Howard C. Lonsdale ’55

Born Sept. 26, 1933, in Berlin, Germany, Howie lived a long and colorful life. He died June 29, 2017, in East Wenatchee, Wash.

He graduated from Little Rock (Ark.) High School. At Princeton he majored in biology, wrote his thesis on protoplasmic streaming, and joined Cloister. After a long career in medicine, and fatherhood resulting in four children — Lauren, Liz, Henry, and our class child Geraldine — Howie become an executive, serving on the board of his homeowners association and of Bralorne Gold Mines in British Columbia.

He was included in Marquis Who’s Who in America three times, earned a lifetime achievement in martial arts as a third-degree black belt, was a judge in championship martial-arts matches, and served on the Republican State Committee.

He had no fatalities in more than 2,000 surgeries. Noting that Howie’s class-child daughter, Geraldine, is now 19 (a 64-year difference in age), it is easy to believe Howie’s assertion that he wore his wives out.

In a letter dated June 28, 2017, Howie wrote that he had “been kicked out of hospice three times because he refuses to die.” Unfortunately, the man with the scythe caught up with him the next day, so Howie departed praising life and his great kids.