Howard at about age 5
A unique and shining spirit passed into the next phase of existence on February 19, 2011 in Kirkland, Washington, in the arms of loving family. He loved people and had a gift for enriching the lives of everyone he met.
Howard at about age 7 with Louis (Ludvik) Bergerson.
Howard was born July 29, 1922 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Margaret Jeske, who six years later married Ludvik (Louie) Bergerson, who adopted Howard. The family lived in mill towns throughout the Pacific Northwest.
He wed Nellie (McLaughlin) Wilson in 1967 and adopted her three youngest children, Gerald, Earl, and Merlla. After Nellie’s passing in 1987, he married Christine Stamm, and they were together about three years.
He was self-taught following a 10th-grade education. He served in the Army in WWII (Guadalcanal). He was a fine artist of drawings and paintings. A serious vocalist, he was offered a position as an operatic voice instructor at Carnegie Hall. Settling in Sweet Home, Oregon in 1951, he worked as a shingle weaver for over 50 years, writing nightly into the wee hours. He was nominated as 1957 Oregon Poet Laureate, and published Palindromes and Anagrams and a collection of poetry, The Spirit of Adolescence.
This is a picture of an unfinished pencil portrait Howard had started of his wife (my mother), Nellie, from her 1941 high school graduation photo. He abandoned it because he was not happy with his accuracy of proportion.
In 1972, he was in the Guinness Book of World Records for “Edna Waterfall,” the longest palindromic poem. He published games and puzzles in Word Ways, Reader’s Digest, other magazines, and achieved a reputation among colleagues as the master of wordplay.
Balancing his artistic and linguistic pursuits, he was also respected in the math community (among teachers and professors) as a creative mathematician whose original research included algebra, geometry, and number theory. In his final years, he was working on The Ethical Imperative, a metaphysical thesis based on a lifetime of inquiry in mathematics, physics, philosophy, and theology.
A celebration of life is planned prior to interment of ashes in Sweet Home, Oregon. Details will be provided later in The New Era.