Arthur was born Aug. 22, 1929 at Loma Linda, California. His mother, Yvonne, was a New Zealander and his father, Graham, a South African. They met while he was a premed student at Pacific Union College, Angwin, CA. His father started his medical studies at Loma Linda University where Arthur was born. He was two years old when his father took off for the University of Minnesota to finish his M.D. That was the last time Arthur saw his father until he graduated from high school. His mother had to bring him up in the depths of the depression with no help, necessitating living in 23 places in the first 21 years of his life. No doubt this contributed to his wanderlust, which eventually led him to sail around the world on a small sailboat. This is documented in his book, The Odyssey of Sunraker, Why would a successful doctor chuck it all and sail around the world? (Amazon)

Arthur lived in New South Wales, Australia for three years between the ages of 18-21 with his mother. He returned to California to finish his bachelor’s degree in music (violin and conducting) at La Sierra College. He married Isabelle Gillespie from New Zealand before his senior year and they had four children, Starlyn Cielita, Renita Dianne, Lynelle Yvonne, and Roxanne Ladelle. After teaching band, choir, and orchestra for two years at a 12-grade Adventist school in Battle Creek, Michigan he was called to teach violin and orchestra at Union College, Lincoln Nebraska. While there he finished a Master of Music Degree with a major in violin at the University of Nebraska.

After only two years, he decided to return to La Sierra College to complete his undergraduate premed studies, and subsequently graduated from Loma Linda Medical School. Following a one-year internship at Riverside County General Hospital, Arlington, CA and a one-year surgical residency at San Bernardino County Hospital, Arthur co-founded Yorba Park Medical Group in Orange, California with four other doctors. While in Orange County he founded and directed the Orange County—Long Beach Doctor’s Symphony and fulfilled a lifelong dream of conducting the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 at the University of California, Irvine.

Wanderlust and/or midlife crisis intervened and after two divorces, he set out to sail around the world. During his circumnavigation, Dr. Howard spent two years in Australia doing Locum tenens, doctoring, and worked three years in South Africa as The Chief of Obstetrics in a black hospital in Zululand during the era of Apartheid. In Natal, South Africa, he met his present wife Mechtild, a German who was teaching in a Zulu township at a teacher's training college. They have been together since 1984.

After returning to Yorba Park Medical, he practiced 10 more years before retiring to the beautiful Applegate Valley in Oregon. His last interest was as a luthier. He made two violins and two violas. One of these instruments he played in the Rogue Valley Symphony as well as in the Cantabile String Quartet with fellow musicians of the Rogue Valley Symphony until nearly to the end of his life. As a secular humanist he leaves this world after a brief sojourn deeply grateful for the full life that he has been privileged to lead. He departs a troubled country hoping that the future will be brighter yet for his wife, children, six grandchildren, and five great-grand children.

(written by Arthur Howard)

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