The Menger Family Genealogy Page
A page from the Menger family genealogy entered the collection on June 1, 2026 — sent by Timothy J. Draves, a UIW historian and family descendant, three days after the May 28 oral history session with Tim and Nancy Draves. The document lists the eight children of Rudolph and Catherine Barbara Menger, and in doing so names every principal actor in the founding of Hoffmann Hayman Coffee Company.
The top of the list is Maria Wilhemina (Minnie) Menger, first married to William R. Hoffmann and second to William J. Schlosser. William R. Hoffmann — the German-born grocer who started roasting coffee in San Antonio in 1904 with $400 borrowed from a boarding-house family on East Commerce Street — is the company’s founder. He died in January 1912 at 34, leaving the business to Minnie. On the advice of her attorney Senator Harry Hertzberg and her brother Gus, she merged her husband’s roastery with W.E. Heyman’s Merchants Coffee Company to form Hoffmann Hayman Coffee Company, capitalized at $20,000. Minnie retained 50% of the stock through every subsequent reorganization.
Two of her brothers appear lower on the genealogy page. Gustav Peter Rudolph (Gus) Menger — 1890–1974 — joined the firm at 23 as secretary and sole salesman, furnishing his own horse and buggy to call on the retail trade at $90 a month. It was Gus who proposed moving from the leased building at 331 Burnett Street to build the factory at 601 Delaware Street in 1933 — the building that became the H&H factory and that the collection now calls home. His first-person memoir of the company’s early years, read aloud during the May 28 session, is the single richest primary source we have for the pre-Delaware period.
Rudolph William Menger — 1892–1985 — joined the office after Gus and appears in a 1962 letter from S.P. Stevens paraphrased in family correspondence: the Stevens-to-R.W.-Menger letter is the evidence that links S.P. Stevens (billboard painter, operator of Stevens Outdoor Advertising on San Antonio’s South Side, and publisher of the Antique Arms Annual) to the H&H story. The genealogy page fixes R.W.’s dates — born 1892, still alive in 1962 at 70 — and makes him a concrete figure rather than an initial.
The name varies between sources. This document spells it “Menger”; the oral history transcripts consistently say “Minger.” Both refer to the same family — a common orthographic variation in German-Texan records, where German ü-adjacent sounds were rendered differently by different record-keepers.
Accession and references
- Accession: HH-DOCUMENT-2026-0001
- Source: Email from Timothy J. Draves (draves@uiwtx.edu), UIW, 2026-06-01; subject: “The William Menger Page”
- Related: May 28, 2026 Draves oral history session · 601 Delaware Street · Antique Arms Annual — S.P. Stevens
