Jones, Howard David (“Howie”) (11/14/1939–10/16/2005). Howie Jones of Libertyville, Illinois was a student at Grinnell for two years (1957-59). He got involved in a circle of late-night poker players in Gates Hall lounge which distracted him from studying. Howard took French from Odette de Lecluse, who became almost his surrogate mother after his father’s death. I hung out with him a lot at the College.
Howie was a fascinating fellow who liked to cultivate an aura of mystery about himself, centering on vague stories that his family was being investigated for their involvement in the production of the short-lived Tucker automobile. I thought of him as a funny, good-hearted kid who was “off-center” a little and liked to get your attention by saying weird things. In retrospect, I wonder if his life-long penchant for comical, bizarre antics hid some demons within himself.
In 1962, Howard obtained a B.A. degree from Drake University, and in 1977, a diploma in medicine from the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, Mexico. In between he worked in Chicago as a grain broker and merchant, 1962-63, and as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, 1967.
After he obtained the medical diploma in 1977 and apparently through July 1992, Dr. Howard Jones worked as an anesthesiologist, perhaps intermittingly, in various cities in the U.S. In October 1984, he obtained an Iowa medical license and thereafter worked as a physician in Clinton and Des Moines. In June 1991 Howard agreed to settle a complaint about his alleged substandard anesthesia care; the settlement placed his medical license on probation for five years and required him to restrict his practice to a residency program, to continue psychiatric treatment, to abstain from the use of alcohol or controlled drugs and to submit to blood or urine testing. Howard then commenced a residency program at a Des Moines hospital, but a year later it would not renew his participation in the program, and Howard left Iowa and the practice of medicine and returned to Chicago. Later, in 1993, the Iowa Board determined that he had not complied with the probation terms and continued the probation until his license expired in November 1993. (Iowa Board of Medicine, Medical License Verification (Howard David Jones), http://medicalboard.iowa.gov/find_physician/index.html [Jones, Howard].)
While at Grinnell, Howard met and dated Bonnie Postl, who started with our class, but who graduated in 1962 with a B.A. in English. That same year Howard and Bonnie were married, and in 1973 their only child, Rhys D. Jones, was born. (Rhys eventually went to Grinnell, graduating with a B.A. in English in 1996 and afterwards becoming an accomplished and noted professional old-time fiddler.)
By 2005, in the words of a friend of the family, Howard apparently has been spiraling downward both mentally and physically for several years and having a problem with restricted blood supply to the brain. In early October 2005 Howard was arrested for attacking Bonnie and keeping an unregistered loaded gun in their apartment, and he pleaded guilty to the domestic battery charge and was ordered to have a mental health evaluation, but the gun charges were dropped, and he was released after paying a small fine. At the same time Bonnie obtained an order of protection against him.
On October 16, 2005, Bonnie along with their son went to the couple’s apartment to retrieve her belongings. Howard was there and repeatedly stabbed and killed Bonnie and injured their son. After two policemen arrived, they found Howard with a bloody knife in his hands telling them to shoot him. When he refused to put down the knife and charged the officers, one of the policemen shot and killed Howard.
(Main, Wife slain despite order of protection, Chicago Sun-Times (10/19/05); Heinzmann & Wang, A tragedy that family saw coming, Chicago Tribune(10/18/05); Zorn, Tributes to Bonnie Jones (11/7/05), http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2005/11/tributes_to_bon.html; In Memoriam–Bonnie Jones, http://rapoports.net/bonnie.) By David A.Nixon
