Hogg, Ima

Ima Hogg, daughter of Governor James Stephen Hogg, was born in Mineola, Texas, on July 10, 1882. After graduating from the University of Texas, between 1901 and 1909 she studied music in New York, Berlin, and Vienna. She then moved to Houston, where she gave piano lessons to a select group of pupils and helped found the Houston Symphony Orchestra. She served as the first vice president of the Houston Symphony Society and became president in 1917. Ima Hogg was also involved in founding the Houston Child Guidance Center and the Hogg Foundation for Mental Hygiene. She was involved in the Philosophical Society of Texas, the Texas State Historical Survey Committee, and the Academy of Texas. She received numerous awards and honors for her philanthropic and cultural contributions to the state of Texas. On August 19, 1975, at the age of 93, Ima Hogg died of complications from a traffic accident while she was vacationing in London.

Ima Hogg (1882-1975) was an important patron of the arts in Houston and a great philanthropist in Texas. She and her three brothers, Will Clifford, Mike, and Thomas, were born into a family with a tradition of public service was an integral part of Texas history. This tradition included their grandfather, Joseph Lewis Hogg, who helped write the Texas Constitution, and served in the Mexican and Civil Wars; and their father Jim Hogg, the first native-born governor of Texas.

Newfound wealth from the discovery of oil on the family property in 1918 enabled Hogg to become a generous benefactor and advocate in many areas, including music, with the founding of the Houston Symphony Society in 1913; mental health, with the establishment of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health in 1930; public education, as a member of the Houston School Board from 1943 to 1945; her family and state's heritage, through restoration of the Varner Plantation, her parents' first home in Quitman, Texas and Texas-German buildings in Winedale; and the preservation of antiques and art, through a world-class collection of American decorative arts, furniture and painting and contemporary works on paper. Bayou Bend, the River Oaks home she and her brothers Will and Mike built in the 1920s, and its collection were donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 1957, and opened to the public as a house museum in 1966.

Only daughter of Texas Governor James Stephen Hogg

was a philanthropist and supporter of the arts, mental health, and historical restoration in Houston, the state of Texas, and the United States.