At the Experiment Station, 1938
Orville’s business kept him working with ranchers in order to control insect pests affecting livestock. His job required travels over much of Texas, as well as neighboring states. On such trips, his family occasionally accompanied him, usually camping along the way.
Charles Goodnight
“One stop was in Goodnight where we visited friends. My father called on Colonel Charles Goodnight, taking us along. I remember him as a small man with a very white beard. He was sitting on the veranda of his frame house. The Colonel had a large buffalo skin rug on his office floor. For supper we were served buffalo meat.” Kenneth Babcock
From 1941 to 1942 Orville was still in service doing work on organic chemicals. He developed the method of putting crystalized organic chemicals in solution for dipping purposes. Over 1200 formulas had been developed with only a few promising, but none of them very toxic except Naphthalene. He believed the future must come through the higher hydrocarbons as plant alkaloids.
According to Dr. Gordon Creel, head of Angelo State College of Biology, Orville’s work with Sulphur in parasite control was “of inestimable economic value” for a period of thirty-nine years until more sophisticated insecticides were developed in later years.
The Babcock Family in 1939
In 1948, after 30 years of service in the Bureau of Entomology, Orville retired. But he continued to study the natural sciences. Nothing pleased him more than having adults and children stop by the Babcock home with specimens to be identified.
In 1969, at the age of 83, Orville donated his insect specimen collections to the biology department at Angelo State College. His collections, an example of a lifetime of work in the field on entomology, were gratefully accepted.
Orville Babcock explaining wood samples with Dr. Gordon Creel, Director of Biology Department, Angelo State College.
