Alain, a French name, was a beautiful little girl, or so I thought when I first met Al. The Boughton’s were living at the Texas Experiment Station where my father had a laboratory. He was an entomologist and spent several days each week, or at times, an entire week, without coming home (thirty miles away) to the small town of Sonora. The Experiment Station was associated with Texas A & M, and there were other similar ‘stations’ in other states as well. My father was sent to Sonora by the US Government, unlike others who were employed by the State of Texas. We had to either purchase or rent a house in town. His office was also in Sonora, but his laboratory work, associated with entomology where farm and ranch animals were brought if they needed treatment, was at the Station. Ranch animals included sheep and goats, horses, cows, and other animals associated with ranch country. Being a Coloradoan, my daddy was new to the area and came to Sonora in 1920. Homes were built at the Station for ranch employees. The veterinarian in charge of animal diseases was a new addition to the Experiment Station in mid-1930’s. There was a botanist, another veterinarian, several other scientists who dealt with animal husbandry, along with several others who did the ranching. There was a plague of screw worm flies at that time. They laid their eggs on the slightest injury or sore and were a plague on the ranch industry.
The earliest things I remember, when I was about five years old, were the friends I made at the Station. We played with guinea pigs, a small animal that was used in experiments. We children loved to play with them. My mother was good friends in the early years with some of the men’s wives. There was a two-story small house used as a hotel for visiting folks in the ranching business. This was where my daddy sometimes spent nights when he needed to.
“The Station” as we called it was a dream place for children - like a small ranch where we could play all day and never get tired. So, in summertime, I spent much time there with my friends. This was great excitement for me. I am not sure, but I think the year was 1930. A new family had moved to the Texas Experiment Station, and we were going to meet them. Their names were Dr. and Mrs. Ivan Boughton, and I was thrilled because there were three children in their family, Riquet, Josette and Alain. Mrs. Boughton was from France. I had never met anyone from overseas, but I had heard of France when I looked at National Geographic magazines. I was five years old. They had lived in Haiti for a time before coming to Texas. Dr. Boughton was a veterinarian and a former football star at the University of Ohio.
When we called on them in their new house, all I heard was French. I had never heard French before, and the children all spoke it when we met them. Ricky (we called him) and Josette could also speak English, but not the baby. Al was all French. When I first saw him, I thought he was a little girl. He had blonde curls hanging to his shoulders and was adorable. It was hard to believe he was a boy. But I soon found out he was all boy! After we got acquainted, which didn’t take long, we played, and their strange accents did not affect our friendship which was developing quickly.
As I look back over 80 years, we had fun doing all the things Texas children did. We swam together in ‘the tank’. As we learned how, one by one, our parents were always present in the water teaching us. As Al grew older he hated being “the baby”, and he developed his own personality to be strong and tough. I always smile when I remember him chasing Ricky and Josette with the biggest rock he could fine. So, it was comical to see this beautiful little boy trying to keep up with his siblings as they shrieked with laughter as he threw the ‘boulders’ at them. Actually, I felt sorry for him of course, and they were punished if their parents saw this activity.
When Ricky and Jean Cory, the girl who was the daughter of a botanist, were seven (we were the same age) we all attended school in the town of Sonora where my family lived. That summer, as the school year approached, Ricky’s parents asked my mother and daddy if Ricky could live with us during the week and go home to the Station on weekends. Jean Cory’s mother made the same arrangement. We began first grade together. It was like heaven to me. How could I have been so lucky? They spent the entire school year with us. Al and Josette were too young. The next year the Experiment Station found a governess who was a schoolteacher and used one of the Ranch Experiment Station rooms as a school. The teacher, Miss Rably, taught them all until they were ready for entering what would be called junior high. Then the Boughton’s had built a house in Sonora, so they lived in the new home and also had the house at the Station. Dr. Boughton could live in each place for housing as needed. Jean was sent to live in Dallas with relatives where she entered Dallas schools, and Al was able to go to grade school, later becoming a football star for the Sonora Broncos. By that time, his brother, sister and I were all in college.
But the Boughton children were totally American, each making a name for themselves. Ricky in the army, Josette teaching in Albuquerque, and Al became a colonel in the Air Force. Ricky was in the war when the United States entered France and fought the Germans. Jean married a fellow student at University of Texas and her husband was a pharmacist serving in the army. Jean had four boys; I believe all became doctors with two in research. I am not sure, but I think Al went to Texas A & M, as did Ricky. I know he had several daughters. Many years passed when I was far away in Johannesburg and South America, so we were all pretty far apart. I did see Josette (Jo) several times after she graduated from Texas Women’s University. I finished in 1946 but was in the Class of 1947, and she was Class of ’48.
Edith May Babcock, middle row far right. Billy Shurley, is front row, fifth from right.
Those years they boarded with us in Sonora in first and second grades were the special years in my memory. Ricky and I lived in the big pecan tree at my house. At the Station we played Flash Gordon in a big oak tree. I remember when Ricky had a bull fight. The bull won and Ricky was tossed over the fence, but not hurt. Jean read books but swam with us. We wished she didn’t read so much. Josette and I played, too. And Al was forever in the gang, but too small to keep up. Hard to believe when he seemed to grow up very quickly and was the toughest of all. And was an outstanding general. These are only a few of the happy times at the Station and with the Boughton family. They kept in touch with my family and visited us in Illinois. Mrs. Boughton (Juliette) had been a scholar getting her masters at the University of Illinois whey they visited us. We took her on campus where she found her apartment where she had lived (on scholarship) before her marriage. I think they met, perhaps when Dr. Boughton received his veterinary degree, also at University of Illinois after graduating from Ohio State. I’m not totally sure of the details. After his retirement from the years at the Experiment Station, he was Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine for some years before he had a stroke, and I presume he retired. The Boughton’s were such wonderful people and added a new dimension to my life. I feel so very blessed to have known them all.
(April 2016)