Alice and Tom Horton may be gone on Days of Our Lives, but they’ll never be forgotten. And that’s not just because the town square is named after them. The Horton family home is just as central to the show and Salem as ever, and Days of Our Lives just showed that again with a special episode dedicated to Bo and Hope — and Hope’s grandparents!
On the Wednesday, June 18th episode, Bo and Hope reminisced over their past and looked forward to their future; both the immediate one, sailing around the world once again, and the promise to someday retire to the Horton family home, just as Doug and Julie did. And throughout it, Days of Our Lives treated us to a series of flashbacks to a young Tom and Alice Horton as they, too, grew into their house and their family expanded and grew out of it.
The show brought in Sydney K. Smith and Zach Chyz to once again play younger versions of Alice and Tom, after giving us a glimpse of their earliest years together back when the Horton house burned down last year.
As longtime viewers know, Alice and Tom were played for decades by Frances Reid and Macdonald Carey, respectively. Back when Days of Our Lives first began, the Horton family was the central family of the show.
Alice and Tom Horton were just about the only stable couple in Salem and their love endured right up until their deaths — Carey’s in 1994 and Reid’s in 2010. Their increasingly sprawling family, on the other hand, has always been a mess… But that’s part of what makes the show so much fun to watch. As other families like the Bradys, the DiMeras and the Kiriakises have moved in, the Hortons haven’t quite been as front and center as they used to be, but their presence is still felt — and not just because Salem’s Horton town square was named in their honor!
In fact, all the other major families have their share of Hortons in them, meaning Salem’s beloved first couple and all their descendants will live on as long as the show does. (And if you want to know just how many Hortons there really are, check out our sprawling family tree gallery here.) We’re reminded of that every Christmas when the Hortons hold their annual tree decorating party. It was a tradition started decades back by Alice, and the ornaments they hang on their tree began with those of her and her beloved husband, Tom.
Wednesday’s episode even gave us a glimpse of the first Christmas Julie’s name joined the Horton family ornaments. So while we’re a bit upset that Bo and Hope are here and gone so quickly, the latest look at the couple and Alice and Tom’s early years made clear that their legacy will live on forever. And some day, perhaps, we’ll see Bo and Hope take their place in the home as the head of the Horton family.
