Dateline: October 4, 2001

Bourland

A graveside ceremony for Betty Lewis Slick Young Bourland will be held at Citizens Cemetery in Clarendon on Saturday, October 6 at 5:00 p.m. 

Mrs. Bourland was born in 1917 in Dallas and died on September 25, 2001, at her home.  However, it was her summers on the family RO Ranch near Clarendon which shaped the rest of her life.  Her ranch summers were spent on horseback, picnicking by the Salt Fork of the Red River, swimming in the spring, and above all, learning the ranch business by osmosis, stuck to her father, W.J. Lewis, every day he went to the ranch.

After her father died in 1960, Betty, with her sister, Anne, sold some parcels of ranchland, sold some of the breeding herd, and took on debt to pay the inheritance taxes and kept the core of the ranch. 

When she decided accounting firms didn’t know enough about ranching business to keep the books properly, she went back to school and learned to keep her own ranch books.  Ten years ago she put a plan into effect to transfer the ranch intact to her children and grandchildren.  Inheritance taxes were not going to diminish the ranch a second time.

Three years ago, Betty reached back to her teenage years and found George Bourland, her sweetheart before his naval career and World War II separated them.  Her marriage to George was a comfort and a closing of a ranch bounded life.

Betty is survived by her husband, George Bourland, originally of Clarendon and now of Dallas; her sister, Anne Lewis David of Houston; her children, William Slick of Las Vegas, NM; John S. Young, Jr. of Seattle, WA; Anne Young Shelton of Clarendon; and Susan Young Levanas of Dallas; her grandchildren, Erin, Tara, Dave, John, James, and Will; and her great grandchild, Sean Michael.

Memorials may be made in her name to St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, PO Box 1078, Clarendon, Texas 79226.