Winston Howard was a lawyer, land owner and philanthropist who was often up at 4 a.m., wearing a pith helmet, tending to his flower garden.
Howard, for years a partner in Sherman & Howard, one of the city’s oldest law firms, died April 15 at Swedish Medical Center. He was 98.
Until recently Howard was still going to lawyers’ meetings, discussing politics, listening to Mozart and reading everything from books on the law to books on Angus breeding.
“His memory was unbelievable,” said retired District Judge Robert Fullerton. He was also rapid-fire in comebacks.
Diane Hartman, former press agent for the Colorado and Denver Bar Associations, recalls sitting with Howard at a law luncheon and running into him 10 years later. She reintroduced herself, saying she wasn’t sure if he remembered her.
“I remember you and haven’t been the same since,” Howard quipped.
At 95 Howard was making appointments on his Palm Pilot, astonishing many of his younger friends.
“He had a huge amount of energy, charm and curiosity,” said his son, Alan Howard of Charlottesville, Va. “His mind was like a magpie’s nest of stuff. He always wanted to learn more and more about more and more.”
“Thin and ramrod straight,” in Hartman’s words, Howard was fond of bolo ties, and was “articulate, well-prepared, tenacious and a strong advocate of his client’s cause in the courtroom,” said a 55-year friend, John Low, a colleague at Sherman & Howard. “He had an acid wit,” Low said.
Howard practiced corporate law, often representing businesses.
“I never met a man who loved what he did as much as Dad did,” said his daughter, Joan Maclachlan of Parker.
But Howard was just as comfortable talking to the janitor of a building or a fisherman on a wharf, said Maclachlan.
“We’d often lose him on family vacations,” she said, because Howard would wander off and strike up conversations with strangers.
He expected a lot from his children in conversations, said his daughter. “Tell me what you know,” he’d often ask. When asked why he got along so well with people, Howard would answer, ‘I listen to them,”‘ she said.
Howard was a co-founder, with the late George Wallace, of the Denver Tech Center, and was an early land buyer in southeast Denver – land that eventually became part of Cherry Hills Village and Inverness Park.
“He loved land and liked it much more as an investment than stocks and bonds,” Maclachlan said.
The Howard family lived in the Cherry Hills area for years and Winston Howard loved to raise tulips and peonies. He belonged to local garden clubs.
For a time he raised Angus cattle on a 1,000-acre ranch near Kiowa and later owned 400 acres near Hudson, where he raised alfalfa, barley and beets. “He loved to walk the fields and re-arrange the irrigation pipes,” his daughter said.
Another huge interest was philanthropy. For almost 50 years he devoted time and energy to the Salvation Army. “I can remember when I was 8 and my sister and I would be taken to the Salvation Army to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” Alan Howard said.
Howard’s other primary philanthropy was Swedish Medical Center. He helped set up the practice of EMTs at fire stations, believing that since there are more fire stations than hospitals, response to emergencies could be faster.
He and his first wife, Marguerite Howard, set up a scholarship fund to help the hospital’s nurses and caregivers; he pushed for a wellness program and worked to end duplication of resources at hospitals.
“He came from nothing and brought with him the American and Western virtues of hard work, civic responsibility and the belief that a place was only as good as its cultural capital,” Alan Howard said.
Winston S. Howard was born Oct. 15, 1907, in Des Moines and moved to Douglas, Wyo., with his family. He earned his law degree at the University of Wyoming in 1930 and practiced law in Wyoming until moving to Denver in 1935.
He married Marguerite Blair of Laramie in 1933. She died in 1994. He later married Peg Slater Ratliffe, who survives him. In addition to her and his children, Howard is survived by two grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
