If you want to know what kind of community Howell is – and what kind of community Howell has always been – here’s the story of Willie Wright.
Old-timers in Howell remember Willie Wright, and they smile every time his name comes up. I never had the pleasure of meeting him (he passed away about a decade before I got here), but when I hear the stories about Willie, they make me smile, too.
Willie was a Black man who was born in New Orleans in 1876, just 11 years after the end of the Civil War. He bounced around the South as a young man, but in 1904, at the age of 28, he came to Michigan and landed in Howell. There were only a handful of other Black people living in Howell back then – same as now – but Willie knew right away that this was home. He went away to serve his country in the U.S. Army during World War I, and then returned to Howell to stay.
Willie came to love Howell and Howell came to love Willie.
He didn’t have any formal training in much of anything, but he was a good handyman and a window-washer. That’s how he was known to everyone in Howell – as the town’s friendly window-washer.
As near as I can tell from researching his story, he was pretty much the Official Window-Washer of Howell from about the 1920s through the 1960s. He washed the windows of every business along Grand River Avenue and at many of the homes in Howell, too.
All the little kids in town adored Willie, and he loved them, too. He always carried a pocketful of pennies, and every time a kid came up and said hi, Willie would give the kid a penny.
He had a pretty active personal life, as well. I don’t know the dates, but he married and outlived five wives in his lifetime. Their names were Hattie, Turita, Rosie, Betsey and Lula. Two of them are buried in Howell.
And if you’re from Howell, like I am, here’s the part of the story that should really warm your heart. Here’s the part of the story where Howell’s true community spirit came out.
In 1969, when he was a 93-year-old widower, Willie mentioned to some friends in Howell that in all his 93 years, he had never had a birthday party.
So what did Howell do? Howell threw him a birthday party. About the biggest damn birthday party this town has ever seen.
The party took place in June of 1969 at the Howell Elks Club, and nearly 150 friends turned out for it. Tickets were $10 apiece, and the bash featured a host of testimonials from every bigwig in town.
State Rep. Thomas Sharpe was among the friends in attendance, and congratulatory telegrams were read from U.S. Sen. Philip Hart and former Gov. G. Mennen Williams.
The party featured a bunch of speeches, and the last one to speak was Willie Wright himself.
He talked about his No. 1 philosophy in life: “Always tell the truth. It is so much easier tomorrow.”
He talked about what it felt like to be 93 years old. “I’m 93 because God wants me to be 93. If the Lord had not wanted me to live this long, I wouldn’t have.”
And he closed his speech by telling the crowd that the best decision he ever made in his life was moving to Howell, Michigan.
“The key to my whole life was moving to this place,” he said.
One of his good friends in Howell was Duane Zemper, the beloved World War II veteran who was the greatest photographer Livingston County has ever known.
In 1966, Zemp took a portrait of Willie that graced the cover of a magazine and took first place in the Professional Photographers of America contest, besting 17,000 other entries. Zemp always said it was one of his favorite photos he’d ever taken.
Two years after his birthday party, in December of 1971, Willie passed away at the age of 96. (Although some records indicate he might have actually been 89.) His funeral took place in front of a packed house at First United Methodist Church in Howell, with the Rev. Allan Gray presiding.
His pallbearers included some of the most notable men in Livingston County, including Jack Shinn, Mike Hagman, Francis Barron, Dale Harter, William Brigham and John Brennan. He was buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Howell.
Willie Wright’s story echoes the story of another Black man who came to Howell and fell in love with the community.
Abraham Losford – known here as Old Uncle Abe – was an escaped slave who came to Howell in 1854 and became the town’s beloved barber.
When he first came to Howell, though, there was a wretched law in place called the Fugitive Slave Law that dictated any escaped slave found in the North had to be returned to the South. Old Uncle Abe was worried that if anyone found out about him here, he’d be in trouble.
According to Abe’s 1897 obituary in the newspaper, this is what happened next: “On the passage of the Fugitive Slave law, Losford feared it would be necessary for him to again go to Canada, but on being assured that the people of Howell would do nothing to enforce the law, he remained here.”
So Howell was the first sanctuary city. Who knew?
Seven years after Abe Losford passed away, another Black man, Willie Wright, came to town. And he had damn near the same experience: Howell is a place that judges a man by the content of his character. And nothing else.
So if you live in Howell, like I do, and you want to know what kind of community this is and has always been, there you go.
It’s a community that came together and threw a birthday party for a 93-year-old man who’d never had a birthday party in his life. Sounds like a pretty damn fine place to me.
