Annie Ray Watkin, eldest of three children of William Ward Watkin and Annie Ray Townsend, was born May 11, 1915 in Houston, TX at the Watkin residence, 5009 Caroline. She was home schooled through second grade by her mother and then entered the Kinkaid School (San Jacinto @ Elgin) where she graduated from the tenth grade. The family traveled to France in 1928-29 for her father to study architecture. In 1930 she entered Chatham Hall, an Episcopal Preparatory School in Chatham, VA and majored in American history. She attended Rice Institute from Sept. 1932 to June 1936, graduating with a baccalaureate degree in liberal arts with a major in French. She was queen of Rice Institute's Archi-Arts Ball in 1936 and the same year was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.
Ray married Carl Biehl, a shipping executive, in Dec. 1939 and moved with him to Washington, DC where he had accepted a position with the War Shipping Department. After her husband left for England with the Army Transportation Corps, Ray returned to Houston and pursued a master of arts degree in the history of art at Rice Institute under the auspices of the School of Architecture and professor James Chillman. She received her MA in 1944. Ray served as secretary of the Houston chapter of the American Red Cross through 1945 and as Red Cross Arts and Skills Corps Chairman in 1947. Ray formed the Rice Alumni History Committee in 1975, now the Alumni Archives Committee, and permanently endows the William Ward Watkin Traveling Scholarship in Architecture. Ray divorced Biehl in 1955 and in 1961 married Henry W. Hoagland, spending time between Boston, Houston, Kennebunkport, ME and Tucson, AZ. Following Hoagland's death, Ray married Robert F. Strange on Jan. 25, 1997 and now lives in Brenham, TX.
From the guide to the Ray Watkin Strange Research Materials for, William Ward Watkin and the Rice Institute MS 465., 1917-1985, (Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, TX)
