RIP: Fred Howard

Posted Jul 3, 2014

Fred Howard, a member of Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning’s staff and head of chaplains for the Diocese of Long Island hospital ministry, died July 1 at his log cabin home in Hinsdale, Pennsylvania. He was 80. He had suffered several strokes and for the past year had been confined to a wheelchair. Fred had lived in Hinsdale, where he and his wife, Sylvia, intended to retire. She was also a member of the Episcopal Church Center staff and died in the late 1990s.

Fred was instrumental in securing permission from the various Anglican provinces for the startup of a churchwide communications system, which eventually morphed into the Internet.


Comments (2)

  1. The Rev. Harriet B. Linville says:
    July 3, 2014 at 1:42 pm

    TEC and the Anglican Communion has been blessed by Fred’s many gifts. May the next life, reunited with Sylvia, be full of joy and laughter.

    1. The Rev. Stephen R. Weston says:
      July 8, 2014 at 7:33 pm

      I erred in naming Fred’s Pennsylvania town… it was Honesdale. I had recently spoken with him after a period in which my wife, Joan, also had died of cancer. Fred grieved for several years, during which the Episcopal congregation in Honesdale planted a “Sylvia tree” in her name. His sense of humor, always rife, filled his life and those who knew him. I remember his standing on a street corner in New York City, simply looking up at the skyscrapers; others would join him, and pretty soon there would be a crowd of perhaps twenty persons, standing with him, looking up in expectancy. He would emit a loud chuckle and walk off.

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