Henrietta Rosa (Kleberg) Armstrong (1889 - 1969)

Born 17 Jul 1889 in Corpus Christi, Nueces, Texas, United States

Ancestors

Died 23 Oct 1969 at age 80 in Kingsville, Kleberg, Texas, United States

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Biography

Mrs. Armstrong Dies At King Ranch Home

KINGSVILLE - Funeral services will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday at the main house of the King Ranch for Mrs. Thomas R. Armstrong, 80, daughter of the late Robert and Alice Kleberg Sr., onetime proprietors of the fabled land spread.

Mrs. Armstrong died Thursday afternoon at her Santa Gertrudis King Ranch home near here.

Private graveside services will be in the Chamberlain Cemetery here.

Born Henrietta Rosa Kleberg in Corpus Christi July 17, 1889. She was the granddaughter of Capt. Richard King, founder of the 116-year-old King Ranch.

She had served as chairman of the board of directors of the King Ranch from Sept. 15, 1955, succeeding her brother, Richard M. Kleberg Sr. after his death, until April 5, 1968. She resigned due to ill health and remained as an alternate director of the board until her death. Upon her resignation Richard M. Kleberg Jr. was named chairman of the board.

Educated at Gunston Hall in Washington, D.C., she married her first husband, John A. Larkin, June 26, 1915. Larkin, a native of New York became vice president of the Celanese Corp and served in that position until his death in 1948.

In 1949, she married Maj. Thomas R. Armstrong, owner and operator of the Armstrong Ranch in southern Kenedy County, who survives her.

She was a member of the Cosmopolitan Club of New York and during the 1950s served as state committeewoman of Dist. 20 of the Republican Party.

Mrs. Armstrong was one of nine women featured in the January 1968 Life Magazine issue as "The Grandes Dames Who Grace America." The article described the women as this country's closest approach to an aristocracy. It was accompanied by pictures including a two page picture of Mrs. Armstrong hunting on the Armstrong Ranch from a jeep.

Two daughters and one son from her first marriage survive her. Mrs. Henrietta Larkin Armstrong, Mrs. Ida Larkin Clement and Peter Larkin live in Kingsville. Her eldest son, John Larkin Jr. was killed in combat during World War II in Europe.

She also is survived by one sister, Mrs. T.T. East of Hebronville, and her brother, Robert J. Kleberg Jr. of Kingsville; 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

The family has requested in lieu of flowers donations be made to Pan American Presbyterian School here.

Brownsville Herald October 24, 1969.

Henrietta, who in 1915 moved to New York with her first husband, later an executive with Celanese. When he died she married her neighbor Tom Armstrong and returned to the ranch. From 1955 to 1968 she was the chairman of the board. Her daughters, Ida Louise (“Illa”) and Henrietta (“Etta”), married two of the men who run the ranch today, Jim Clement and John Armstrong (Tom Armstrong’s nephew), now in their sixties.

Except from "Texas Monthly, October 1980 issue

COUSE OF DEATH: Asphexiion of Bolus of meat and cerebrospinal vesculor accidents

BURIAL: 25 OCT 1969 in Chamberlain Cemetery Kingsville, Texas

Sources

• Brownsville Herald

October 24, 1969.

"Texas Monthly, October 1980 issue