"My pedestal lady...."

Ima had a longer-lasting romantic relationship was with a young Austin attorney named Wilbur P. Allen. The two had known each other since their days at the University of Texas, when they had long talks in the moonlight, sitting on the steps of St. Mary’s Seminary (they were UT students, but St. Mary’s had nice steps). By 1904 Wilbur Allen had a law office at 806 Congress Avenue, in the same building as Hogg, Robertson & Hogg, the law firm of Ima’s father and brother.

Allen had been wooing Ima since 1902. He had wanted to take her to the University of Texas Commencement Ball in 1903. He had visited her in New York and complained that she gave him “about ten minutes of interrupted talk for my two thousand miles.” Ima apparently kept him at a distance, and he called her “my dear, incorrigible, impossible friend.” He called her “my pedestal lady,” and wrote, “I want to see you Miss Ima—I’ve got to see you—. I want to know if I may come to see you then wherever you are.”

         What was Ima’s answer? We don’t know. But these two kept in touch.