J. Howard Boulton Jr.: A Manly
Gentleman
J.
Howard Boulton Jr. was a gentleman with the common touch,
an outsider who made others feel at home, a man who bound
together two worlds &emdash; of Venezuela and Iceland
&emdash; with the greatest of ease.
Mr. Boulton, 29, grew up in Caracas, the son of a
prominent Venezuelan family, and spent summers working on
his father's cattle farm. He attended boarding school and
college in the United States and settled in New York,
taking a job at Eurobrokers. A colleague introduced him
to Vigdis Ragnarsson, a New Yorker whose family came from
Iceland. They married in 1998.
"He had this wonderful balance of being this manly
strong man, who could deal with horses and cars equally,
and on the other side this kind, gentlemanly touch," said
his father-in-law, Kristjan Ragnarsson.
Mr. Boulton's other great loves were his 11-month-old
son, Frederick Thomas, and Formula 1 racing. For
Frederick, he would rush home for bath time and wake at 5
a.m. to play with him before work. He would get up just
as early for Formula 1 broadcasts from Europe.
There is surely much grief among the farmhands in
Venezuela. "They watched him grow up, and were really
fond of him," Mrs. Boulton said. "They are beautifully
simple people but I'm sure they understand what happened,
and the injustice of it."
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