Thursday, September 3, 2009

My mother, Rosemary

Rosemary DePasquale Boykin had a father who insisted that it was important to "leave your mark". I think my mother was determined to do this and worked at it until the day she left this world, June 15, 2008. Graduating from high school at the age of 16 and starting college at SMU in Dallas at that same age was a major accomplishment. My mother majored in biology and art and minored in German. Her desire was to translate German scientific reports and possibly be a medical artist. What she ended up doing after graduation and marriage was washing test tubes for 60 cents an hour in a lab on the Texas A&M Campus. Later though she was hired to work in the Oceanography and Meterology Department at A&M and worked with oceanographers who had been deeper in the ocean than any man. She actually wrote her first book while working there and was studying the currents in the Gulf of Mexico. It was all a far cry from being a wife and a mother of four children... which she also was. She definitely left her mark... and that was only the beginning for her.