I may be misunderstanding -- "text boxes" in Word has a distinct
meaning, and I think you are just saying you want to place some text
inside a table "cell." It is possible to format the table cells and the
text inside to achieve the effect you describe with a five-column table
without messing with "text boxes."

As an example, create a 5 column, 5 row table. Highlight the first
column, go to Table, Table Properties, Column, and make the width 2
inches. Repeat for the third and fifth column, but make the width 0.25"
for the second and fourth column. Make sure that no borders exist for
right now. Your narrow columns will serve as gutters

Now highlight the first row, go to Table, Table Properties, Row and
specify the height to be EXACTLY 1.25".

Type in some text in each cell of the table, then highlight all the
text and go to FORMAT PARAGRAPH. Set the left and right indent 0.1
inches, space before and space after to "6 pt" and the alignment to
Justified.

Lastly highlight a cell that requires a border and go to FORMAT BORDER,
and choose the box option. Repeat as needed.

Problems?
Width of columns should be figured out with a little math. 8.5" wide
paper minus left & right margin gives me entire table width. It is
always easiest to use "simple" numbers on a piece of scratch paper
rather than using the "drag and drop" method of adjusting columns
inside the Word document.

Row height not allowing all the text to be seen? You can use the row
height "At least" instead of "exact"

Need the boxes to be of different heights -- Instead of highlighting
the cell and applying the border to the cell, try highlighting just the
words inside and applying the border, OR looking for the option inside
the borders menu for paragraph rather than cell. Cell is usually the
default.

You might also consider adding more rows to serve as vertical spacers