Research Update: Week of June 1, 2026

A genealogy-heavy week. The oral history session with Tim and Nancy Draves on May 28 continued to pay dividends when Tim sent a written corrections email on June 1 — a short message with an annotated Word document that resolved three questions the KB had carried with varying levels of uncertainty. Layered on top: a primary-source confirmation on William R. Hoffmann’s cause of death, a new full biography for Dr. Rudolph Menger, 13 new accessions, and a round of San Antonio context pages.

Genealogy — the Menger lineage, corrected

The most important correction is generational. The KB had recorded Catherine Barbara Menger as the granddaughter of William A. Menger, the Menger Hotel founder. Tim Draves corrected this directly and in writing: she was his daughter. Her children — Minnie, Gus P., R. W., T. J., L. B. — are William A. Menger’s grandchildren, one generation closer to the hotel dynasty than we had recorded.

This corrects a chain: the KB had also been recording William A. Menger under the name “William L. Menger,” an error Tim confirmed when he flagged “A.” as correct. The file was renamed william-l-menger → william-a-menger and the biography updated with his full name: William Achatius Menger (1827–1871), born in Windecken, Electorate of Hesse; died suddenly at his own hotel on March 18, 1871, age 45. The “L.” origin is not yet traced — possibly a period transcription error or a confused initial — but “A.” is now the working KB name, sourced directly from Tim and confirmed in the American Historical Association’s Immigrant Entrepreneurship entry (Julia Brookins).

Tim’s corrections document also settled a second uncertainty. The KB had been circling whether Menger Hotel capital or social standing flowed into the H&H founding. Tim’s assessment: none of William A.’s children — Louis William, Peter Gustav, or Catherine Barbara — built King William district homes or entered elite San Antonio circles. Each received roughly twenty pieces of real estate and $6,000 cash from Mary Menger’s 1887 estate. These are comfortable assets, not dynasty money. The connection between the Menger Hotel and the Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Company is genealogical, not financial.

Dr. Rudolph Menger — a new biography

With Catherine’s lineage corrected, it became possible to fill in her husband: Dr. Rudolph A. Menger (April 21, 1851 – March 16, 1921), the patriarch of the H&H generation. He studied medicine at the University of Leipzig, returned to San Antonio, served as City Physician 1875–1881 and again in 1892, practiced privately, and published natural-history observations — Texas Nature Observations and Reminiscences (1913) is on the Portal to Texas History. His family and the Menger Hotel Mengers were separate German immigrant families; the connection was made by his 1879 marriage to Catherine Barbara Menger.

Dr. Rudolph died in 1921 — before the 601 Delaware plant opened and before H&H entered its commercial peak decade. His daughter Minnie and son Gus were by then running the company; how directly he was involved in H&H’s early years (1912–1921) is not yet documented.

William R. Hoffmann — cause of death confirmed

The same week’s research settled a long-open question on a different branch. The 1912 burial permit listing in the San Antonio Express-News (January 13, 1912) gives Hoffmann’s cause of death as “stomach trouble” — the only primary-source statement on file. Earlier web research and secondary sources had not produced a cause; the burial permit establishes it directly.

An incidental finding alongside this: Hoffmann died January 10, 1912, age 33. His daughter Helen B. Hoffmann died January 17, 1945, also at age 33 — exactly 33 years and 7 days later, at the same family address (126 W. Agarita). An infant son had died in early January 1911. Three Hoffmann deaths, all in the first three weeks of January, across a 34-year span. Whether the age-33 deaths share an underlying cause is an open research question.

Separately: Tim’s email asked the KB to help locate the source of a “stomach issues” detail for William A. Menger’s 1871 death — a thread from their May 28 conversation. That source has not yet been found; every accessible reference gives only “suddenly, natural causes.” The two “stomach” threads (1871 and 1912) should be kept distinct.

Menger genealogy document — new to the collection

The physical artifact that arrived this week: a photocopy of the Menger family genealogy page sent by Tim Draves via email on June 1, three days after the oral history session. HH-DOCUMENT-2026-0001 lists all eight children of Rudolph and Catherine Barbara Menger — the complete names, marriages, and dates that the KB had been reconstructing piecemeal from newspaper clips. With this document in hand the Menger sibling structure is now documented from a primary family source rather than inferred from social clippings.

Loan priority is high (85) — this is the most structurally important document in the collection for reconstructing the family.

New to the collection — thirteen accessions

The June 2026 intake processed in parallel with the genealogy work:

Machinery documentation: Five Huntley Manufacturing Company Monitor catalogs (HH-BOOK-2026-0017–0021) cover the full roast-grind-blend-peanut cleaning sequence in Brocton-era editions — the machinery reference library H&H would have used when speccing the 601 Delaware plant. These fill a gap that was previously a placeholder in the KB’s equipment history.

Reference library additions: Two James Hoffmann titles joined the collection — How To Make The Best Coffee At Home (HH-BOOK-2026-0025) and The World Atlas of Coffee, 3rd edition (HH-BOOK-2026-0026). Posts are live at /hoffmann-how-to-make-the-best-coffee-at-home/ and /hoffmann-world-atlas-of-coffee-3rd-edition/.

Other accessions this week:

• HH-AD-2026-0001 — American Can Co. 1934 trade ad for factory closing-machine equipment; direct connection to the can-sealing and vacuum-pack transition H&H made in the 1930s
• HH-BOTTLE-2026-0001 — H&H 3-lb square Crystalvac jar with red lid and paper label
• HH-BOOK-2026-0022 — Antique Arms Annual, 1st edition — with S. P. Stevens confirmed as the publisher (resolving a question about the Stevens family role)
• HH-BOOK-2026-0023 — The Canning Clan, Earl Chapin May (1937) — industry history with direct relevance to the can-manufacturing context behind H&H’s packaging evolution
• HH-BOOK-2026-0024 — The Tin Can Book, Hyla M. Clark — complementary packaging history reference

San Antonio context — Menger Hotel and Lone Star Brewery

Two new context pages: Lone Star Brewery and Menger Hotel, ingested from the San Antonio Mission Trails / commercial-industrial index. These sit at the edge of direct H&H research but are load-bearing for the German-Texan entrepreneurial context: William A. Menger’s Western Brewery (1855) and the Lone Star Brewery that followed it are part of the same economic ecology that produced the coffee trade Hoffmann entered in 1904.

What’s open

Three questions the week’s work opened or sharpened:

• William A. Menger’s 1871 death cause — Tim can’t locate the “stomach issues” source; the primary obituary (SA Herald or Express, c. March 18–20, 1871) is not yet retrieved.
• Catherine Barbara Menger’s daughter status — currently medium-confidence; Bexar County marriage record (1879) or the UIW Menger Family Collection would move this to high.
• Sister M. Gonzaga — possibly a fifth child of William A. and Mary Menger; “born in the hotel,” later secretary-general of the Sisters of Divine Providence at Our Lady of the Lake. Not in the Immigrant Entrepreneurship four-child roster. OLL Sisters of Divine Providence archives would resolve.