Marion Liddell Peteet Howard is remembered by those who knew her as a servant to her church and community at large.
Mrs. Howard died Sunday in Memphis at the age of 82. A memorial service for her will be held at 11 a.m. Dec. 20 at First Presbyterian Church.
A longtime Greenwood resident, she spent 38 years working at the Greenwood Social Security office. She grew up on Crockett Street, where she began a life of service.
“She did everything there was to do and was on every board you could think of,” said Susan Beckham, who worked with Mrs. Howard on the historic preservation room at First Presbyterian.
Mrs. Howard was a member of the church for more than 68 years, serving as a deacon, elder, Sunday school teacher and member of various committees. She headed the committee for the church’s 150th-anniversary celebration.
“She loved the church,” Beckham said. “She grew up in it, and that was very important to her, and she kind of took it upon herself to preserve all of that. She was named the chairman of the sesquicentennial, and it kind of took off from there.”
At the time, the church was redoing what is now known as the heritage room, and Mrs. Howard recruited Beckham to help her. “I actually did calligraphy, and she asked me to do something for her. She was trying to get this room fixed up, and I kind of became her assistant at that point because it was a much bigger job than she anticipated,” Beckham recalled.
Mrs. Howard organized the church’s history for permanent display and created the church’s heritage library.
Elizabeth Melton, a longtime friend, remembered a particular instance when Mrs. Howard exhibited her skills. “She was wonderful at researching. I know one thing: My husband’s grandmother joined our church, and I was talking about it but didn’t know when she did. The next thing I knew, Marion had gone through the records and found the day his grandmother joined the church and photocopied and brought it to me, and she just did special things like that.”
In addition to her work at the church, Mrs. Howard also served as president of Cottonlandia Museum, which is now named the Museum of the Mississippi Delta. “She was always very much the purveyor of anything historical,” Beckham said.
Melton remembered Mrs. Howard for her work with the living Nativity, a Christmas tradition that Melton said was passed down from Mrs. Howard’s mother, then from Mrs. Howard to her own daughter, Robin.
“She did everything to perfection. If she did it, it couldn’t be just OK; it had to be just right,” Melton said, explaining how Mrs. Howard helped facilitate costume and set changes each night of the Nativity for years.
“She was tireless. I don’t know whether she had a schedule, but she worked like she had a schedule every day,” Beckham added.
One of Mrs. Howard’s projects involved the trees in Greenwood. She spearheaded the project that gained the city a Tree City USA certification, an award given to cities that prioritize street trees and landscaping, said Thomas Gregory, a former chief administrative officer of the city.
“Marion was the driving force behind that for a decade or more, if I recall correctly,” he said. “She was the chairman of the tree board for a number of years, and it was always a task of the board to make sure Greenwood planted street trees, cared for ones we have and maintained and invested in personnel to make sure the trees were cared for.”
The trees were just one of several natural beautification projects on which Mrs. Howard worked.
“In a lot of ways, she singlehandedly helped maintain public (flower) beds,” Gregory said. “At the intersection of Grand Boulevard and Claiborne — Marion installed all those. She would quarterly come with her bucket and water the beds and pull weeds, in her hat, by herself. A lot of the time, I would be driving to work and see her. She just rolled her sleeves up and went to do the work. That was her passion — trees and landscaping and anything that would make Greenwood more beautiful to live in.”
Melton recalled a similar picture. “She would never fail in the spring or fall. I’d be coming home, going down Poplar Street, and ... she’d be out there with her big straw hat on trimming the bushes and pulling the weeds. She was so dedicated to Greenwood.”
Mrs. Howard was always interested in the “new next best thing,” Beckham said.
“When we would be working together, she would marvel at the fact that, rather than go and look up someone’s number and call them, I’d just text them and have an answer in 10 minutes,” Beckham said. “She was so excited about it, she started texting.”
Each project that Mrs. Howard had her hand in was successful. “Marion was one that had a vision and pulled partners to the table that helped her carry that vision out,” Gregory explained. “If you knew Marion, she was persistent and didn’t take no for an answer, so if she asked you to step up to the plate, she sort of expected you to do so. But, she also led by example; she wouldn’t ask anybody to do something she wouldn’t do herself.”
Melton held Mrs. Howard’s ethic in esteem. “She was very detail-oriented, and she somehow made it fun. I mean, I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her as she got older getting around and making it to every board meeting, but she made it look easy. You would never know what age she was. She would always dress to the nines, always the best, always look great.”
She said Mrs. Howard was just dear and loyal and the best friend.
Mrs. Howard was honored by the Greenwood Lions Club in 2008 as Outstanding Citizen and by the Greenwood-Leflore County Chamber of Commerce as the grand marshal at the Roy Martin Delta Band Festival and Christmas Parade. In 2011, she was recognized as one of the Top 20 community volunteers by the Delta Business Journal. She also served as a member of various societies and attained a degree in business administration from Delta State University.
“Her touch was on the whole city; she was a daughter of Greenwood,” Beckham said.
Gregory explained Mrs. Howard’s work as a result of her love of place. “I expect she thought that if somebody was going to do something, she was willing to be the person to do it,” he said.
- Contact Katherine Parker at 662-581-7239 or kparker@gwcommonwealth.com.
