Sue Crizer Howard

Sue Crizer Howard was born as the fourth of five children on January 6, 1923 to Hampton and Jenny Crizer in the Southwest Virginia coal hamlet of Appalachia. She enjoyed an idyllic childhood in much the same manner as Scout and Jem Finch of “To Kill A Mockingbird” in Maycomb, Alabama in the mid-1930s. Her strong moral compass was initiated and developed by that small town ethic of a close-knit communal matrix in which everyone was a cherished neighbor, symbiotic in its ebb and flow during the height of the Appalachian coal boom inculcated by the love, compassion, and responsibility fostered during her formative years through the next-door Baptist church her mother taught in for over sixty years. She graduated salutatorian of her high school class before attending the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where she was a member of Phi Mu Sorority and from which she graduated in 1945, often later commenting how strange it was to be on a major college campus where there were very few male students due to their involvement in the World War II effort. After graduation, she taught school in Charleston, SC before wedding G. Turner Howard Jr., a prominent Knoxville surgeon with whom she celebrated sixty years of marriage before his death in 2005 at age ninety-two. Her contributions to her family and community are too numerous to mention here, but her emphasis was always family first. She cultivated a host of lifelong friends through her love of golf, bridge games, bowling, serving as a hospital volunteer and teaching Sunday School at Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church, which her husband and she helped charter in 1947. She was an avid Atlanta Braves and UT Vols fan, especially passionate over legendary coach Pat Summit’s Lady Vols teams. Her hobbies also included an array of eclectic reading and working crossword puzzles. She lamented from time to time the most difficult aspect of growing older being that of loneliness from the death of most of her contemporaries. Three days before her peaceful passing at age ninety-nine on June 9, 2022, her children visited her to express their admiration, respect and appreciation for her contributions to them as their mother and to her “greatest generation” so poignantly displayed across Normandy’s beaches seventy-eight years ago on D-Day. She was preceded in death by her husband in 2005 and son Robert in 2009. She is survived by G .Turner Howard III and wife, Janie Stethen Howard ( grandchildren Hannah and husband Josh, Jennifer and husband Townsend, Rebecca and husband Colter), Brit ( grandchildren Madison, Allison), Angela (grandchildren Wilden and wife Leighton, Scott), great-grandchildren Henry, Evelyn, Townsend Jr., Howard, and Lennon. A private graveside service for the immediate family will be held at Highland Memorial Cemetery at 11 AM on Saturday, June 18, 2022 with receiving of friends at 2 PM in Barron Hall at Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church on Sunday, June 19, 2022 with the Funeral Service to follow in the main sanctuary at 3 PM, Drs. G. Turner Howard III and Jay Howell presiding. Mrs. Howard lies in state at Rose Funeral - Mann at 6200 Kingston Pike, Knoxville. The family requests that in lieu of flowers donations be made to the Women’s Fund of East Tennessee through WFET.org.

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Sue Crizer Howard

January 6, 1923 - June 9, 2022