Adult

Farewell to John Howe

John Burnham Howe, 93, of Jackson NH, has completed his final hike.  He died January 20, 2020, after a long and vibrant life.  
 
John was born in Boston July 8, 1926. He attended Deerfield Academy and Princeton University, and, in 1945, served briefly in the Army Air Corps.  His varied career was primarily in geology and meteorological sciences. In the early ’60s he worked with NASA on the first generation of weather satellites, Tiros 1. During this time, he lived in Fairbanks, Alaska with his wife, Mary.

As a young man, John worked for the AMC, skinning mules, packing loads up to the Lakes of the Clouds and Madison huts, and working as a hutman. He was a member of the Old Hutman’s Association.

Beginning in the 1950s, his love of hiking led to a tradition on the Summer Solstice, of hiking from Randolph to Bartlett, covering the entire Presidential Range in one day. He continued this ritual well into his 70s.

John worked for many years at the Mount Washington Observatory, serving as staff engineer, scientist, and weather observer, earning the title of “Icingologist”, for his expertise in deciphering the vagaries of ice accumulation at altitude. He was known as the Old Man on the Mountain. While working at the Observatory he made many of his shift changes on foot and skis, when weather allowed — and sometimes when it didn’t. 

 One of John’s 15 minutes of fame came when he was a contestant on the long-running game show, To Tell The Truth. He appeared as himself, a Mount Washington weather observer. He did not stump the panel, his sturdy Yankee persona was impossible to disguise. 
 
After retiring, John and Mary sailed their 31-foot wooden sloop, Vixen, from Maine to the Bahamas several times. Back in New England, when not at their home in Jackson, N.H., they sailed the coast of Maine, where they had many adventures with friends and family. While John would have demurred, his four children’s love of hiking, sailing, the natural world, good writing, music and a well-spun tale were shaped by his examples and tutelage. His long marriage with Mary proved a fine mix of adventure and domestic homesteading comedy that made it seem archetypal. 
 
While fly-fishing, hiking, tinkering with old Volvos and even older clocks abated in the last several years of his life, John was still cutting and splitting his own firewood until just a few years ago. Recently he was still reading Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O’Brian; and listening to Brahms, Handel, Hayden and Mozart. 
 
His sister, Elizabeth Howe Verrill, and his brother, Nicholas, predeceased John. His beloved wife of 58 years, Mary, died just 6 weeks before he did.  John leaves behind son Andrew Howe and his wife Gay, of Jackson, NH; son, Nathaniel Howe and his wife Pamela, of Belfast, Maine; daughter Catherine (Cuppy) and her husband Dick Gordon, of Wellesley, Massachusetts; daughter Lucy and her husband Reese Hersey, of East Calais, Vermont.  John also leaves behind 7 grandchildren, Whitney and Spencer Howe; Molly Howe and her husband Jake Newton; John (Gus), Charlie, and Sam Gordon; and Ogden (Noggo) Hersey. The family will have a private ceremony in the spring.  Donations in John’s name can be made to the Mount Washington Observatory, P. O. Box 2310, North Conway, NH 03860.
 

For friends of ‘Jacquie ‘ Jacquelyn Jones, a sad announcement: “Jacquelyn Abbott Jones passed away on Jan. 12, 2020, lovingly surrounded by her daughter and grandchildren. 

Jacquie was born in 1928 in Dedham, Mass., where she grew up and later attended Lasell College. She often shared fond memories of working at Wellesley College, and spending summers on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine.

In 1958 she moved to Jackson, N.H., working in marketing and publicity at the recently opened Wildcat Mountain Ski Area in Pinkham Notch.

Jacquie was instrumental in the formation of the Eastern Ski Writers Association and served as press liaison for reporters covering the 1959 Olympic tryouts.

In the early 1960s, “Nobody knows Jackson like Jacquie” became her newest marketing campaign as she ventured into the world of real estate. During the next 35 plus years, she owned her own real estate business, and was a member of the White Mountain Board of Realtors, N.H. Association of Realtors and the National Association of Realtors.

She served on the board of directors of the N.H. Association of Realtors for four years and earned the designation of Graduate Realtors Institute (GRI). She was the first female president of the White Mountain Board of Realtors, and was also voted Realtor of the Year by her peers.

Jacquie also volunteered in her hometown and the Mount Washington Valley community. She served on the Jackson School Board and Jackson Planning Board. Jacquie was the president of, and on the board of directors and marketing committee of the Mt. Washington Valley Chamber of Commerce. In addition, she was also hospitality chairwoman of the Volvo International Tennis Tournament.

Jacquie is survived by her brother David Rogers Abbott of Florida and Falmouth, Mass.; daughter Linda Jones Burns of Conway; granddaughter Anastasia (Staci) Colbath and her husband, Ben, of North Conway, N.H.; and grandson Brendan Burns and his significant other, Rachel Else, of Conway, N.H.; as well as multiple grandchildren, a niece and nephews.

Jacquie’s family would like to invite her friends to celebrate her life and the music she loved at the Shannon Door in Jackson on Jan. 26 at 5 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to: North Country Cares, P.O. Box 2722, North Conway, NH 03860, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (northcountrycaresnh.org).

Dr. Walter Richard “Dick” Burack, who wrote The Handbook of Prescription Drugs advocating affordable prescriptions for patients, has died. He was 93.

Burack died Sunday in hospice care in Jackson, N.H., said his son, Tom Burack, former commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Services.

His book was first published in 1967. The New England Journal of Medicine likened it to “David standing up to Goliath.” That year, Burack was a witness in a multi-year Congressional investigation into competitive practices in the drug industry. Burack believed that doctors were purchasing agents for their patients and owed them a duty to not impose costs for medicines that they couldn’t afford, and to not prescribe brand-name medicines for conditions for which there were already proven and cost-effective generics available.

Burack was chairman of the Massachusetts Drug Formulary Commission, which prepared a list of interchangeable drug products. In New Hampshire, he practiced internal medicine and cardiology at North Conway’s Memorial Hospital.

He later was a medical director for Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company’s steel mill in East Chicago, Ind., and for Allied-Signal/Honeywell Inc. in Morristown, N.J. He retired in 1988.

His wife of 65 years, Mary, died in June.

He’s survived by his five children and 10 grandchildren.