William M. Howard was a Quaker most of his adult life, first as a member of the Swarthmore Monthly Meeting and later very active in the Gainesville Monthly Meeting.

He was born in Evanston, Illinois on April 9, 1921. His parent were Marion Boyd Howard and Mary Ruth McLafferty Howard. During World War II, Bill served in the navy in the Pacific Theater as an officer in the Supply Corps.

He married Helen Horn on August 27, 1947 in Madison, Wisconsin, where he received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees at the University of Wisconsin. He also taught at the University of Wisconsin. The most important part of his life was his family. He and Helen, his wife of 61 years, met in a music appreciation class at college. Before
they were married, he told her that he wanted six children. His three daughters, Susan, Jane, and Kate obliged him by adding husbands to the family and his son Michael made number seven. Bill regularly read to his children and then the grandchildren, and planned family outings and trips.

The family moved to Texas in the summer of 1948 where Bill taught statistics and finance at Texas A. and M. Later Bill taught at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho for 3 ½ years.

Bill read extensively in the field of religion and philosophy. He was looking for a faith in which he could believe. While they were living in Idaho, he told Helen that he had decided to become a Quaker. Bill took a position with the American College of Life Underwriters in Philadelphia. They chose to live in nearby Swarthmore because it was a small, attractive town steeped in Quaker tradition with an excellent public school system.

Bill and Helen along with their two children, Mike and Susan, began attending the Swarthmore Friends Meeting. Bill joined the Swarthmore Monthly Meeting by application on February 2, 1955. They settled in Gainesville, Florida in 1955 when Bill joined the faculty of the University of Florida. He started attending Friends worship within his first year. On September 29, 1956 his daughter, Jane, was born.

In September 1956 the Gainesville Meeting’s main concern was the preparations for visitors from the World Committee who would formally give the meeting status as a monthly meeting. The official representatives were to be John and Charllote Vaughn of Deland, expected on the First First Day of October. It was agreed that, following Meeting for Worship, there would be a dinner followed by a business session with the visitors. Bill was asked to make the arrangements for the dinner.

On the day the Vaughns arrived, the clerk, Rembert Patrick, reported that Bill had arranged for the meeting attenders to go directly from worship to the cafeteria to have dinner together before the business session. Sue and William Greenleaf of Jacksonville, and Caroline Jacobs and Rebecca Nicholson of St. Petersburg also attended this meeting. In the first two months of 1957 Bill taught the older children of the meeting, ages 7 to 11. His daughter, Susan, was part of that class. Bill
reported in business session that he was using the books, What it Means to be a Christian and What it Means to be a Quaker.

Starting in April 1958, Bill became the First Day School Clerk making him the first First Day School Committee Clerk of Gainesville Monthly Meeting.

Daughter Kate was born in June 1961. Starting on the Fifth month of 1964, Bill became treasurer of the meeting and held that post for two years. He then served on the Budget Committee with Melvin Fregley among others. He served on that committee for many years. Starting in 1974 he was the meeting’s auditor and continued in that position until 1982.

A professor of finance and insurance at the University of Florida for 31 years, Bill also served as an actuarial consultant to several large corporations, more than 30 Florida cities, and two state governments. He was on the board of directors of Blue Shield of Florida, the Peninsular Fires Insurance Company of Jacksonville, the Gainesville Florida Federal Credit Union, and the American Civil Liberties Union. He was a member of the American Association of University Professors, the United Faculty of Florida, and the League of Women Voters. He served on the Gainesville City Commission from 1977– 1980 and was Mayor-Commissioner during 1979-1980.

As a professor, Bill enjoyed teaching and advising students. He drew upon his business consultant experiences to make his classes interesting and exciting, emphasizing the importance of ethical business practices. He retired as a professor emeritus in 1986.

Bill was a big man and a gamester. His style of teasing innocence combined with the certainty of pronouncement made him a forceful player in the classroom, on the tennis court, and the poker table. With degrees in mathematics, statistics, economics, his ability with numbers gave him strength at the game of poker, which he loved, and he branched out from Gainesville to an un-Quakerly measuring of himself in casinos all around the country, an experience about which he enjoyed sending written reports back to Gainesville.

Bill died on November 28, 2008 at the E.T. York Hospice Care Center in Gainesville, Florida, at the age of 87. Survivors include his wife, Helen Horn Howard of Gainesville; daughters and sons-in-law: Susan and Stephen L. Wellens of Charleston, West Virginia; Jane Howard and Lawrence A. Scheving of Nashville, Tennessee; Katherine “Kate” and
Stephen D. Resnick of Cooperstown, New York, and son Michael “Mike” J. of Tarpon Springs, Florida. He is also survived by nine grandchildren.

At the Memorial Meeting for Worship to celebrate William Howard’s life held at the Gainesville Friends Meetinghouse on December 29, 2008, daughter Jane played the flute, daughter Susan played the recorder, and granddaughter Brenda played the oboe.

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