Right now My main concern is how to get it started by category/town and alphabetized as they are entered.
Usually, you enter new records or edit existing ones and then you call some command to apply a sort order or refresh a previously defined sort order. It would be extremely annoying if the list would be constantly sorted while editing.
OK, let's start a spreadsheet which could be reused in a database later. Type the field names into the first row: "Family Name, First Name, Company, Category, ZIP, Town, County, State, Phone, Web Site, Email 1, Email 2, and whatever you find important.
Select all cells on the sheet (Ctrl+A)
Define a so called "database range": Data>Define... [some_name_without_spaces], button [More...], option [X]Contains Headers, button [Add], button [OK].
Select cell B2 and call Window>Freeze to keep the headers on top of the view.
Enter some records in arbitrary order.
Do not use the [A-Z] and [Z-A] buttons on the main toolbar. They are close to useless if not dangerous.
Click any single cell in your database range, call Data>Sort..., specify up to 3 sort fields (if #1 is equal, sort by #2, if #2 is equal, sort by #3).
Next time you want to sort, just click any single cell and call Data>Refresh.
Notice that I suggested the entire sheet as one large data range, including all the empty cells. This makes things easier, but you may encounter drawbacks at some point. For instance:
Click any single cell in your database range, call Data>Filter>AutoFilter
Apply some filter. It will hide all the empty rows as well.
I am just learning the capabilities of OO Writer. OO is a great program suite and a great community.