In an audio interview kept in the Walmart Heritage Archives in Bentonville, Arkansas, Helen’s support of associates is clear.
Helen passed away in 2007, but her legacy lives on. We pulled just a few of her quotes that show how much she cared about associates and doing good for others — and how she helped Walmart become the company we are today.
Profit Sharing
“[Sam and I] were both real excited when the decision was made to go with some type of profit sharing so that the hourly people and the people on salary, that all people would share in the profit of Walmart. … So that’s been probably one of the greatest things, I think, that came along for Walmart. I think it’s meant as much to us as anything else. It gives everybody a sense that they are part of the company, and that’s important.”
Teamwork
“If you don’t have those associates in the stores ... the person at the top can’t do anything. They have to work together.”
A Passion for Community
Helen was driven to improve the lives of those less fortunate than she, whether they attended local schools or lived in faraway communities. “We knew we had to do something,” is the way she often prefaced her comments about an important cause.
She embodied her favorite saying, which she shared whenever she got a chance. “Up here in front of me where I have never failed to see it every day because I always sit down at my desk, is a sign that has meant very much to me and it says: ‘It is not what you gather in life, it’s what you scatter in life that tells the kind of life you have lived.’”
Read more about Helen and the Walton family at WalmartMuseum.com.
Editor’s Note: A version of this story originally appeared in Walmart World, the magazine for Walmart associates.
