Hermann Sons Home for the Aged

By 1994 the Order of the Sons of Hermann in Texas was the largest fraternal insurance benefit society headquartered in the state, with 161 lodges and 80,000 members. Its first mixed lodge for men and women opened in San Antonio in 1920, and the order came to keep family lodges alongside single-sex ones. By 1965 only about half the members were of German descent, and by 1994 membership was open to all. Since 1954 the order has also run summer youth camps for junior members on its grounds at Comfort, and local lodges offer scholarships.

What the plaque says

Hermann Sons Home for the Aged A fraternal group originally for persons of German descent, the Sons of Hermann grew rapidly after the founding of the first Texas lodge in 1860-61. At a meeting in Austin in 1913, members voted to establish a home for the aged, to be called "Altenheim". This was one of the first homes for the aged started by a fraternal group in Texas. The citizens of Comfort raised $7,000 to buy this 202-acre tract for the facility. Lodge members from around the state contributed funds for the construction of a limestone building in 1915-16. (1979)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Treue der Union Monument — 2.2 mi
  An 1866 German-language monument in Comfort over the graves of Hill Country Unionists killed at the Nueces in 1862, its flag of thirty-six stars kept at half-staff.
• Old Tunnel State Park — 13 mi
  A railroad tunnel abandoned in 1942 that now shelters up to three million Mexican free-tailed bats, who fly out each evening from May through October.
• Schreiner Mansion — 15 mi
  The 1879 downtown home of Charles Schreiner, the Alsatian-born merchant, banker and rancher whose store and mohair trade built Kerrville.
• Frontier Times Museum — 17 mi
  A museum built of fossils, petrified wood and cave formations in Bandera, holding a printer-historian's collection of frontier relics and oddities.

More markers nearby

• Freidenker — 2.0 mi
• "Treue Der Union" — 2.2 mi
• Peter Joseph Ingenhuett Homestead — 2.2 mi
• Hermann and Antoine Ingenhuett Homestead — 2.2 mi