I can’t remember my first trip to the Texas A & M Experiment Station, it seems I was there many, many times during my childhood summers. My daddy, Orville G. Babcock, worked there on loan from the US Department of Agriculture as an entomologist. He divided his time between his office in Sonora, Texas and his laboratory at the Experiment Station. I accompanied him when I was invited by one of the ‘Station’ families. My most frequent invitations were from the Cory’s where I felt most at home with Mrs. Cory, Jean, (my mother called her Zoe) and Mr. Cory (Victor), a botanist, and their daughter, Jean, who was my very first friend from childhood.
Photos of the two of us prove that. Our mothers were best friends and spent many days together off and on while their husbands were so often ‘in the field’ or ‘in the lab’, or on long day trips. The two men shared an office building at the Station. Mr. Cory had the largest part, and I vaguely remember Daddy complaining, “Cory had such a mess – everywhere.” His mess of course were stacks of botanical specimens stored in stacks and stacks of newspapers! Daddy’s specimens were on a smaller scale: slides, bottles, microscope slides and books. All very neat and labeled.
At Jean’s house the Cory’s had a shack and stored in it were what seemed to be thousands of comic books, old magazines, and raw peanuts. It was a great place to read, eat peanuts, look at pictures and talk. A giant fig tree was just outside with an endless supply of figs.
Jean was fun, but she had one fault. She was a bookworm. Another drawback was that she preferred to read when I wanted to play! We loved to play on her front porch. The best game was to put on our bathing suits, wet the porch with the hose, then slide back and forth. We also liked to look at stars at night. The Cory’s would bring out quilts where we lay in the dark and watched shooting stars.
My favorite times at their house was to sit on a stool in the kitchen and listen to the soap operas with Mrs. Cory while she churned buttermilk. My mother never listened to those at our house. Mother never said why, but I loved to hear them.
with local ranchers and business folk.
The best thing to do at the Station was to swim. I loved it! Jean liked it, but she sunburned easily, and her mother also made her wait two hours after dinner before swimming. Dinner in those days was at noon. In our childhood everyone I knew had breakfast, dinner and supper.
Daddy always stayed in the Big House. Mr. Dameron, the Superintendent of the Experiment Station, his wife and Marjory, their daughter, lived there. It was, to me, a HUGE house. There was a big swing hanging from a huge tree. Marjory was a good friend, too. Once in a while I would visit her, and I loved exploring that mansion.
My other good friends were the Boughton children, Josette and her two brothers, Riquet and Alain. I remember when we first met. I was five, Riquet was not quite six, Jasette was not quite five, and Alain was three. He had long blonde curls and a bad temper, I thought. Josette and Riquet teased him and tried to get away from him. He would chase them and usually had a big rock to throw at them. None of the children knew English. Mrs. Boughton was French. She spoke English and had been an exchange student at the University of Illinois. She was beautiful and such a fine lady, never raised her voice and she tried to teach us French. Gradually, the three children learned English, and we were favorite playmates. Riquet and I played Flash Gordon in the huge oak tree under which the laboratory guinea pigs lived in cages, near my father’s office building. We children were free to roam and roam we did. The only place we were restricted were in the researchers’ buildings and laboratories. Another no-no was the pasture with the bull in it. But, one-time Riquet, who must have seen a movie of a bullfight, found a red ‘cape’, climbed the fence and proceeded to be a matador! Fortunately, the bull quickly tossed him right over the fence unhurt, but for his pride and a few bruises. Riquet also loved to catch snakes and usually they were huge bull snakes which he kept under his shirt and would pull one out and terrify us all! We children were warned of rattlesnakes. “Never put your hand under a sakowista bush.” But I never saw one. I treasure all the summers I could visit the Station and my good friends. We explored, dreamed, and played in our near complete freedom.
A big annual event, usually in August, was the annual round up. Surrounding ranchers provided the BBQ at the pavilion. All the ranch wives and station wives brought abundant cakes, potato salad, beans, bread cake, and ice cream. We children watched and played. It was a time of great joy, visiting, singing, and dancing. It seemed like hundreds came over to the event, a huge gathering. To this day, I’ve never had such good beans and BBQ since.
My fondest hope through the years, was that by some miracle we would have a house and live on the Station forever. But alas, it never came to pass. But thirty miles from my house was near enough, since my daddy worked there for forty years until he retired.
