Frank and Jennie Ingrando

From the Institute of Texas Cultures:

FRANK AND JENNIE INGRANDO FOUNDATION 1951 On Saint Patrick's Day in 1950 a childless couple, Frank and Jennie Ingrando of Houston, established a foundation to provide for the care of neglected children. They were about to begin construction of a home on the Gulf Freeway when Jennie be­came incurably ill and plans had to be postponed. After her death in May 1951 Frank decided to carryon alone. He was the architect, foreman and contractor for the building, which was designed to house 100 children. As Frank said after Jennie's death: "We both wanted to see chil­dren with lots of ground around them. We wanted them to have a few ponies, flowers, chickens and a gar­den, maybe:' The home was dedicated in the summer of 1954 and was opened in 1955, but Frank Ingrando did not live to see the first children move in; he had died the previous December. The Ingrando home operated until 1962, when the original structure was sold and a smaller, more economical place was purchased. The new quar­ters were operated until 1969. By then, the state and county had as­sumed responsibility for the care of the children the Ingrando home was intended to help. The foundation continued to donate money to orga­nizations already taking care of chil­dren. It made gifts to the City of Houston for a park to be named the Frank and Jennie Ingrando Park. It gave property to finance an intensive care unit for children at St. Joseph's Hospital. It also contributed to the Houston School for the Deaf, to the Boy Scouts, to the San Jose Clinic and to other children's groups. One of the more unusual gifts was to Dominican College in Hous­ton. The gift provided for continua­tion of a special mass recited each year on September 8. The mass had its origins in the 1900 storm which destroyed Galveston. Frank's father, Ignacio Ingrando, had vowed that, if his family survived the storm, he would mark the occasion annually. The family survived, and the mass has been observed with only a few exceptions ever since. Sicilian-born Frank Ingrando was two years old when his parents immigrated to Texas in 1888. Jennie Barbera was born in America to Italian parents who had settled in Houston shortly after the Civil War. As a boy Frank worked in his father's store, then opened his own paint shop. All the while, he was buying property whenever he could. By the late 1920's the Ingrandos possessed all the material comforts they felt they would ever need, so they turned their energies toward saving and investing for the children's home. Jennie kept the books, collected the rents and counseled with Frank in real estate investments. As a result of the tax reform act of 1969, it became uneconomical to operate the foundation, and the final gifts were made in 1973. But the memory of Frank and Jennie Ingran­do will live on in the park and in other good works provided for the children of Houston.