In 1995, Mary Ann Boubel, a new member of Field Street Baptist Church, sang her first solo.

The massive ovation that followed was not for her, she insisted.

Four years later, she stood before the microphone and announced, “I have just discovered that I am unable to sing, Instead, I will read the words of this beloved song.”

A reaction to a prescription drug had made her voice unpredictable. She still sings in two choirs, but the solos have ceased.  

But her life’s song lives on.

When she was 10, Mary Ann Hill was invited to join the adult choir at First Baptist Church at Pettus, south of San Antonio.

Her parents, Eunice Fay and Robert “Bob” Scherrer Hill, sacrificed to provide voice lessons for her.

Soon Mary Ann, accompanied at the piano by her younger sister, Bobbie, sang solos regularly at churches, civic clubs, garden parties, weddings and on the radio.

“Sometimes funny things happened at weddings,” she said, “like when a fern caught fire, a groom fainted, and a wedding ring rolled down the aisle.”

She has always taken amusing incidents in stride, including her own baptism when she was a child.

“We didn’t have baptistery robes at our church. I wore my full-skirted organdy Easter dress. When I stepped into the water the pastor, and I spent several minutes trying to punch my billowing skirt down into the water so he could submerge me.”

After graduation from Breckenridge High School in 1948, Mary Ann was invited to audition as an understudy for the leading lady in a light opera company. She was chosen for the role, but red flags went up.

“I was convinced that God had given me my talent. I decided that it should be used only for his glory.”

The honor student was awarded a three-year nursing scholarship.

At Baptist Memorial Hospital in San Antonio, but she was in for a shock.

She learned she had been sheltered and protected from the real world. Others considered her unfriendly as she withdrew from their lifestyle.

Mary Ann’s father became ill and he was brought to the hospital where she was training.

“My dad was near perfect in my eyes. I was in class when he was brought in, but the instructor let me go to be with him. He suffered convulsions, the first ones I had ever witnessed. He never regained consciousness from the time he left home. He died the next day. His was the first death I had ever seen; my grieving process took two full years.”

Her unhappiness took an upturn when she met her future husband, Louis Edward Boubel, an ambulance driver.

She said some of the drivers chauffeured the nurses, brought snacks while they were working, and dated them.

“We had been cautioned by our authorities not to associate with the ambulance drivers except on a business basis. I had been taught to do what I was told without question.”

Then Louis had an emergency appendectomy and became one of Mary Ann’s patients.

“He was tall and blond, very good looking, and had a terrific personality. Everyone liked him. Each time his light came on, I would race to his room to see what he needed, but he was already surrounded by other nurses.”

She was at her parent’s home while off duty when she received a call from Louis. He asked her to go with him on a double date with friends to a movie.

“I told him I had to ask my mom for permission. I was 18. I later learned he wondered what he was getting into, as he had been on his own since age 14. Never before had any girl told him she had to ask permission from a parent for anything.”

Louis’s friends were surprised when he and Mary Ann became engaged in February 1950. Their lifestyles seemed incompatible to others.

 “I had made a secret pledge to the Lord that I wouldn’t marry Louis until he came to know Jesus personally,” she said. “One Sunday evening when we were discussing spiritual matters he accepted Christ. He was baptized the next Sunday night.”

Louis was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1950. She nursed extra shifts to pass the time and waited for his letters.

They married March 21, 1952, at Baptist Temple in San Antonio after he came home.

She continued nursing part time, and he worked at Kelly Field.

Their first child, Scherrill Ann, who now lives in Cleburne, was born in 1953.

Louis was offered a job with Convair Aviation in 1954.

At Birchman Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Mary Ann began a preschool ministry.

He became a deacon and led a department of young married couples in Sunday School.

Their sons, Gary, now of Houston, and Larry, who resides in Chicago, were born in 1955 and 1957. Mary Ann has 10 grandchildren and three great-children.

Louis was eager for his family to enjoy a farm lifestyle, and they bought property near Aledo.

At First Baptist in Aledo Mary Ann worked again with preschoolers.

She began attending conferences and read avidly to become better prepared, soon leading others in conferences.

She presented a teaching unit demonstration at Glorieta Baptist Encampment in New Mexico. There in the prayer garden, she made a commitment to serve full time if that was God’s plan for her life.

She led preschool conferences for college students who were preparing to do summer mission work. At Weatherford’s North Side Baptist Church she established a Mother’s Day Out ministry and led state vacation Bible school leadership conferences for five consecutive years.

Leadership training in a Florida church resulted in a preschool room being named for her. Her preschool ministry spanned almost 35 years.

The Boubles and partners Ernest and Doris Dossey established B & D Hardware, Inc. in Aledo in 1977.

The women ran the store with their husbands working part time. Louis remained employed at General Dynamics.

Before they opened, they and friends had a prayer of dedication in the street. They made a profit the very first year.

Mary Ann and Louis sold the business in 1986, and joined the Texas Baptist Builders ministry. Traveling and living in a camper, they worked on 78 projects.

“The Builders, volunteers, used the old-time barn raising idea where neighbors helped neighbors in need,” she said. “Building churches, each job had a lead carpenter, site man, electrician, plumber and spiritual leader, who were retired from these professions. They were joined by other volunteers for each job, many of whom had little or no training in the building trade. Their average age was 70.”

Everything changed in September 1993.

They were between jobs, and the Boubels had pulled their trailer to Thousand Trails near Whitney.

Louis went to Colorado with a work team to add a room on to a missionary couple’s house.

“When Louis returned he was pale and had trouble breathing,” she said. “After testing, a biopsy of the lungs showed inoperable cancer in both lungs, behind the lungs and spreading to all parts of his body, including his liver and brain. He had no pain or any prior signs. We were totally unprepared for the diagnosis.”

On Sept. 14, three weeks after the onset of symptoms began, Mary Ann said, “We saw Louis’s spirit leaving his body as the monitor raced from the top to the bottom.”

She and the family stood at his bedside and began to sing, “It is Well with My Soul.”

An observer asked the head nurse, “I don’t understand. This family has just lost their loved one, and they are singing?”

“You’re seeing what it is to know Jesus Christ and his comfort,” the nurse said.

“Men respected him and followed [Louis},” Mary Ann said. “Women admired him. Some said he had a ‘presence’ about him. He had qualities of a gentleman, always holding the door for me, pulling my chair out, walking protectively on the street side. We were a team; we became one. We even recognized and understood each other’s gestures, expressions and unspoken thoughts.”

After Louis’ death she rented a doublewide trailer in Whitney.

At Cedar Creek Baptist Church she sang in the choir and was soon asked to help with educational ministries and to help train preschool workers.

After a severe illness and a 24-day stay in the hospital, she moved to Pleasanton to be near her brother and his wife. Eager to still be used by God she became director of education and ministries at Trinity Baptist Church.

When her work was finished there she drove to Cleburne to provide postoperative care for her daughter.

She saw something unusual.

 “Sign after sign in Cleburne referred to the Lord with scripture verses even on store fronts. I whispered, ‘Lord, Your spirit is in this place.’ 

 “Moving here was God’s plan for me. Each day there’s something new and refreshing from him.”

 Her song lives on.



Larue Barnes may be reached at laruebarnes@yahoo.com.