Some folks might not think that growing up with six siblings on a Midwestern farm would relate to becoming a successful business woman, but for Betty Green that’s what happened. She and her husband Daniel A. Green own and operate Photography by Green in Rushville.

The daughter of Mary Busald and the late Raymond Busald, Betty has three brothers and three sisters.

“Growing up I was just a farm girl. I worked out on the farm; I milked the cows, fed the hogs,” she recalled. “It prepared me to work. I don’t mind doing things for other people.”

“My parents always taught me to do my best, to do for others as I would want them to do for me and that’s what I’ve always done,” she added.

Becoming a business woman “just evolved.” She got into the photography business when she began dating her future husband.

“When I first started dating if I wanted to see him on a Saturday I had to go to a wedding with him. So I attended weddings with him; those were my dates,” she said.

When the Greens got married in 1976, Betty was head bookkeeper at Rush County National Bank. She had started there as a teller just two days after graduating from Rushville Consolidated High School graduate in 1971. When their first son was born she started working at the studio and has been there ever since. The couple has two sons and two grandchildren.

John Green and his wife Teresa have a daughter, Bridget, who just turned three and a son, Anthony, who is almost one. Second son Christopher is working on a PhD at Michigan State University and is engaged.

Dan has worked in photography longer than his wife.

“Dan himself has been in business here full-time for 35 years, but it was started before that. He and his dad started when he was still in college and probably before that, even when he was in high school,” Betty explained. “It started out as a hobby then developed into the business. He bought it from his dad back in 1973.”

She offered advice to young women wanting to start a business with their spouses.

“If she wants to be with her spouse like Dan and I are together every day, you have to be willing to negotiate; you won’t always get your way,” Betty observed. “You have to look at both sides of anything that you’re doing and be willing to work together. You’re not always right, and even if you are right you can’t stand your ground so hard that it causes friction.”

“We have disagreements, but do I mind working with Dan every day? No, I enjoy it,” she enthused. “He wouldn’t do any picture without me. I pose everybody we do. I do that part, he does the technical part. He’s so good about the technical stuff and getting that right. We work well together,” she said. “That’s just like marriage. This is a marriage here, it’s more like that than a business. Dan is such a good business person. He is so creative and thinks of new ideas all the time.”

You have to have a blend of talent and trust each other to do their best, according to Betty.

The family business involves taking photos in studio as well as at the outdoor studio at home. At the Rushville studio there are three camera rooms upstairs and room to build and store props.