Wood County History

By LOU MALLORY — Chairperson, Wood County Historical Commission

Miss Ima Hogg (1882-1975) 7-8-06

Ima Hogg, philanthropist and patron of the arts, was born in Mineola on July 10th, 1882, the daughter of Sarah Ann (Stinson) and Governor James Stephen Hogg.

This baby girl would become known world-wide, not simply because of her family, but because of how she chose to live her life and how she used the family fortune to endow and preserve historical resources and to create foundations.

Ima had three brothers, William Clifford Hogg, born in 1875; Michael, born in 1885; and Thomas Elisha Hogg, born in 1887. Ima was named for the heroine of a Civil War poem written by her uncle, Thomas Elisha. She was affectionately known as Miss Ima for most of her long life.

She was eight years old when her father was elected governor and spent much of her early life in Austin. She grew to be a beautiful young woman with golden hair and wide blue eyes who inherited from her mother an elegant stylishness in her clothing and other aspects of her life.

After her mother died of tuberculosis in 1895, Ima attended the Coronal Institute in San Marcos, and in 1899, she entered the University of Texas.

In 1901, Ima, who had played the piano from the age of three, went to New York to study music. Her father died in 1906 when Ima was 23. She was sick with grief at the loss of her parents.

Both Governor Hogg and his wife, Sallie, were musicians. Friends gathered at the governor’s mansion to hear Sallie play the piano and to join Jim in the singing of hymns.

The governor loved to sing and he possessed a fine, resounding voice. His daughter apparently inherited the musical gene and she entertained guests by playing the piano, guitar or banjo.

After her father’s death, Ima decided to travel to Europe to learn more about the cultural riches of the continent. Her trip lasted longer than anyone expected as she decided to act on her desire to study music in Europe. From 1907 to 1909, she studied in Berlin and Vienna. Under several teachers, she completed the course of study for a concert career.

Ima then moved to Houston where she gave piano lessons to a select group of pupils and helped found the Houston Symphony Orchestra, which played its first concert in June 1913. The new fledgling symphony needed money, publicity and the support of the community to survive and Miss Ima worked hard to support the orchestra. She served as first vice president of the Houston Symphony Society and became president in 1917. She served in this capacity for many years and was a force behind the symphony for the rest of her life.

Late in 1918, she became ill, and spent the next two years in Philadelphia under the care of a specialist in mental and nervous disorders. She didn’t return to Houston until 1923.

Meanwhile, in 1918, an unexpected turn of events brought undreamed-of wealth. Governor Hogg, along with his friend, James Swayne, had bought mineral rights to 15 acres on Spindletop Hill. Their syndicate later joined with others to form the Texas Company, later known as Texaco.

One of the big companies explored the Varner plantation in West Columbia and on January 15th, 1918, sank a well that became known as the Tyndall-Hogg No. 2. It was the first of many oil-producing wells on Varner and it made Miss Ima and her brothers multi-millionaires.

Around 1920, Miss Ima began to collect American antiques for a museum in Texas. Soon she had a network of dealer all over the country who kept her informed on what was available on the market.

One major New York dealer related an anecdote about a fine American highboy dresser he had for sale. The curator of an important museum came in and tried to negotiate. The dealer wouldn’t budge. Miss Ima came in and wrote check as soon as she saw the dresser. The curator returned later and complained that he represented an important museum and why would the dealer allow a piece of this importance to go to Texas. The dealer said Miss Ima didn’t quibble on price and knew the value of the piece.

Eventually, the collections Will and Ima had amassed became enormous and they had no idea where to house the pieces. In 1927, they commissioned architect John Staub to design a home for them on 14 acres hugged by the Buffalo Bayou in River Oaks. Will and Ima continued to gather furniture and art. They intended to live with their collection while they planned on how to present it one day to a museum. Miss Ima named the new home Bayou bend. Over the next few years, she installed formal gardens, each one expressing a favorite theme or idea. Designing and planting the gardens became her favorite pastime.

Her brother Will died in 1930. In 1940, with a bequest from Will, she established the Hogg Foundation for Mental Hygiene, which later became the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. After the discovery of the “black gold” at Varner, Miss Ima had become involved by the late 1920s in a wide range of philanthropic projects. In 1929, she had founded the Houston Child Guidance center, an agency created to provide therapy and counseling for disturbed children and their families.

In 1943, Miss Hogg won election to the Houston school board where she worked to establish symphony concerts for schoolchildren, to get equal pay for teachers regardless of gender or race, and to set up a painting-to-music program in the public schools.

In 1946, she again became president of the Houston Symphony Society, a post she held until 1956. In 1948, she became the first woman president of the Philosophical Society of Texas,

In 1953 Governor Allan Shivers appointed Ima Hogg to the Texas State Historical Survey Committee (later the Texas Historical Commission). In 1967, that body gave her an award for “meritorious service in historical preservation.” In 1960 she served on a committee appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower for the planning of the National Cultural center (now the Kennedy Center) in Washington, D.C.

In 1962, at the request of Jacqueline Kennedy, she served on an advisory panel to aid in the search for historic furniture for the White House. She was also honored by the Garden Club of America (1959), the National Trust for Historic Preservation (1966), and the American Association for State and Local History (1969).

In the 1950s, Miss Ima restored the Hogg family home at Varner Plantation near West Columbia. In 1958, she presented it to the state of Texas as Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historical Park. In the 1960s, she restored the Winedale Inn, a 19th century stagecoach stop at Round Top, Texas, which she gave to the University of Texas. The Winedale Historical Center now serves as a center for the study of Texas history. It is also the site of a widely acclaimed annual fine arts festival.

In 1966, she presented her collection of art and antiques and the Bayou Bend estate to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The Bayou Bend Collection, recognized as one of the finest of its kind, draws thousands of visitors each year.

In 1968, Ima Hogg was the first recipient of the Santa Rita Award, given by the University of Texas System, to recognize contributions to the university and to higher education. In 1969, Ima Hogg, Oveta Culp Hobby, and Lady Bird Johnson became the first three women members of the Academy of Texas, an organization founded to honor person who “enrich, enlarge, or enlighten” knowledge in any field.

In 1952 Miss Ima moved her parents’ first home to the Governor Hogg Shrine State Historic Site at Quitman. She restored the small frame home where Jim and Sallie Hogg lived as newlyweds. She named it Honeymoon Cottage and provided it with family belongings for display.

She also presented the park with the restored home of her Grandfather Stinson, which was the setting for her parents’ wedding and her own blissful summers as a girl. Miss Ima enjoyed visiting places where her family memories lived again in familiar rooms. The buildings are still located at the park but the furnishings were removed when the state park became a city park of the city of Quitman.

In 1971 Southwestern University gave Miss Hogg an honorary doctorate in fine arts, and in 1972, the National Society of Interior Designers gave her its Thomas Jefferson Award for outstanding contributions to America’s cultural heritage.

On August 19th, 1975, at the age of 93, Ima Hogg died of complications from a traffic accident injury sustained while she was vacationing in London.

Her funeral was held at Bayou Bend. She was buried on August 23rd in the Hogg family plot on Oakwood Cemetery in Austin.

The major beneficiary in her will was the Ima Hogg Foundation, a charitable nonprofit organization she established in 1964.