Dr. Paul M. Howard
September 17, 1905--January 20, 2006

Born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, over 100 years ago, my grandfather, Paul Howard, was brought up by stern New England Yankee parents and went to nearby Williams College.  He moved to New York City in the late 1920s and became a writer for a brand new magazine, The New Yorker.  He found a strange melancholy frustrating his efforts at journalism.  Today we call these things "depression" and "anxiety."  In the 1920s, Freud's psychoanalytic methods were the new chic.  Howard decided to get psychoanalyzed.  He became so fascinated with the process, he decided he would like to become a psychiatrist.  One obstacle, he would have to go to medical school.
Howard chucked up his journalistic ambitions, borrowed some money from his mother, and was admitted to the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania.  My grandfather never made much of a big deal of his arduous studies nor the exhausting internships that followed his medical degree.  We all noticed the insomnia he developed as an intern remained with him the rest of his life. 
He met my grandmother, Carolyn Howard (nee Woodman, 1911--2004) while he was interning at Massachusetts General in Boston in the mid-'30s.  Jobs were scarce during the Depression, but my grandmother was always a stout-hearted volunteer.  She was contributing her time as an aide at Mass General back then.  On a side note, my grandmother never stopped volunteering--whether as a tour guide at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, or teaching reading to learning disable children, or English as a second langauge to immigrants--she gave her time dutifully until the late '90s when she no longer had the faculties to do so.
In 1936, Paul and Carol married.  In 1937, my grandfather accepted a position on the pyschiatric staff of the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass.  He and my grandmother raised their four children on the staff residential campus of McLean, and Dr. Howard remained on staff for more than sixty years.  Half of those years were after his "official" retirment in 1972!
My grandfather was an awfully strange man.  His colleagues considered him brilliant and insightful among psychiatrists, yet he leaves no legacy of published writings or academic theory.  He was more the administrative pragmatists who sometimes held the entire hospital together when internal affairs were chaotic.  At home, my mother and her siblings remember an oddly distant father--sometimes described as cold--who showed little interest in his own children, and wiled away his free time on hobbies such as restoring old cars, bird-watching, handwriting analysis, and billiards.  We grandchildren remember pretty much the same old man.  He was fond of joikes, puns, puzzles, and anectdotes, but the emotional connections always seemed unplugged.  His eccentricity was as endearing as it was maddening.  I remember arguing furiously with relatives as he sat quietly in his armchair.  At the  right moment, he would enter the conversation and crush both sides of the argument with an insite to cogent to refute.  About thirty words later, he would fade into the background once again!
I remember him saying in his eightieth birthday speech, "You know, we could go on like this for another ten years."  For him it was twenty.
He never really took much interest in proper diet and exercise, yet he never developed heart disease or cancer.  He became rather "oval-shaped" as my little cousin Rachel described him, but as he aged he mainly slowed down.  He just got older and slower and older and slower.  His mental faculties didn't show any noticable deterioration until the early '00s.  He noticed too.  He told me plainly, "Carol and I are losing our minds."
My theory about his longevity has to do with his emotional consistency.  He always moved in the same fashion--very slow, and very deliberate.  I knew he was a depressive.  It runs in the family.  But he had a method for dealing with everything.  For instance, he was able to walk long after most nonagenarians would be confined to a wheelchair.  He had what he called a "three point" method for standing and walking with the aid of a single cane.  I never understood what exactly he did, but every time he stood and every time he walked, he did it exactly the same way--no resentment, no impatience.
In all the years I can remember, he never showed rage or nervousness.  On the other hand, he was never really demonstrative in joy or love.  Although his lack of engagement was quite damaging to his descendents, I could only admire the man.  He always reminded me of that old turtle from the fable.  Slow and steady wins the race.
I'm rambling a bit because I haven't had time to process his passing.  We were all expecting his death "any day now" for the past several months.  After he celebrated his centennarian birthday, his health took a precipitous downturn.  I believe it was the psychological goal of reaching 100 that held him physically together.  Last fall, his senility spiked and his decrepitude seized his last bit of composure.  My Aunt Betsy, who was in charge of his affairs, flew him to a new facility near her home in Washngton DC.  Last week I heard he had contracted pneumonia and the prognosis was not good.  Yesterday, January 20th, Betsy visited him at the hospital.  He wanted to play Go (the Japanese boardgame, his favorite for thirty years) and she played it with him...though he was only able to move the stones feebly about the board.  My aunt reminded him how much his late wife loved him, and how much his family loved and dmired him.  She kissed him and departed as he was exhausted. 
His nurse reported my grandfather died peacefully in his sleep about twenty minutes later.
:\'( :\'( :\'(

Of my four biological grandparents, "Grandpa" was the first born and the last to die.  Three out of four of them died at advanced ages from long protracted health problems.  My maternal grandmother died in 2004 in a state of advanced dementia at the age of 92.  My paternal grandmother died in 1997 at the age 87 of cirrhosis of the liver (lifelong alcoholic, it'll always get you in the end--even if it's a month shy of your 88th birthday).  I never knew my paternal grandfather.  He was manic-depressive (bipolar, they call it nowadays) and committed suicide in 1943 via shotgun, Ernest Hemingway-style!  The sadness is there when a loved one dies after a long illness, but so is a deep sense of relief that they're no longer suffering and in a better place.

Thats a really nice piece and i thoroughly enjoyed reading that.

Your Grandfather sounded like a really successful person, and also a link to your earlier relatives that he probably told you stories about when he felt up to actually speaking to you.

Obviously not a celebrity, but a prominent man of his time.

I know what you are going through, i lost my grandfather about 6 years ago from prostate cancer at the age of 64, and then my grandmother 1 year later from a heart attack................both of my mums parents gone within a year at the same age.


I hope you find the time to grieve appropriately and enough to get you to move on with things.......as the saying goes, Time heals all wounds.

Im sure you will at least cherish the memories you have of him and celebrate his life and not dwell on his passing.

I wish you all the strength in this hard time  :)

Aww...Max, I'm very sorry to hear about your grandfather. :(

I am very sorry to hear about this. My condolences to you, Max.  :(

He sounded like quite a guy.  :)

I am sorry to hear that, Max.  It sounds like your grandfather was a wonderful man.  You will be in my thoughts and prayers.

My condolences go out to you and your family. It's wonderful that your grandfather lived such a full life for so long. Not everybody can say that.

Max, those were wonderful words about your grandfather.....he sounded like a very unique man.

I am sorry to hear of his passing.

That's terrible.  I feel sad :(

Dr. Paul M. Howard
September 17, 1905--January 20, 2006

Born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, over 100 years ago, my grandfather, Paul Howard, was brought up by stern New England Yankee parents and went to nearby Williams College.  He moved to New York City in the late 1920s and became a writer for a brand new magazine, The New Yorker.  He found a strange melancholy frustrating his efforts at journalism.  Today we call these things "depression" and "anxiety."  In the 1920s, Freud's psychoanalytic methods were the new chic.  Howard decided to get psychoanalyzed.  He became so fascinated with the process, he decided he would like to become a psychiatrist.  One obstacle, he would have to go to medical school.
Howard chucked up his journalistic ambitions, borrowed some money from his mother, and was admitted to the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania.  My grandfather never made much of a big deal of his arduous studies nor the exhausting internships that followed his medical degree.  We all noticed the insomnia he developed as an intern remained with him the rest of his life. 
He met my grandmother, Carolyn Howard (nee Woodman, 1911--2004) while he was interning at Massachusetts General in Boston in the mid-'30s.  Jobs were scarce during the Depression, but my grandmother was always a stout-hearted volunteer.  She was contributing her time as an aide at Mass General back then.  On a side note, my grandmother never stopped volunteering--whether as a tour guide at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, or teaching reading to learning disable children, or English as a second langauge to immigrants--she gave her time dutifully until the late '90s when she no longer had the faculties to do so.
In 1936, Paul and Carol married.  In 1937, my grandfather accepted a position on the pyschiatric staff of the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass.  He and my grandmother raised their four children on the staff residential campus of McLean, and Dr. Howard remained on staff for more than sixty years.  Half of those years were after his "official" retirment in 1972!
My grandfather was an awfully strange man.  His colleagues considered him brilliant and insightful among psychiatrists, yet he leaves no legacy of published writings or academic theory.  He was more the administrative pragmatists who sometimes held the entire hospital together when internal affairs were chaotic.  At home, my mother and her siblings remember an oddly distant father--sometimes described as cold--who showed little interest in his own children, and wiled away his free time on hobbies such as restoring old cars, bird-watching, handwriting analysis, and billiards.  We grandchildren remember pretty much the same old man.  He was fond of joikes, puns, puzzles, and anectdotes, but the emotional connections always seemed unplugged.  His eccentricity was as endearing as it was maddening.  I remember arguing furiously with relatives as he sat quietly in his armchair.  At the  right moment, he would enter the conversation and crush both sides of the argument with an insite to cogent to refute.  About thirty words later, he would fade into the background once again!
I remember him saying in his eightieth birthday speech, "You know, we could go on like this for another ten years."  For him it was twenty.
He never really took much interest in proper diet and exercise, yet he never developed heart disease or cancer.  He became rather "oval-shaped" as my little cousin Rachel described him, but as he aged he mainly slowed down.  He just got older and slower and older and slower.  His mental faculties didn't show any noticable deterioration until the early '00s.  He noticed too.  He told me plainly, "Carol and I are losing our minds."
My theory about his longevity has to do with his emotional consistency.  He always moved in the same fashion--very slow, and very deliberate.  I knew he was a depressive.  It runs in the family.  But he had a method for dealing with everything.  For instance, he was able to walk long after most nonagenarians would be confined to a wheelchair.  He had what he called a "three point" method for standing and walking with the aid of a single cane.  I never understood what exactly he did, but every time he stood and every time he walked, he did it exactly the same way--no resentment, no impatience.
In all the years I can remember, he never showed rage or nervousness.  On the other hand, he was never really demonstrative in joy or love.  Although his lack of engagement was quite damaging to his descendents, I could only admire the man.  He always reminded me of that old turtle from the fable.  Slow and steady wins the race.
I'm rambling a bit because I haven't had time to process his passing.  We were all expecting his death "any day now" for the past several months.  After he celebrated his centennarian birthday, his health took a precipitous downturn.  I believe it was the psychological goal of reaching 100 that held him physically together.  Last fall, his senility spiked and his decrepitude seized his last bit of composure.  My Aunt Betsy, who was in charge of his affairs, flew him to a new facility near her home in Washngton DC.  Last week I heard he had contracted pneumonia and the prognosis was not good.  Yesterday, January 20th, Betsy visited him at the hospital.  He wanted to play Go (the Japanese boardgame, his favorite for thirty years) and she played it with him...though he was only able to move the stones feebly about the board.  My aunt reminded him how much his late wife loved him, and how much his family loved and dmired him.  She kissed him and departed as he was exhausted. 
His nurse reported my grandfather died peacefully in his sleep about twenty minutes later.
:\'( :\'( :\'(

Of my four biological grandparents, "Grandpa" was the first born and the last to die.  Three out of four of them died at advanced ages from long protracted health problems.  My maternal grandmother died in 2004 in a state of advanced dementia at the age of 92.  My paternal grandmother died in 1997 at the age 87 of cirrhosis of the liver (lifelong alcoholic, it'll always get you in the end--even if it's a month shy of your 88th birthday).  I never knew my paternal grandfather.  He was manic-depressive (bipolar, they call it nowadays) and committed suicide in 1943 via shotgun, Ernest Hemingway-style!  The sadness is there when a loved one dies after a long illness, but so is a deep sense of relief that they're no longer suffering and in a better place.


Grandfathers are especially important men in our life that teach us life lessons that our parents aren't quite aware of yet.  It's so hard for me to explain, to put into words but it seems that Grandparents sorta relearn things, if that's the proper way of putting it.  I don't know, I just know that they have a good grip on life and what it is.  I feel for you Maxwell.  I know how important grandpa's are.

I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather... I only have one biological grandparent left...so I know how it feels to lose one...

I'm glad to hear he got to enjoy such a long life, and that he passed away peacefully... that always helps some...

Sorry to hear about your grandfather  :\'(

Max, I am sorry for your loss. At 100 years old, he must have seen so much in his life. That's an incredible span of time. I hope you have many fond and treasured memories.

Very sorry to hear about your grandfather. Great write-up, nonetheless... sounded like a great man.

Sorry to hear about your grandfather's death, Maxwell.

Sounds like he had a "big" life...  :)

Sorry to hear of your grandfather's passing Max.  He had a good innings and I enjoyed reading about his life.  Sounds as though he was perhaps a sometimes difficult man but never boring.  There's a lot to be said for that. :)

Sorry to here about the news, Max.  :\'(

My condolences go out to you and family.

You wrote a very nice tribute, Max. It seems that writing also runs in the family. To be able to live for a century is a quite an amazing feat. Very few are able to do that. (My grandmother is 97 years young-and we are planning her 100th birthday party already).

Please except our condolences to you and your entire family. You are in our thoughts.





Cat & Carlos

What a great tribute to your grandfather. He and your grandmother sound like they gave alot of themselves. I'm sorry to hear of his passing. My condolences go out to you and your family.  :(

You wrote a very nice tribute, Max. It seems that writing also runs in the family. To be able to live for a century is a quite an amazing feat. Very few are able to do that. (My grandmother is 97 years young-and we are planning her 100th birthday party already).

Please except our condolences to you and your entire family. You are in our thoughts.





Cat & Carlos


My great grandmother(my father's father's mother) lived to be 101(born in 1898); unfortunately she died about a month away from her 102nd birthday. She made it to 2000 though so she lived in 3 centuries.

I have 2 grandfathers and a grandmother. My other gran died in 2000 aged 63 because she had lung cancer.

A formidable eulogy indeed. Well done. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and it seems to me that your grandfather was a fascinating individual.

Let me put it this way: If I wanted to pitch the concept of human life to a planet of aliens, and needed a pamphlet of testimonials and success-stories, this piece of yours would be the keynote!

My earnest condolences. I will always remember this piece.