George F. Howell, Jr

George F. Howell, Jr, passed away Saturday, March 15, 2025.  He was 76 years old.  George moved to Providence Mount St. Vincent (the Mount), in Seattle, Washington, in April of 2024, to receive assistance as he battled living with a rare form of Parkinson’s called Multiple Systems Atrophy.  He received heartfelt care in the assisted living, rehab, and skilled nursing sections of the Mount as his disease progressed.

George was born in Hartford, Connecticut November 6th, 1948.  He was the eldest of 8 siblings, 6 boys and 2 girls:  George, Mark, Gary, Steve, Brian, Keith, Thelma, and Jean.  While George was quite young, his family moved from Coventry, Connecticut to New York, settling in Depew, where George spent the rest of his childhood.  He was a boy scout, played in intramural sports, and helped form a poetry club in high school.

George first wrote poetry in grade school, and was a lifelong poet, artist, and musician.  He was an astute observer of life, with a sense of humor that was evident to the end.

George received a Bachelor’s Degree from Buffalo State University, and a Master’s Degree in Literary Arts from Binghamton University.  George was very active in the Buffalo arts and literary scene, including helping to establish Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center.

George moved to California, and met his wife, Mary Best, while living there and volunteering to help El Salvadorian immigrants adjust to this country.  George and Mary moved to the Washington, DC area in the 1990s for work.  They lived and worked in DC until moving to Twenty Nine Palms, California, a desert artist community, in 2013, after George retired from his work at C-Span.  They divorced in 2024.

George studied Italian and traveled to Italy 3 times. George learned Spanish and enjoyed his trips to Mexico with his artist and musician friends. George loved the desert and the changing light on the mountains at sunset, the quiet and solitude. George was a writer. He wrote daily:  poetry, observations, and sketches.  George was captivated by a world both beautiful and frightening.  He explored his experience by expressing his emotions through words, music, and sketches.

When George was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, later assessed as Multiple Systems Atrophy, he wrote the following limerick about the medicine he was taking:

Carpidopa-levodopa

Are you just a slippery slopa?

I take you four times a day

To keep my Parkinson’s at bay.

Are you working?

I sure hope-a, hope-a.

George loved the desert, but living alone with Multiple Systems Atrophy became untenable, resulting in his move to Seattle to be near family and live at the Mount, to receive increasing levels of care.  As George slowed down, he adopted the turtle as his spirit animal, expressing both his determination and his sense that so many others could outpace him.

George has many dear and faithful friends whom have know him for years, and several new friends from the Mount. He knew Roman history better than anyone we've known. He loved music, and enjoyed singing with Keith and Julie, siblings Thelma and Steve, and others, long after losing his ability to play the guitar and mandolin.  He was surrounded by family and friends when he passed.

George is predeceased by his father and mother, George F. Howell, Sr, and Mary Grace Howell, and his siblings Mark and Brian.  He is survived by his siblings Gary (Debbie) in New York, Steve (Patti) in Florida, Keith (Julie) in Washington, Thelma, in New York and Jean in Florida, and a number of nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

There will be a memorial service and celebration of George’s life sometime this summer in Buffalo, New York.

- Care Entrusted to Emmick Family Funeral Home -