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http://www.texasmonthly.com/content/blood-farentholds
[font size=5]The Blood of the Farentholds[/font]
.... The boy suffered from a form of hemophilia; by the time they had taken him to the hospital, he had already bled all there was to bleed. ....
...The recurring image was that of another dead three-year-old boy: her brother Benjamin Dudley “Sonny” Tarlton III, who had died from complications following surgery to remove a quarter he had swallowed. ....
...First, she would not become a captive of grief. She would move forward from Vincent’s death, throwing herself at one challenge and then the next—a crusade of diversion that became another crusade entirely, one from which Sissy Farenthold emerged as the state’s best-known liberal politician and one of the nation’s most prominent feminists. ....
...Three years ago this month (April, 1992), 33-year-old Jimmy Farenthold vanished. Not a soul has heard from him since. ....
,,.the Bluntzer-Dougherty-Tarlton-Farenthold family tree like an unseen fungus. It has given rise to alcoholism, drug addiction, and manic depression. It has saddled descendants with disorders ranging from the mildly disabling to the fatal. Still others have fallen to diseases such as cancer, and others still have died freakishly—shot with their own hunting rifle, drowned in their own swimming pool. Rustling within Sissy Farenthold’s family is a severe capacity for self-destruction. ....
....(George FARENTHOLD) came to the Bluntzer-Dougherty-Tarlton family, bringing with him an internationalist’s savoir-vivre, a good head for the oil business, a ten-year-old son named Randolph by his previous marriage, and the rich bloodlines of Belgian aristocracy.
Yet there was a peculiarity to the Farenthold blood: It did not readily coagulate. ....
...(1972)Three days after Sissy’s loss to Briscoe in the runoff, the body of her stepson, George’s 32-year-old son, Randy, washed ashore on Mustang Island. Chains were wrapped around his chest, along with a forty-pound concrete block around his neck. Years later it would emerge that he had been murdered for threatening to testify against four individuals who had swindled him out of $100,000. ....
...alcohol dependence. Now the latest generation introduced narcotics as a new variation on the old malady. One of Sissy’s nephews, an addict, shot himself in the head on his twenty-first birthday. At least two other nephews were arrested for possession. Yet another nephew, whose use was legendary, according to a family member, openly flaunted his heroin stash in front of Sissy—though in the end his premature death was due to hepatitis, said to have been brought on by alcoholism. ....
http://www.city-data.com/forum/corpus-christi/1291914-how-did-blake-farenthold-make-his.html
[font size=5]How did Blake Farenthold make his $$?[/font]
No offense, but that google information does not begin to tell the story of how Blake got his money. If you want to know something about the Farenthold's, do some research about Blake's step-grandmother, Frances Tarlton Farenthold, aka "Sissy" and her father, whose name I don't recall right away. The Tarlton Law Library at U.T. is named for her father and they don't name those buildings after you for just being a good person. Incidentally, Sissy Farenthold is an old-time, old-school liberal and I've often wondered what she thinks of Blake's politics. Also, a wikipedia article will not tell you nearly enough about her.
You can also try to find info on Annie Blake Morgan Farenthold Head, Blake's grandmother. Also, check out his great-grandfather, Rand Morgan, who also made a bunch of money in the farming, ranching and oil business in S. Texas.
Then, if you want to read about the dark side of the family, look up info on Randy Farenthold, Blake's father, who was murdered execution style after getting too close to an organized crime/gambling business. IIRC, there was an in-depth article in an old Texas Monthly (perhaps available online). The suspected murderer was sentenced to 16 years but released after six. He himself was murdered several years later on the anniversary of Randy's death, in what has been rumored to have been more than a coincidence.
Blake has been independently wealthy since birth. While he did work for the Kleberg and Head law firm, Hayden Head, Sr. was a partner in that firm and was Blake's stepfather. By all accounts a good man, Hayden Head, Sr. was very wealthy and very politically powerful. The CC airport is named after him and he was widely known for his philanthropy. I'm sure he contributed to Blake's wealth as well.
Blake has never had to work a day in his life, and yet working people elected him to represent them in Congress. I'll never understand it.
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