MR. WILLIAM DONALD "DON"
HOWERTON
July 17, 1932- July
23, 2000
William Donald Howerton, 68, of Peoria, AZ, beloved father and brother passed away July 23,2000 at home surrounded by his loving family. Don was preceded in death by his wife Pat Howerton and his parents. Survivors include: brothers, John F. Howerton of Sun City, AZ and George Howerton of Detroit, TX, 8 grandchildren and spouses:
William and
Marina Howerton of
Tempe, AZ
Sue Zan and Dave
Mayer of Peoria, AZ
Don and Sandy
Howerton of Lee
Summit, MO
Donna and Greg Lantz of Tampa, FL
Susan and Doug
Costal of Surprise,
AZ
Patricia and Tony
Murel of Mesa, AZ
Thomas and Michele
Howerton of Elgin,
TX
Yvette and Mike
Gillbreath of
Phoenix, AZ,
27 grandchildren, 3 great grandchildren. Mr. Howerton was born July 17, 1932 in Rockport, TX. He moved to Arizona in 1969. He was a member of the U. S. Navy Submarine Service. Don was a heart transplant survivor of 10 years. Services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, July 26th at Chapel of the Chimes Mortuary, 7924 N. 59th Street Avenue, Glendale, AZ.
Taken from the Arizona Republic 26 July 2000
DON’S FUNERAL
by
John F. Howerton
Don and I have discussed funerals several times:
--Mothers burial
--Don would not attend any funerals
--His own funeral was a necessity he could not control.
Saturday night George warned me I might be ask to speak this afternoon. He warned me not to do one of the flowery eulogies. I was somewhat amused because brothers know the good, bad and the ugly about one another. Why don’t just keep our own memories?
Let me tell you a few things about Don’s birth, etc.
–Born 17 July 1932
–Rockford, Texas, community
–In fall, moved to Biardstown. After Christmas moved to
Paris. Before Don joined the Navy in 1949, my parents had lived
in at least 20 different houses or apartments. The longest we
spent anywhere was Deport, Texas, where we stayed just over two
years in two houses. Our time in Deport and the next year and a
half in Prescott was probably the happiest time of our lives.
Unfortunately, we never stayed anyplace long enough to establish
long-term friendships. After I left for the Marines the family
moved back to Paris. George and Don were in Paris during two
years of their High School.
During our lives, we spent various lengths of time living with mother’s parents on the farm and worked in the fields from the time we were three or four. In fact, after Don was born – that fall mother picked cotton, laid Don on a quilt under a pecan tree and had George, who was just two years old watch him. Before we moved from Deport, Texas, to Prescott, we picked cotton before and after school.
We were always seeking ways to earn money when we lived in town. We gathered scrap metal for the war effort; we pickup boxes behind department stores for a local bakery; we shined shoes on the street; we pushed an ice cream cart; we sold magazines door-to-door – we always sought ways to make money to help our family.
Don was 14 when I left for the Marines in 1946. Our contact after that consisted of short visits, Christmas visits, etc. I remember a visit from Don in 1954. We lived in Pueblo, Colorado. When Don moved to Phoenix just over 30 years ago, we had a little more contact – the amount has varied. After Pat’s death, Don and I made regular visits to our mother and often talked. During the year before our mother died, we talked on a regular basis. Since January 1996 when our mother died, we have spoken regularly and have averaged visiting once a month.
In our early childhood, before moving to Prescott in 1944, we were very active in church. When Don was a boy growing up and through his High School years he was a very active Christian and church member. When I returned from China in 1949 he was a leader in the youth group at the First Southern Baptist Church in Prescott.
After his time in the Navy he did not attend church very often. We have discussed our Christian faith and he never expressed any spirit of rebellion toward God and did express his faith in Christ. He once told me, anyone who doesn’t believe in God and Christ is stupid. He admitted he ought to attend church and asked me several times for our service times.
Death holds no fear for me. I believe the Bible when it says, "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." We live in a world dominated by two spiritual kingdoms – the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light – another way to say the world is dominated by the kingdom of Satanic forces or by the kingdom of God. There is no middle ground. The apostle Paul wrote to the Christians at Ephesus and reminded of their old life and their new life. "You were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived at one time gratifying the cravings of our rebellious nature and following it desires and thoughts. Like the rest of lost mankind, we were the objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ."
In this life I can live one of two ways: I can let my bodily desires and drives control my emotions, my mind where I make decisions and store memories, and my will where I make choices – my body is in control and my spirit is shriveled. Or, I can let that part of me that has communion with God, my spirit control my will where I make choices, and my mind where I think, made decisions and store up memories, and I am not moved by body which will die and perish. If I live in kingdom of darkness my actions are controlled by my body. If I live in the kingdom of God, my spirit is in control.
Every day, several people have ask me, "how are you doing." Most of them meant, "how are holding up – are you despondent? are you depressed?" Let me read an incident from the life of Jesus –
"Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick." When Jesus heard that, He said, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it."
5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
(NKJ)
John 11:7-11
7 Then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again."
8 The disciples said to Him, "Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again?"
9 Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.
10 "But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him."
11 These things He said, and after that He said to them, "Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up."
Then His disciples said, "Lord, if he sleeps he will get well."
However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep.
Then Jesus said to them plainly, "Lazarus is dead.
"And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him."
Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him."
So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days.
Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away.
And many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.
Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him, but Mary was sitting in the house.
Then Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.
"But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You."
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
Martha said to Him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.
"And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
She said to Him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world."
And when she had said these things, she went her way and secretly called Mary her sister, saying, "The Teacher has come and is calling for you."
As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came to Him.
Now Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in the place where Martha met Him.
Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and comforting her, when they saw that Mary rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, "She is going to the tomb to weep there."
Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."
Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.
And He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see."
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, "See how He loved him!"
And some of them said, "Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?"
Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.
Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, "Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days."
Jesus said to her, "Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?"
Only one person in this incident was living in complete spiritual control – it was Jesus who told his disciples, "I am the resurrection and the life, he that believes in me will never die." Jesus wept with Mary and Martha because He was sadden by their sadness. Jesus raised Lazarus to teach us there is no death for those who walk in the kingdom of God.
God has provided a way for us to be a part of His kingdom – On the night before He died on the cross, the disciples were saddened when He told them of His impending death – Jesus spoke to their sadness with the words, "Let now your hearts be troubled. . ." The only way out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God’s light is faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our only hope! That may not be politically correct in the kingdom of darkness, but it is correct according to God who makes the rules.
Every day of my life, I try to keep my spirit completely yielded to the spirit of God. When my brother dies my emotions are not controlled by my body and the kingdom of darkness. Satan has come to deceive, to kill, and to destroy – to make me despondent and depressed. Jesus has come that I might have life and have it more abundantly. I weep with you because of your sadness.
A group of people in Thessalonica who had become Christians and walked in the kingdom of God because concerned because some of their fellow believers were dying. Through Paul, God spoke the following words to them: 1Thessalonians 4:13-18:
13 And now, dear brothers, I want you to know what happens to a Christian when he dies so that when it happens, you will not be full of sorrow, as those are who have no hope.
14 For since we believe that Jesus died and then came back to life again, we can also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him all the Christians who have died.
15 I can tell you this directly from the Lord: that we who are still living when the Lord returns will not rise to meet him ahead of those who are in their graves.
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a mighty shout and with the soul-stirring cry of the archangel and the great trumpet-call of God. And the believers who are dead will be the first to rise to meet the Lord.
17 Then we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and remain with him forever.
18 So comfort and encourage each other with this news.
There is a difference in the way we view death: If we know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we walk in the kingdom of light. Jesus has defeated eternal death and assured us of life in His kingdom.
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