Howard
     

 

  The Howard family came to Virginia from England about 1750 AD....

Pate Howard was shot dead by a riverboat captain in an argument about transporting some friends across the river. Pate was the father of William Ross Howard, who sired Wilbert Boles Howard.

William Ross Howard was working at a factory in Pembrook,  KY. For fun he worked on old automobiles at his friend’s, the Butler boys’ house. There he met Netty Edna Butler Basham.  She was divorced (Boone Basham) with a young child (Benny Basham). She was quite musically inclined .She played the guitar and sang many of the nostalgic songs of her day. They were married in 1916. He was very young at the time, probably in his late teens. His parents were not happy about the marriage since she was older and had a child. Their only child, Wilbert Boles Howard, was born about a year later. William Ross Howard died in the Flu epidemic in 1918 at the young age of about 19.

Due to a long rainy season, the Ohio River, which passes by New Albany, Indiana, flooded the city, in the spring of 1937.  Wilbert B. Howard and his mother Nettie Edna (Butler) (Howard) Stevens  lived in a house near the center of town.  The water in the house rose to about six feet, causing the occupants to flee.
 
Stevens and her son fled to a school located on higher ground, which was provided by the City Flood Commission for flood refugees...
 
At this school, a dietician named Maybell Galleeta (Mann) McGuire arranged cooking and sleeping facilities for the flood victims and for volunteer truck drivers who moved people out of their flooded homes.
 
Wilbert B. Howard volunteered to assist Mrs. McGuire by cooking and serving food to the school building.  Mrs. McGuire requested for Mr. Howard to borrow an automobile from a Mister "Bud" Salkheld to bring Mary Kathleen McGuire to help with the food preparations.  Kathleen and Bud were cousins but she told Mr. Howard they were brother and sister.  A romance blossomed Between Mr. Howard and Kathleen and they were married in the autumn of 1937. 
 
In 1940, Galeeta Ann Howard was born. The birth took place in a farm house near New Albany, Indiana, owned by grandparents Jess and Maybelle McGuire. Ann Howard grew up in New Albany, graduated from high school there and later graduated from College.