Nurse Ima

As 1905 began, Ima went back to Austin with a convalescent Tom, for a stay in a boarding house. But she did not lack for amusement. She wrote to her father, A good deal of entertaining is going on for Austin—so I shall be going some. Last night went to a dance, this afternoon to receive at a reception and tonight. Next week there will be a good many more receptions besides the Girls’ Annual Hop. I wish we had Napoleon.

How are you getting along? Am sorry it is so we can’t be together—Tom sends best love to you and to brothers when you see him—as I do with XXXXXXX kisses.

Ever lovingly,

Ima

Ima had a fine January in Austin, but on January 26 a fateful accident took place. Jim Hogg, en route by train from Varner to Houston, was involved a collision. The passenger car in which he was riding rammed into another car, and Hogg was thrown violently to the floor. At first the injuries seemed to be only bruises, and Ima continued her socializing in Austin. She gave a “German” (a ball) on February 3, honoring her visiting San Antonio friends.

But Ima’s social whirl was halted and the family’s life took an unexpected turn two days after Ima's party. She received a telegram that her father was seriously ill in Houston. An abscess had formed at the back of his neck, and he was about to have surgery. “Of course I rushed to him,” Ima wrote later.

Several surgeries weakened Jim Hogg’s already strained heart, and he was critically ill and bedridden for two months in the spring of 1905.

Ima became his devoted nurse.