Charles van Ravenswaay attendance at Bayou Bend dedication ceremony collection

Charles van Ravenswaay was born on August 10, 1911, in Boonville, Missouri, to Dr. Cornelius Herman van Ravenswaay (1871-1940) and Betty L. Lionberger van Ravenswaay (1883-1968). He attended Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and received both his B.A. and M.A. from the institution in 1933 and 1934 respectively. Upon his graduation, he became the business manager at his father’s clinic in Boonville, Missouri.

Van Ravenswaay grew up incredibly passionate about subjects such as history, architecture, and botany. While he worked as a business manager, he also worked with photographers Alexander and Paul Piaget to take pictures of historic or damaged buildings across the state. This collection of photographs was later restored by the Historic American Building Survey and is housed by the Library of Congress.

He wrote and researched subjects related to Missouri’s historical architecture, and in 1938 he was selected to direct the Missouri Writers’ Project, which consisted of essays that discuss Missouri and its contribution to literature. The essays were combined into a guidebook titled Missouri: A Guide to the Show-Me State, published in 1941.

He paused his budding career to enlist in the United States Navy during World War II, serving from 1942 to 1946. Upon his return, van Ravenswaay was appointed as the director of the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis in 1946. He served in this position for sixteen years.

He went on to serve in many notable rules such as the director of Old Sturbridge Village from 1962-1966 and the director of the Henry Francis DuPont Museum (now the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library) from 1966 until his retirement in 1976. He also acted as the president for the American Association of Museums from 1961-1968.

Over the course of his career, he published four books and earned two honorary doctorate degrees from Maryville College of the Sacred Heart and the University of Missouri, respectively.

Ravenswaay passed away in 1990 in Hockessin, Delaware.

Ima Hogg was born in 1882 to parents James Stephen Hogg (1851-1906) and Sarah Ann Stinson Hogg (1854-1895) in Mineola, Texas. In 1886, James Hogg was elected to be the Texas Attorney General, forcing the family to move to Austin, Texas, during his term.

Ima attended private school from a young age, learning piano as early as three years old. She went on to study at the University of Texas at Austin, and later she studied piano and music theory at the National Conservatory of Music in New York City, New York. After her parents’ passing, her mother in 1895 and then her father in 1906, she traveled to Germany and Vienna to study piano. Upon returning to the United States, she settled in Houston, Texas which lacked museums, parks, and organized music groups. She dedicated nine years to teaching music in the community, going on to organize the Houston Symphony Orchestra in 1913. She served as the vice-president of the Symphony Society at its origin, and in 1917 she was elected to the position of president, which she served in for twelve terms.

The Hogg family owned the Varner Plantation, and in 1928, they struck oil. With the funds from this oil distributed between Ima and her three brothers, she struck out on philanthropic endeavors related to the arts and mental health advocacy. She founded the Houston Child Guidance Center in 1929 and established the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at the University of Texas, Austin, in 1940. Throughout her life she held served as the first female president of the American Philosophical Society, a member of the Texas State Historical Society Committee, and a member of the committee responsible for planning the National Cultural Center, now known as the Kennedy Center, in Washington D.C.

Ima was also a passionate patron of the arts. She worked with architect John Staub (1892-1981) to design a new family home named Bayou Bend in Houston, Texas, which was built between 1926-1928. In 1966, she donated the estate, as well as the collection housed within, to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

She earned recognition from the Garden Club of America, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the American Association for State and Local History, the University of Texas system, and the National Society for Interior Designers for her contributions to the arts. She received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Southwestern University in 1971.

Ima Hogg passed away in 1975 due to complications from a traffic accident she endured while in England. She was buried with her family in Houston, Texas, and bequeathed a majority of her will to the Ima Hogg Foundation, one of many charitable nonprofit organizations she founded throughout her life.