Alice," which appears without a family name in some letters and memos. Turns out, the signature might belong to his second wife, Alice Archer Amsler; at other times it might have been from Alice Scarbrough, Lem Scarbrough Jr.'s wife.

Retailer was a man of letters

The Amsler Collection contains a wealth of private letters, report cards, notebooks and self-improvement reminders. He read daily and quoted from newspapers, histories, poetry and novels. He was fascinated by the history of his city and state.

In retirement, Amsler sent letters to elected officials and business leaders on a wide range of subjects. His correspondence noted things as minor as cars parked the the alley behind Scarbroughs downtown to the oil depletion allowance, Medicare, voter registration, bond elections, senior activity centers, new housing, taxes, revenue sharing, defense policy, index prices and privacy.

His correspondents — or their aides — tended to respond promptly.

Amlser's last years were spent with Alice at the stylishly mod Cambridge Towers, 1801 Lavaca St., No. 66.

Amsler died on Jan. 22, 1984 at age 76. After a service at Central Presbyterian Church, he was buried at Austin Memorial Cemetery.

Amsler's style was courtly, considerate, unruffled. Twice married, Amsler prided himself in treating just about everyone who came into his orbit with the same attention and deference.

"I realized at an early age that you have to take care of the customers," Amsler once said, "or you don't have a business."