"Buckets of old chewing gum"

Even though Sallie Hogg was in frail health, as the Governor's wife she oversaw the details of endless gatherings and receptions at the Governor’s Mansion, as well as watchng over Ima, Mike, and Tom. Will was often away at school, demanding frequent letters from home. Sallie's first task was to refurbish the Mansion:  the white-columned, Greek-Revival structure had been built in 1856. It was a grand old building, with 18 rooms and 9 fireplaces, but by 1891 when the Hoggs moved in, it was in need of major repairs, As Ima recalled:

         “We were prepared for a most hospitable home but I shall never forget our consternation on first seeing the interior. It was in dreadful disrepair. The white calcimine walls were badly cracked and shabby and the dark woodwork was worse. Our family did not attempt to live in it without trying to freshen and redecorate it. The house was entirely papered and painted immediately at my Father’s expense. Mother was always very fastidious and she would never have dreamed of living in it as it was.”

         The re-do required more than paper and paint. Before the Hoggs moved in, Ima remembered,  “Many days were spent scraping hardened chewing gum from under the tables and chair arms. There were literally buckets of old chewing gum scraped, even from the door moldings. . . . “

         

         Even with the refurbishing, living in the Mansion had its drawbacks: the only heat was from fireplaces, and in Austin winters the high-ceilinged rooms were cold and drafty. There was one bathroom, with a huge tin tub built for Sam Houston. The house was lighted by gas, but cooking was done on a wood-burning stove.

        

         There was one new-fangled item: in the long front hall beside the front door there was a telephone. As Ima remembered, it “was a large box containing batteries. You rang Central by cranking the handle. No one used the phone during a storm.”

           

            In the 1890s that phone did not ring much, because few people had phones. But while the Hoggs lived there the house rang with music and laughter. There were sing-alongs and stately receptions, and an endless procession of relatives and visitors.

        

         As one guest recalled, “I don’t think any family ever lived in the Mansion who had as much fun as Governor Hogg and his family.”

           

"Mama has been very very ill."

Fun at the Governor’s Mansion in the 1890s was clouded by only one thing: Sallie Hogg’s mysteriously fragile health.

As Ima remembered: Mother’s health was poor and I believe this is the only thing which cast a shadow in our home. Father sent her to whatever doctors he thought could help and would urge her to go away to some of the resorts where they hoped her health would be improved. The source of her trouble they thought was her stomach. So she went to watering places . . . to drink the waters and take the baths.

In the summer of 1890 Sallie and Ima went to Sour Lake, near Beaumont. The lake there was famous for its mineral waters. It had been a health resort since the 1850s. In the 1880s Sour Lake had two general stores, two hotels, and a population of 150. Ima did not enjoy her time there:

Sour Lake had a terrible old hotel but after two weeks there my mother was always greatly improved. She drank the water and took the baths. . . . Somebody prescribed which one would best suit the patient. No one seemed to know what was the root of my Mother’s great physical disability.

Sallie’s poor health worried her. She wrote to her eldest son, Will, on January 25, 1892: “The New Year is fast passing away; Time is so fleeting, Mama and Papa are growing old. Every year seems shorter as we grow older.”

Sallie Hogg was only 37.

Ima’s letters to her father the following summer tell the tale. 

On June 6, 1893 she wrote from the Stinsons’ country place.

Dear Papa:

I am more than delighted with Speer if you were only here.  Papa, please fix it up some way for you to come down. . . . Mamma has been very very ill.  After all the apples, peaches and plumes {plums] are ripe we have blackberries and strawberries too. . . .  We all send love.

I am your daughter,

Ima H.

But Governor Hogg was busy in Austin.

On June 30 Ima wrote again:

Papa my birthday is on the 10^th of July and I want you to be down here on my birthday. Papa please come. We are all well. Mama was sick yesterday with sick head-ache. But is now well. . . . Grandpa’s yearling is the finest animal I ever saw in my life. You must see it. . . .

If you can come down for my birthday let me know. We all send lots of kisses and love. Hoping you will come.

But Governor Hogg did not come.

July 10^th, 1893

My dear Papa,

To-day is my birthday and I am eleven to-day.  I am not at all glad.  I don’t want to get any older.  I was sick yesterday evening and Ben was sick this morning, but is better now.  Mamma was sick with a sick head-ache. . . . Mike says he wants to come home so bad.  Mamma says she thinks you ought to come down here after us.  We will start for Mineola Thursday and stay one day and then go on home.  I went to church yesterday evening 4 miles from here.  I must close as I haven’t any news. . . .

Ima Hogg

And no one, not even the best physicians, knew what was wrong with Sallie Hogg. 

"We were frequently pitched to the ground."

When the Hogg children lived in the Governor’s Mansion from 1891 to 1895, they had a little cart with a Shetland pony named “Dainty.” Austin was a small city in those horse-and-buggy days, with little traffic to spoil the children’s fun. As Ima remembered:

This little pony all of us rode and were frequently pitched to the ground, but no one was ever injured. This pony was supposed to be mine, but most of the time the boys were riding her. Dainty, as we called her, lived a great many years. [In 1902 they would give Dainty to their cousin Hermilla in Denton.] Dainty had many pranks, a very mischievous and harmless beast. She seemed to have a real sense of humor and nothing delighted her more than to take a crowd of youngsters in the trap and whirl around fast so that she would turn it over. Then she would look back, perfectly still, with her nose turned up as if she were laughing. We would brush ourselves off, get back in the trap and start merrily on as if nothing had happened. Whenever we stayed still too long, perhaps eating ice cream in the trap or having a picnic lunch, she would get bored and vary this monotony by upsetting us. She was small and the trap was small and no harm was ever done.

        

         And then there was the circus that came to Austin twice a year:

We never missed one--Father gathered up all the children in the neighborhood and on we went. Schools turned out in those days, perhaps for the half-day. There was a great parade down Congress Avenue with lions and tigers in cages, horses, elephants and camels, led by a resounding calliope. . . .

For days after the circus we children went through all sorts of contortions, trying to practice some of the acts of the acrobats and Father would look on and applaud. We attempted the most dangerous things to Mother’s horror, but Father always seemed to know we would not get hurt.

Ima and two of her little girl friends especially liked the circus’s trapeze and tightrope acts. As she remembered:

We practiced as hard as we could to become acrobats. . . .

And then, one day, Ima’s friend’s older sister decided they were “good enough to put on a show.”        

She made colored cheesecloth bloomers and blouses for us. We said nothing about this to Mother and Father. People began coming in the mansion grounds one evening. Leila was at the gate selling tickets for a nickel. When I appeared Father said “What is this about nickels being taken up? Now, Sissy, just go around and give all those back.”

The show went on, however, but Helen’s elastic at the knee broke off her bloomers in the middle of an act . . . . The curtain went down. . . .

No doubt the applause was thunderous.         

"Dear Papa"

“Dear Papa”

         It was from the Stinsons’ that seven-year-old Ima wrote one of her first letters to her father. It was the first of many: the Hoggs were a letter-writing family. When Sallie and the children visited the grandparents, when J.S. Hogg traveled on business, when the children went off to school, letters flew back and forth. In December 1889 Ima and her mother and Mike and Tom were visiting the grandparents while Ima’s father and Will stayed in Austin. Ima decided to write a letter:

Dec. 5, 1889

Dear papa;        

         last morning we had to hav a light it was so dark. I scribele on the other side of the paper. Don’t look on the other side papa. Come to Aunts wedding the 15. Ant Jennie is reading a book tonight. I went to Effie and I picked 4 pounds of cotton. I weigh 51 pounds today. Mike weighed 33 pounds to day,

         something is a matter with Aunt Lizzies heart.

         Mamma is working on a craz work.

         I wood like to know what you and Brother are doing.

                                             Write soon.         

“Effie” was most likely one of Colonel Stinson’s tenants. He had 14 houses of sharecrop tenants on his 4,000-acre spread. Ima’s mother was doing “crazy work,” the needlecraft art of sewing odd bits of fabric together and then attaching them to a backing to make a crazy quilt.

“Aunt Lizzie” was Colonel Stinson’s widowed sister. Ima remembered her as “quite thin and old,” but “merry.” Whatever was wrong with her heart, two years after this letter Aunt Lizzie was well enough to spend a summer in Austin, helping to look after the Hogg boys while Ima and Sallie traveled.

On December 8, Ima’s father wrote to her:

My Dear Ima—

         I have received your two nice letters, and felt so proud of them. Willie is now writing to his Mama and I undertake the task to you. He and I have dressed up and will go to church directly. He has a new hat and looks very nice in his new suit. I think I will go to your Aunt Lillie’s wedding. Kiss Mama, Mike and Tom, and all the kinfolks for me.  All well.

                                                               Your Papa

When her father was away, Ima missed him. She scratched out a terse note to him one February day while she was at school:

“Where are you at now? Write soon.”                           

When Ima and her mother traveled in the summertime, Ima did not neglect to write letters home to Austin:

July 23, 1890

Dear papa,

I want to see you so bad.  I am home sick to see you all.  How are you all.  Are you all well?  Tom I guess is bat [bad] as ever.  I have 15 c. of my money.

You must write soon.

I must cose [close]

So good by

Give love to all

Your daughter

Ima Hogg

July 26, 1890

Dear papa,

I wrote to you and I forgot to male it.  How is Mike and Tom? I love to here [hear] they are all well.

I gess you kno Miss Dasy. She is [illegible] me some new pieces and paper rosies and lots of pretty things.

Brownie is sick with slow fever Doctor Blunt says.

Give love to all and give a 1000 kisses to all in the family.

Good by

Your Daughter

Ima Hogg

Kisses were abundant in the Hogg family. Ima remembered that “Each morning when we awoke and every evening when we went to bed, Father gave us a warm kiss on the cheek. This habit lasted all our lives.” [i]

Few families have ever been as close.

---

"Grandfather's home was a little paradise to us."

Ima’s grandfather (Colonel James Stinson, the one who had complained about her being named Ima) had a large plantation in deep East Texas, where Ima’s mother, Sallie, often took the children. Ima loved these visits:

We would start out early in the morning on the train from Austin with a big basket lunch and go as far as Troupe, Texas, where I think, we changed trains for Mineola. This seemed to take a very long time. We would spend the night in Mineola with some friends, either at the home of the Bruces or the Gileses. If the weather permitted, Grandfather sent a hack drawn by the “clay bank,” now called “palomino” horses to town and early in the morning we set forth for his farm, which was fifteen miles from Mineola. We crossed many creeks and sloughs and the water was apt to be high. . . . Many times the rivers or creeks were so swollen the water would be over the shaky board bridges. It was frightening because it seemed impassable, unless the driver was familiar with the location. It took until four o'clock in the afternoon after an early start to arrive at Grandfather's home.

 Grandfather’s home was a little paradise to us. It was on the slope of a hillside which went gently down to a swift, flowing shallow creek. The house was commodious and was a lovely cool place in the summer. The premises provided for a vegetable garden filled with every variety of vegetable, an orchard which never seemed wanting of the most luscious fruits, large juicy peaches, plums and even apples and pears. There was always a large melon patch with watermelon and cantaloupe. . . . Nothing delighted Grandfather more than peeling peaches and apples and splitting melons for the children to eat. He would rise in the morning at daylight at whatever hour that was, and in melon time he always had on the back porch half a watermelon split ready for each child to enjoy.

Under the roof of one of the porches was a wonderful water well with cold spring water which was drawn up by oaken buckets. While one was being drawn up full of delicious water, the other went down. Another porch above this one had long benches where the milk crocks were full of fresh milk, mornings and evenings. Cheese cloth covered the crocks. The cream was over an inch thick and after twelve hours could be rolled off. This went into delicious biscuits and gingerbread. Of course there was a large smoke house where the rafters all hung with bacon and ham. When smoked ham was sliced and fried, the gravy was red. This was good on lye hominy and grits. . . .

         Those were the days. 

"Hunt up my banjo books."

Ima Hogg loved music all her life. At three, she was learning to play the piano, and at age ten, she took up the banjo. Visiting friends in Huntsville in 1893, she wrote a hurried note to her father in Austin: 

         “Papa tell Grace to express my banjo just as soon as you go home to dinner. 

         Please don’t forget to do it.

P. S. Please get Grace to hunt up my banjo books, the large one and the small one too and let Bill send it by the next mail.” (Grace was the Hoggs’ housemaid; Bill was the Capitol porter.)

         When there were musical evenings and sing-alongs in the Governor’s Mansion, Ima played her banjo for such numbers as “Old Kentucky Home” and "Swanee River."  She also played the piano. As she remembered her early musical training,

When we first moved to the mansion, Professor Ludwig came to live in Austin. He was from Russia and had studied piano with a brother of Anton Rubenstein, though I think the impression was he had studied with Anton himself. Professor Ludwig made a real sensation in Austin by his talk and his performances, and Austin was very proud of having him. Pupils flocked to him for study. Mother had early begun my piano lessons herself because I was a little too small and young to be sent to a teacher. Later there was a Miss Brown in Austin who gave me lessons, but when Professor Ludwig came I was sent to him. Each year he gave students’ recitals and I always played at these. . . .

He quickly saw it was easier for me to play by ear than to read music so he taught me by playing first and letting me follow. It took me a long time afterwards to overcome such a handicap. Several times a year his pupils appeared in concert. I played too, in recital, Chopin, mazurkas and waltzes far beyond my comprehension but imitating Prof. Ludwig. He was quite a prima-donna.”

         So, perhaps, was young Ima Hogg, who loved to play for an audience.

        

         In 1894 her father wrote to her mother while he was traveling with Ima, “Well I must quit, as Ima is playing the ‘Washington Post March,’ and the crowd demand my attention.”

"We were a pretty rowdy trio."

Ima was eight years old when her family moved into the white-columned Governor’s Mansion in 1891. Mike was six, and Tom was three. Their older brother, Will, was a serious-minded young man of fifteen who considered himself far too old to play rough-and-tumble games with his younger siblings. Ima remembered those times in her memoirs:

        

         I am afraid visitors to the mansion must have thought we were a pretty rowdy trio, Mike, Tom, and myself. Of course, Brother was dignified and not often conspicuous. We three would start at the top of the steps and slide down one after the other with a great thud into the center hall. Nothing seemed to cure us of this until Tom fell off midway and hung by his chin from a corner of one of the steps. He bled considerably and frightened all of us. Father took tacks and hammered them all the way down the railing of the stairs. . . .

         I do not know what theories my father and mother had about disciplining children but I never saw Father administer any corporal punishment. I don’t think he believed in it. We were not very disciplined, at any rate, but Mother had a little switch which she would use on our legs sometimes. I am sure we needed it more often than we got it. . . .

The paling fence around the mansion grounds was a nuisance to us children, and we were always knocking a paling off through which our neighbors could crawl in. This annoyed Father a great deal because he was always having to have the fence repaired. . . .

         Our grounds were a neighborhood playground. Contests for running and jumping and vigorous outdoor games were always going on in good weather. I was allowed to compete with the boys. My two brothers and I were so nearly the same age; although I was older, and they seemed very much younger to me, we were great playmates. . . .

         They tried to show me how to wrestle, play marbles and enter into all of their games. It made me a real Tom-boy.

        

         But Ima was not a tom-boy all the time. She wrote happily to her father, “Tom is getting so he will play dolls with me.”