Longtime Lakeside resident Mildred Boyd died after surgery in Cuenca, Ecuador on February 10 at the age of 88.
Born April 20, 1921, in Ranger, Texas, Boyd graduated from high school in Holdenville, Oklahoma. That summer, aged 16, she joined Billy Rose’s road show as a showgirl. In the fall, she traveled with the show to New York City for its opening on Broadway.
Boyd married Carney William Boyd in February 1940 and moved to Olney, Texas, where they had four children.
During World War II, she designed aviation parts and helped research alternative materials for building aircraft. She earned her pilot’s license and became a member of the Civil Air Patrol after the war. Boyd started work at Convair Aviation in 1953 and took classes in engineering from Texas Christian University. She worked as an electronics designer for Sperry-Rand Corporation, Hercules Powder Company, Hewlett Packard and Gould Systems.
Boyd authored five non-fiction books. Her first, “History in Harness,” was published in 1962 by Criterion Books. Other titles are “Black Flags and Pieces of Eight,” “Rulers in Petticoats,” “Silent Cities” and “Man, Myth and Magic.”
Boyd was an avid reader of history and dreamed of visiting the sites of ancient civilizations. When the opportunity came around, she traveled the world, retiring to Ajijic in 1983.
Boyd quickly became involved in Lakeside’s community life. She was a long-time volunteer, and later director, of the Lake Chapala Society library. She served two terms as president of the Ajijic Society of the Arts (ASA) and administered its children’s art scholarship fund until her death. She discovered and rescued artwork done by students in the program decades earlier and put together a heritage exhibition that showed works by children, who have since become important professional artists. She showed her own art (collage, watercolor and jewelry) regularly at ASA’s garden shows, and, over the years, garnered a bouquet of ribbons at ASA’s judged shows. Boyd also volunteered with the children’s art program at the Lake Chapala Society for 20 years and, with the help of Jesus Lopez Vega, took over responsibility for the program after its benefactor, Neill James, died.
Boyd was probably best known for the monthly column, “Magnificent Mexico,” published in El Ojo de Lago, for which she had written since 2001.
She was preceded in death by her son Bill, daughter Kathy and granddaughters Sherry and Cindy. Boyd is survived by her daughters Lizz Drummond of Ajijic, Judy Boyd of Cuenca, Ecuador, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Her grandson, Corin Drummond, lives in Ajijic.
Her children said of her: “Our mother, our friend and our role model flew over the rainbow like the happy little bluebird that she was. She left the world better than she found it and didn’t ask for much in return. She was the heroine of her own life, a life with its share of sadness and loss, but also of joy and adventure ... she used her creativity and significant intellectual capacity to build a solid life for her three daughters at a time when single mothers were rare.”
A memorial service is planned for April 20, which would have been Boyd’s 89th birthday, in Ajijic. Details will follow.
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