John Brooks Howard, Jr., Collection

Background on John Brooks Howard, Jr.

John Brooks Howard, Jr., known by his family as Brooks (and as J. B. or "Gibby" to his classmates), was a popular and vivid presence on the campus of Massachusetts Agricultural College from 1926 until 1929. He was born on November 20, 1908, in Medford, Mass., the oldest of three sons. His parents were John B. Howard, who had worked as a hunting and fishing guide before becoming a salesman, and Mary Ellen Pelrine Howard, who had immigrated from Nova Scotia

Howard graduated from Reading High School in Reading, Mass., in 1926 (voted "most original") and arrived at MAC as part of the class of 1930. An accomplished student deeply admired by his classmates and professors alike, he loved wildlife and the outdoors, especially birds, and he majored in biology. He was a member of the Honor Council, Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, and the rifle team, as well as the editorial board of the student newspaper the Collegian, which elected him editor-in-chief.

Early on the morning of April 27, 1929, in the spring of his junior year, he went out with a friend to collect specimens. Seeking a crow's nest he spotted, he climbed to the high branches of a pine tree whose height was later said to be 70 feet. Brooks Howard’s death at age 20, after falling from the tree, stunned the campus community and broke his mother’s heart, haunting his family for a long time after. He was posthumously elected to the honor society Phi Kappa Phi with his graduating classmates in 1930.