New Exhibit on La Grange’s Iconic Hermes Family to Open April 11

The staff of the Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives announces a new exhibit, “The Hermes Family: Community Leaders and Philanthropists,” which will open with a public reception at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 11th.

The exhibit is built around large collections of photographs, documents, family histories, textiles and artifacts donated through the years by the Hermes family. In fact, Miss Myrta Hermes donated the first items to the Museum and Archives exactly fifty years ago.

Dr. William Hermes, 1828 – 1922, was the patriarch of the family in La Grange. However, his path here was not direct. He was only eighteen years old in October 1846, when he first arrived in Texas as one of the Adelsverein immigrants and settled in the Hill Country. Within two years, he realized that neither his health nor his finances made him suitable for life as a pioneer in that area. He found work as a clerk in Galveston and Houston, before deciding to return to Europe to continue his education and study medicine in 1851.

That is how he arrived in La Grange in 1855 as Dr. William Hermes. In 1859 he bought property for his own drug store on the northwest corner of the square – the first location of the Hermes Drug Store. However, his life story continued to have twists and turns as he felt forced out of La Grange during the early days of the Civil War because of his Unionist views. After a convoluted journey through Central America, he and his first wife made their way back to Altona, his birthplace near present day Hamburg, Germany, to sit out the war.

Back in La Grange by late 1865, his troubles were not over as he lost both his wife and infant son in the 1867 Yellow Fever Epidemic. His recently discovered pocket notebook listing the epidemic’s victims has added quite a bit to our previous knowledge of those who died. The following year Hermes built the home that still stands at 459 North Main Street in La Grange and remarried. Two daughters from this marriage also died very young.

Besides running his drug store, Dr. Hermes served as La Grange’s postmaster for six years. He also accumulated large real estate holdings and farmed. In fact, he retired as a pharmacist a few years after his eldest son, William Hermes, Jr. received his pharmacy degree and took over the Hermes Drug Store and was eventually joined by his brother, August, and son, Gilbert Hermes. Two large buildings on the east side of the square bear the Hermes name. Illustrated with early family and community photographs, the new exhibit tells Dr. Hermes’ story in much more detail.

Public minded from the start, the family was involved in the La Grange Casino Society, the Ladies Cemetery Association, Fayette County Real Estate and Building Association, the Fayette Light Guard, the Handel Club, several churches, the La Grange Concert Band, horse and harness racing, and charter membership in the Fayette County Fair Association, among others. They were known for supporting various philanthropic causes – especially for donating the property for the La Grange Girl Scout hut and the former Hermes Elementary School.

A continuously looping slideshow includes not only the Hermes family, but the Schaefer, Holste, Juergens, Warnken, Willenberg, Kainer, and Steinmann families related to the family through marriage. The slide show also includes photographs of both known and unidentified photographs of friends found in Hermes family photograph albums and collections, as well as early scenes of La Grange.

The exhibit will be on display for an extended period of time in the Museum, which is upstairs above the Fayette Public Library at 855 South Jefferson Street in La Grange.