Obituary: In remembrance of Howell E. Leming
Prepared by the Leming family
Howell E. Leming, a 55-year resident of Stony Brook and one of the first graduate students at Stony Brook University, died May 28, at 90.
Leming was born in Chicago where his father was a doctor at Hines Veterans Hospital. He spent his early years in La Grange Park, Illinois before his family returned to his father’s home state of Arkansas. He graduated from Fayetteville High School in 1951 and from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1955 with a degree in chemistry. In college, he was a cadet in the Army ROTC Chemical Corps.
Leming attended graduate school in physics at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri then followed his adviser, Alexander Pond, to become one of the first graduate students at the State University of New York at Oyster Bay (now Planting Fields). When the Stony Brook campus opened in 1962, he was among its first graduate students during its early years of mud and scaffolding. Like many students, he rented an apartment in Port Jefferson. In 1969, he moved to Stony Brook where he lived for the rest of his life.
He worked for many years in the publishing and printing industries, first as an editor at Prentice Hall and Exxon’s publications division and then in sales for Mergenthaler Linotype Company and Hell Graphic Systems, a printing equipment firm owned by Siemens. His career spanned the transition from hot type letterpress mechanical typesetting to the desktop publishing revolution and the dawn of the internet age.
Leming was a true gentleman and a Renaissance man, educated in the sciences with a deep love for history and literature. He had a way with words both spoken and written and read widely—from Xenophon and Caesar to A.A. Milne and Chinua Achebe. He was a font of knowledge, a gentle man and a true gentleman. Ave atque vale.
He is survived by his children Mary Claire of Stony Brook and Nicholas Reynolds of the United Kingdom, as well as five grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wives Christine Reynolds and Beatrice Willard Leming.
After retirement, Leming spent many happy hours in local libraries. Donations in his memory may be made to the Port Jefferson Free Library, 100 Thompson St., Port Jefferson, NY 11777 (portjefflibrary.org) or the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library, 120 Main St., Setauket, NY 11733 (emmaclark.org).
A memorial service will be held Tuesday, Oct. 29, at 2 p.m. at St. James Episcopal Church, 490 North Country Road, St. James, 11780.
