Raymond Howard to celebrate 100th birthday


Ozark County native Raymond Howard, who turns 100 on Nov. 14, showed his grandmother Phoebe Luna’s clay pipe when he attended an Ozark County reunion of the descendants of Zanoni-area pioneers Elisha and Eliza Luna in 2016.

Ozark County native Raymond Howard will celebrate his 100th birthday at a party hosted by his family from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12, at the Senior Center on Washington Avenue in Marshfield. 

Raymond was born Nov. 14, 1922, in Dora, the son of Pete and Della Howard. He is a descendant of Ozark County pioneers Eliza and Elisha Luna, who settled near Zanoni in 1855. He was recognized as one of their oldest living descendants at the Luna family reunion in 2016, which attracted 250 people from 17 states. At the gathering, Raymond showed a pipe that had belonged to his grandmother, Phoebe Luna, wife of Elisha and Eliza’s son Peter Pittmen Luna. 

Raymond attended elementary school in Dora but didn’t go to high school. He moved to Hannibal, where he met Esther North when they worked for the same employer. They were married in 1946 and were together 71 years before her death in 2017. 

He served in the Army and was aboard ship, ready to be deployed, when “it came across that they had just signed a law that anyone whose wife was pregnant wouldn’t be shipped overseas,” Raymond’s daughter-in-law, Eva Howard, told the Times. 

After his military service, Raymond worked in a steel plant and as a barber. He and his wife had four children (today they are Suella Gonzales, Ray Howard, Mike Howard and Danny Howard). They moved to Charleston, West Virginia, at the invitation of a friend who was head of the school district’s transportation department. Both Ray and Della drove school buses until they retired in 1983, when they moved back to Missouri. 

For more than 15 years, Raymond delivered meals to the homebound for the Senior Center in Marshfield, where his birthday party will be held. He was profiled for his volunteer work in 2016 in the Marshfield Mail. The story was reprinted in the Ozark County Times.

No longer driving, he now lives with Danny and Eva Howard in Marshfield and enjoys reading western novels. 

Everyone is invited to his party. He would enjoy receiving birthday greetings; mail cards to him at 2815 Old Sycamore Loop, Marshfield, MO 65706.  

Ozark County Times

504 Third Steet
PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
Fax: (417) 679-3423