Ima Hogg, Summer 1918: The End of a Dream?

         On July 10, 1918 Ima Hogg celebrated her 36^th birthday. Escaping the hot Houston summer, she was vacationing in Pennsylvania with a group of friends, but she was not well. On July 11 Dr. Gavin Hamilton, a Houston physician and Hogg family friend, sent a telegram to Ima’s brother Will, saying that Ima was exhausted and suffering from anemia, but the main problem was her nerves.

         Ima may have been having what used to be called a “nervous breakdown.”

         Did she lose someone she loved in that fateful summer of 1918?

        

         I World War I troops were still fighting each other in trenches across Europe, but Germany was losing. From June 1 to 26 the battle of Belleau Wood was a turning point, with terrible losses of German lives. On June 12 the New York Times carried the headlines: “...Marines Hurl Back Foe in Fierce Hand Fighting,” “French Regain Ground in Brilliant Counter-Attack: 1000 Germans Captured.” The end of June 1918 was the beginning of the end for Germany.

        

         Was it also the end of Ima Hogg’s hopes and dreams?

Another mystery: what happened to Ima in the summer of 1918?

A mysterious document from the archives: a small "steno" notebook "Summer 1918" appears on one page. The handwriting is Ima's. In July that summer she was traveling in the eastern US with a group of Houston friends. A year earlier, she had been elected president of the Houston Symphony (which she had helped to found in 1913), and she was making lists of questions to ask about symphonies in other cities. She was also shopping for furniture and antiques--but those pages in the diary are crossed out with a large X across each one.

Why?
There are some blank pages. What happened to Ima in early July?  A physician and family friend in the travel party telegraphed Ima's brother Will on July 11 that she had become quite ill, and the problems seemed to be "her nervous system."

There are clues in the little notabook's ending pages.
This is a research work in progress.
Watch this space.

Ima Mysteres: More to Come

Waiting for documents from 1918. What happened in that long-ago summer? Watch this space.

Ima Vacationing.

It’s August in Houston. Look for new blogs in September!

Tugboat Ima

       

 Ima Hogg had a boat named after her. Built in the early 1900s, the tugboat IMA HOGG was a fixture in coastal Texas waters. She once towed a barge carrying 400 Texas sheriffs and tax collectors down Buffalo Bayou to Galveston, at a gathering of the Texas Sheriffs’ Association. Ima, as far as we know, was not present. --Galveston Daily News, July 14, 1905.

         In 1908 when a New England visitor asked how the IMA HOGG got her name, “He was told that she was named for the daughter of one of the greatest men Texas ever produced.”

--Galveston Daily News, October 30, 1908.

         In the summer of 1911 Ima sailed to Germany aboard the Hanover, a German ship which left from Galveston. And there was the IMA HOGG, decked out in bunting and signal flags sailing, alongside, dipping its colors to honor its namesake. “The matter was a complete surprise for Miss Hogg,” said a Galveston newspaper, “and she acknowledged the compliment in a most charming manner.”

        She would never escape her name.

The Panther’s Story, 1899

With apologies to the author of this 40-year-old column, here is the panther’s role in the 1899 hunt staged by J.S. Hogg for William Jennings Bryan.

Let us hope the panther enjoyed his place on South Congress Avenue. No doubt the meat market owner kept him well fed.

J.S. Hogg, W.J. Bryan, and the Great Panther Hunt

Walter Palmer , recently in the news for killing a lion, might have been better off on a panther hunt like the one ex-governor James Stephen Hogg put on for his friend William Jennings Bryan, who visited him in Austin in 1899.

For the panther’s side of this story, see next week’s blog.