San Antonio Express-News, 2 April 1987 — “Menger, descendant of famed hotel family” (Theodore J. Menger feature)
- Catalog ID
HH-CLIP-1987-0002- Gallery
- Newspaper
Feature obituary / biographical article on Theodore J. Menger (1895/96–1987), published the day of his funeral (2 April 1987, p. 35), one day after the short death notice on 1 April 1987 (HH-CLIP-1987-0001).
Key facts this article confirms verbatim — the basis for our Continental Coffee timeline and T. J. Menger’s tenure:
- T. J. Menger joined H&H Coffee Co. as treasurer in 1921, after resigning from the Alamo National Bank where he had been bookkeeper since 1912 (and corporal in WWI infantry in between).
- He remained at H&H until 1962, when the company was sold to Continental Coffee of Chicago. He retired at that time.
- Lineage: grandfather William A. Menger came to Texas from Germany in 1847; the Menger Hotel opened 1 February 1859 (“at ‘early candle lighting time,’ according to a newspaper report”); his mother Mary Menger was born in the Menger Hotel; his father Dr. Rudolph W. Menger was an early San Antonio physician (not related to the Menger family by blood — he married into it); his paternal grandfather Simon Menger founded the Menger Soap Works, “the first manufacturing concern in Texas.”
- He was the youngest boy in a family of eight children.
- He built a home for his mother in Alamo Heights in 1937 (per his nephew Albert G. Menger, quoted in the article).
- Survivors and funeral details match the 1 April death notice.