Royal E. Houghton died on Monday, October 16, 2023, after a short period of declining health.

Royal was born at home to Jean (Earle) and Karl Houghton on February 15, 1927. He and his twin sister were named for their parents' good friends, Ruth & Royal Fraser.

Royal spent his childhood roaming the countryside around his father's small farm in Bridgewater Corners, hunting and fishing, skating and jack-jumping. He skied on the steep slope behind his house and on Gilbert's Hill in Woodstock. In addition to his chores, he worked at other farms in the area, helping with sugaring during the spring break from school and weeding during the summer. He often accompanied his father to the home of Calvin Coolidge in nearby Plymouth; while his father did maintenance work at the homestead for Mrs. Coolidge, he amused himself by trying on the former president's top hats.

He attended the one-room elementary school in Bridgewater Corners, then Woodstock High School. To serve his country, Royal left school after his junior year, enlisting in the U.S. Navy on April 17, 1945. After completing his basic training, he travelled to Hawaii where he was assigned to the Labor & Transportation Division of the Naval Supply Center at Pearl Harbor. He worked on the MCM landing crafts, which were used to move ships docked in the harbor and to deliver supplies. He received his honorable discharge on July 16, 1946.

When he returned home from Hawaii, Royal worked in the maintenance department at the Bridgewater Woolen Mill. In 1950 he was hired as a mechanic to build and test machines at Cone Automatic Machine Company in Windsor. After taking a course in drafting, he moved to the drafting department, working on tool design.

There he met his wife, Marilyn Trask, who "worked just down the hall" in the purchasing department. They were married at the Community Baptist Church in Plainfield, NH, on March 11, 1955. During the first years of their marriage they lived in an old farmhouse in Bridgewater; then they moved to a new house in Ascutney, where they remained for more than 65 years.

Royal worked at Cone's for twelve years before spending two years at Joy Manufacturing in Claremont, N.H. In 1964, he went to work as a designer designing tooling and material handling equipment at Bryant Grinder in Springfield. When he was laid off in 1970, he was hired as a tool engineer at Miniature Precision Bearings in Keene, N.H. In 1972, he returned to Bryant, working as machine designer until his retirement in 1988. Despite his lack of an engineering degree, he found himself doing the work of a project engineer, work that he thoroughly enjoyed and in which he took great pride. In his memoir he wrote "it has been a very satisfying life to design something on paper and then see it in steel, and I loved every minute of it." He has two U.S. Patents to his credit.

When he began his career, he used a pencil, straight-edge, and triangles for drafting. In 1983 Bryant adopted the computer cad system, the second company after IBM to do so.  Although he feared that he was too old to learn how to use the cad cam, he soon became so proficient that he was often asked to demonstrate. After his retirement, he worked as a consultant at Fellows Gear Shaper in Springfield.

When he was 45, his physician advised him to spend less time leaning over a drafting board and more time exercising. He promptly borrowed his daughter's bike and soon discovered a passion for cycling. He bicycled the area surrounding Mt. Ascutney, clocking over 104,000 miles before giving up the sport at age 90.

A practical person, Royal could fix or build anything. A talented artist, he drew several illustrations for the magazine produced by Bryant's parent company, Ex-Cell-O, as well as for MPB. He put his drafting skills to work as a volunteer, drawing plans for a proposed town office and for an addition to the elementary school in Ascutney. He also volunteered his help with the barn at the Rev. Dan Foster House for the Weathersfield Historical Society, the new station for the Ascutney Fire Department, and the Weathersfield Center Meeting House. During his retirement he enjoyed painting, woodcarving, and making bas-reliefs. He even designed his own gravestone, which was featured in the summer 2005 issue of Barre Life Magazine. He also enjoyed reading, especially books about military history and Vermont history, and he enjoyed writing, recording his lifetime of adventures for his friends and family members.

Royal leaves his beloved wife of 68 years, Lynn, a daughter, Patti, and her husband, John Arrison, of Weathersfield, a granddaughter, Cecelia, and her husband, Joseph Tarr, of Portsmouth, N.H., and his Basenji companion, Louie. His nieces and nephews were very dear and very important to him.

He was predeceased by his sister, Ruth Needham, his older brothers, Earl and Evan Houghton, and his nephew, Walter Houghton.

Memorial donations may be made to the Bridgewater Historical Society, P.O. Box 98, Bridgewater, VT 05034. A celebration of Royal's life will take place at 1:00pm on Nov. 18, 2023, at the Weathersfield Center Meeting House.