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Stonewall "Bob" Boykin and wife. Bobbie Austin Hankins, of Comanche County, moved from Swenson to Spur in 1916 with their five children, Bessie, Dick, Jimmy, John, and Joe. They bought a 90 acre farm four miles northeast of Spur. This farm home was to be the setting for celebrations of marriages and births and mourning of deaths over the following 34 years.
Bessie married and raised two children and a grandson in Spur. Jimmy married and settled in Saline, Kansas where he owned and operated beauty shops. John married and spent most of his years employed by Dupont in Beaumont, Texas. Joe was an invalid, suffering from a muscular disease, and died at age 27.
Dick, the eldest son, remained at home to help with the farm. He loved his family and the farm and, in his lifetime, was never more than a few miles away working as a sharecropper on a nearby farm.
He was 27 years old when Mettle Allen, a school friend of his mother´s, brought three of her teenage daughters by the Boykin farm for a visit. Mattie was on her way from Mineral Wells to visit a daughter in Seagraves and was invited to spend the night in Spur. Dick was no doubt surprised that evening when he returned from the fields to find three lovely young ladies perched on a fence waiting his return. Since they had never met the eligible young man there had been much female speculation and planning as they waited his arrival. The Halloween Carnival was to be in Spur that night and Bobbie had suggested that Dick would be going. The girls hoped he could be coaxed into taking them along. Dick eyed the three girls but it was 18 year old Grace Belle that caught his attention. Grace whispered to her sisters that this tall, quiet young man would be hers forever. Truly it was love at first sight and their first date was the Spur Halloween Carnival, accompanied by the two sisters.
The following morning, Dick raced ahead of the Aliens in his Model T Ford and presented Grace with a bag of candy when they arrived at the Dickens Store to gas up their car for the trip to Seagraves. Two weeks later Dick was in Seagraves asking Grace to marry him and come back with him to Spur. Grace accepted and with her mother´s consent, they were married that week, November 12, 1927, only 13 days after they had met. They returned to Spur after the wedding to the Boykin farm and lived with Dick´s parents until they were able to find a nearby farm to sharecrop. They had four children; Joe Ray, Dorothy, Billie, and Patsy, all but one born at the Boykin farm. In 1943, Bob deeded Dick and Grace five of the 90 acres to build their own small home.
Dick died in September 1950, and with his death the final tie that held the family to the Boykin farm was broken. Dick´s love for his home and family remained and has, in spite of distances of many miles, kept the remaining five very close.
Grace married Audie "Doc" Lidia of Lubbock in 1956 and they lived on West Harris in Spur for several years. "Doc" died in 1980. Grace lives with daughter Dorothy, in Spur.
....by Grace Boykin LidiaSource: Dickens County History...its Land and People 1986 by Dickens Historical Commission
Starling Ray was named for his grandfather, Dr. Starling Ray Boykin of Comanche, but was always called Dick by family and friends and used Dick as his legal name. Dick was born on his mother's birthday and his great grandson was also born on the same date...June 26, 1979...102 years after his great-great grandmother.
Funeral services for Sterling Ray (Dick) Boykin, 50, who died September 16 in a local hospital, were held at 3 p.m., Sept. 18, 1950, in the Soldier Mound church, with Bro. H.L. Burnham officiating.Born June 26, 1900, in Comanche county, Boykin came to Dickens county in 1916. He was married to Grace Allen on November 12, 1927, at Seagraves.
Survivors include his wife, Grace Boykin; three daughters, Mrs. Dorothy Thomason, Billie and Patsy, all of Spur; a son, Joe Ray, presently stationed with the U.S. Marines in San Diego, Calif., mother, Mrs. Bobbie Boykin, Spur; one sister, Mrs. Bessie Cooner, Spur; two brothers, Edwin of Groves, Texas, and Jim, Salina, Kansas.
Pallbearers were Joe Powell, Johnny Blakely, Floy Watson, Frank Sonnamaker, J.B. Karr and S. Norris.
Interment was in the Spur cemetery, with Chandler Funeral home directing arrangements.
©The Texas Spur, Thursday, September 21, 1950
Transcribed by Becky Hodges
© Dickens County Historical Commission 1997-2022
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