Joseph Keith Howell, (5/27/1934 – 10/25/2005)
In case my dad is looking down at us all — Happy Birthday Dad! He would have been 88 today.
Joe was the youngest of 9 kids that my grandfather had — 8 boys and a girl. Five with his first wife Olive and 4 with his second wife Nina. Of the older 5 kids, Harold was born in 1908 and Bob was born in 1917. In between were 3 kids that didn’t survive to adulthood. The picture above was taken in 1938 near Columbiaville, MI, and shows the 4 kids my grandmother had; Jim (b:1927), Jerry (b:1925), Joe, and John (b:1923). Hemingway Lake is behind them and just behind the old farmhouse that my great grandfather built. When he was a bit older, my dad recalled taking Woodward Avenue out of Detroit to Lapeer Road to some back roads to get to the farm.
Joe served in the Army during the Korean War. This photo was from a training exercise at Fort Belvoir, VA. To this day this military installation is the largest employer in Fairfax County. Joe didn’t go overseas to fight. Instead he was assigned to Army Intelligence, the pre-cursor to the National Security Agency(NSA). He was a code breaker! I asked him how he knew Korean, and his answer was that he didn’t. He was actually breaking Vietnamese codes. Oh! I asked how he knew Vietnamese. He didn’t know that language either! Apparently, Vietnamese is the only asian language that uses the Latin alphabet. The French had colonized that area long ago, so the language is based on French. He was perfect for the job — he studied Latin in Catholic school for 12 years and took 4 years of French in High School. He served from 1952-1956; 10 years before the United States got involved in a war with Vietnam. Fascinating that the military already knew where the next conflict would be.
Joe and Peggy got married on December 30, 1954. He was on leave and they honeymooned in the Washington, D.C. area.
Mom and Dad had 5 kids (Generation 9). This was our “back to Michigan” photo taken in 1973. My dad had moved the family to Arizona for nearly 3 years to start his own business. It didn’t work out, so when he got a call from his old boss at Ford Motor Company, he moved us all back to Plymouth in the same neighborhood we had been living prior to moving.
I wear this class ring every year on my dad’s birthday, and generally most of the month of May in his honor. He was proud that he got a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Detroit. I think he was the first to attend college in all of the family, albeit at night school. He took advantage of the GI Bill to pay for his schooling, which was critical since he had 5 kids to feed while attending. On a side note, I also attended UofD to get my MBA. He was thrilled that I chose to go there and so was I.
All of us kids threw a 50th anniversary party for our parents in 2004. We held it right in the church, starting with this ceremony to restate their vows. Both the maid of honor, her 1st cousin Anne (Walsh) Becker, and the best man (Al Bonilla) were able to participate. Father John was fantastic for this event. We had a luncheon in the basement and did a slide show presentation of their lives and had some gifts too.
Mom and Dad are no longer with us. I am eternally grateful that they were there for me in many ways. I am who I am because of them. Genetics, absolutely! But I never knew how much I learned from them until well into adulthood. I wasn’t always happy with their point of view. I rebelled all the time I could because I was a total stinker growing up. I wasn’t happy I didn’t get everything I wanted. As I reflect back on their influence, it was huge in both the ways I emulated and the ways I wanted to be different. Thank you!
Love you always!!!
Beautiful story and great pics. Thanks for the wedding date. I am working on some updates to the database today. I have tons of new information. Hard to keep up.
Much easier for me to focus on 8 generation stories. Next up will be my Grandpa.
I love your tribute to mom and dad. I’m very thankful we had them for parents.
I’m glad you liked.
Beautiful post Dennis!
D, you are the Great Genialogist!
Stay tuned, more to come!
Wow and very cool history.
Just a snippet. It’s hard to capture everything you would want to write about a person.