Dated: June 16, 2015 

Dear friends:

Some have wondered—where have you lived? So I began to think about it and thought it might be an interesting tale to tell. If only I could remember it all.

My parents were living in Tupman or McKittrick, California when I was born. Neither place of these two oilfield addresses was very sizeable, and whether my folks had a house there or just where, I can’t remember them saying. But my father was an oilfield worker and if I got his impressions correct—he hated it. The result was that we moved from there to Star Route, Marlow, Oklahoma probably in 1931. I was born on Sep 3, 1930 and was very young, possibly one year old. I’m sure we got very little mail at the mailbox which was probably about ¾ mile from the dugout we called a home for about 9 or 10 years. Actually now that I think about it, there was another house involved, that was across a creek and near the well where we had to go to draw water and then carry it to the dugout (if the well there was not flowing). Remember these were the years of the Dust Bowl days and even water was scarce at times and once I can remember my dad having to climb down into the well and shovel dirt and mud into a 5-gallon bucket. My mother (and possibly with help from me and/or my older brother) would pull the bucket up with a rope and pulley. It was a backbreaking job but eventually the new water level was reached.

Other memories from that house. We had an underground storm cellar because of the frequent tornadoes. My father was deathly afraid of those storms and was keen of eye if the huge black clouds seemed too threatening. One night I can vividly remember when he routed all of us out of bed and outside through the howling wind (and perhaps rain) and into that cellar (which was probably about 30 feet from the house). We were underground only perhaps 6 feet because the roof was a huge mound of earth. That night he and my brother were holding onto the rope with all their might as the wind was trying to force the door open—and if that had happened we could have been sucked out and “up!”. We realized how fortunate we were when the storm was over and the next morning we discovered that our barn/shed was gone and a huge oak tree that had stood near the barn was completely uprooted. The house was spared but I can see even to this day the wisdom of underground storm shelters for the tornado belt!

My older brother, Maurice Lee and I attended a one-room schoolhouse taught by Mrs. Vandiver—all 8 grades were in that one room. I loved it and she was an excellent teacher. We had to walk to school through the woods and I believe that was about one mile. My older brother hated school and so there were many days we did not go. Later that school was consolidated with other schools and we had to walk to a different road and take a very long bus ride to Bray where the school was located. Again, our schooling was very, very limited.

So much for Star Route, Marlow, Oklahoma. In 1940 and toward the beginning of 1941 my parents saw the wisdom of going back to California where my dad could find some sort of work and we could go to school in a proper way. We left with a car and a small trailer hauling all the worldly goods we had but with growth in family members. Besides mom and dad we were Maurice (who was 5 years older than me), Weldon, Noble who was 2-l/2 years younger, then Burl, then Billy Joe and finally my only sister, Barbara Ann. Later in California we grew by two more when David and Gerald were added to the mix.

We landed near Bakersfield, California because my uncle Tommy and family were farming there. He had been able to rent a farm from Mr. Weber, an old German farmer who was getting too old to work the land anymore. That was 12 miles north and 7 miles west of Bakersfield. We lived just outside Smith’s Corner which was about 2 miles south of Shafter. It was one of the closest grocery stores other than a quick stop at the Mexican Colony where you could buy gasoline and/or candy, etc. Now our new address was: Route 1, Box 108, Shafter, California. We lived there from 1941 and I stayed there until 1952 when I left home to go fulltime pioneering in Bishop, California.

I was there a short time and must have had a post office box but perhaps only would have one piece of mail with that address. Let me see if I can find it. From there I moved to the Riverside, California area and lived there perhaps 5 or 6 months and got that letter forwarded from Bishop to Riverside. It was a letter from Brooklyn, New York, and it contained an invitation to come to work at the world headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses. And there I had a more settled address—for I got mail there for about 16 years.

The address was 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn 1, NY. Now the more permanent zip code is 11201.

So many memories of hard work, both in the Bethel work ethic and also in the Woodhaven Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses which was located in Queens, a borough of the big city. How I loved those years and the experiences that came to me from working to find people who wanted to understand the Bible and the purpose of life, to get to know God. Many chapters of a book could be written of the experiences during those 16 years.

In the spring of 1969 I came back to California to help my mom and dad get settled into a different environment from the one where they lived in Parker, Arizona. I had only visited them a couple of times there in their years on or near the Indian Reservation. It was obvious they needed some other place and my brother Burl had a mobile home that had been wrecked when it was being moved. He volunteered it for mom and dad if I would get it repaired, etc. So with the love and help of John Trammell, an older brother who had been so helpful when I was a boy growing up in Shafter, we commenced to work. We got it done in less than 2 months, I believe, and moved it to a new location: Ojai, California. My sister and I had scouted out a good spot for them in the midst of all the work on the mobile home. It was in a small trailer park in Meiners Oaks (one mile from Ojai city proper) and the park was owned by a wonderful sister, Wilma Perry, who lived in a house on the property. I am quite sure there were between 20 and 25 spaces in the park and dad and mom had a lovely spot back in a corner with big oak trees overhanging their home and a creek behind them (which had water only occasionally during the winter rainy season).

The address was 474 North Arnaz Drive, Meiners Oaks, California 93023. I actually lived with them in the small mobile home and slept on the living room floor for one month until I could get into a place of my own. That was just one block away in a mobile home that was owned by Harold and Addie Belle Dean and they rented it to me. I was in love with the Ojai area and for work thought I would see if it would be possible to make enough money to cover my living expenses washing windows—and it was. So I did that work for about 20 years in Ojai and in Ventura

Ventura? Yes, the Deans were assigned to the Ventura congregation and they said if you want to work with us you have to come to Ventura with us. And I did for one year driving back and forth and it was so wonderful. Coming into the Ojai Valley at night after the meeting you would smell the orange blossoms from the orchards along the road—and you would swear you were in perfume heaven. After that one year the Deans sold that mobile home and I found a little house (a wooden shack that had been constructed for workers who opened the Ventura oil fields for Shell Oil’s beginning). The shack was just what I wanted for the rent the first month was $35 and went up only a little. In fact when I finally moved in 1984 or ’85 the rent was only $135 a month.

The address where so much joy was gathered was 87 West Ramona Street, Ventura, California 93001. I lived there until the springtime of 1984.

Friends in Santa Barbara had been urging me for years to come live there and work at the University. John Avrea and I had become very good friends when he first came to our Kingdom Hall in Ventura shortly after he became a baptized brother, in the early 80’s. He moved to Santa Barbara and urged me to come and be his roommate for he had an extra room in a lovely condominium with Dr. Luc Fontaine, who was also new in the truth at that time. He worked at Marian Medical in Santa Maria and was home only for the weekends, if then. It just seemed a change of scenery would be wonderful and so I moved to a whole new world. The first month’s rent was $500 – quite a jump from $135.

The address was 519 West Pueblo Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93105, just about 3 blocks to the main entrance of Cottage Hospital, in a very lovely area. I lived there one year and Luc sold the house and John moved south to get himself married. From Pueblo Street I moved to

188 Harvard Lane, Santa Barbara, CA 93111 to a 3 bedroom house with a swimming pool. It was owned by Larry and Nancy Howze (cousins) and I lived there one year in the master suite. They would come over on rare occasions.

After one year they decided to sell the house and I moved now to 3730 State Street, Apt #10, on the second floor. That was a lovely hidden-away apartment house behind The Sandman Inn, a very large motel. It was as quiet as a church on Saturday night and one of the nicest experiences of my year there was a visit from Leif Crepaz, a young brother from Austria who came for 6 months. His parents had become very dear to me when they came to Gilead as young people—and they were assigned back to Austria. Leif was the first of their 4 children and he was a real asset to our congregation when here. But the apartment on State Street was increasing the rental rates regularly. I needed to find something more stable as to price for I had sold the window washing business and now worked part time in a bank just up the street about 2 long blocks. A brother called to tell me that across the street from them was a duplex that was going to be for rent—and if I would come over he would introduce me to the owner. That was one of the best moves I ever made. I went, the owner was happy to rent to me and we had some wonderful years there. He came once to tell me he would never raise my rent (and it was only $600 per month at that time.)

One time when my sister Barbara came to visit with her husband, Doug Judd, we approached Mr. and Mrs. Foster, the owners, and told them we would be interested in buying the property if they should ever desire to sell it. The wife, Doris, had multiple sclerosis and it progressively got worse and one day they came to tell me they were going to sell the house and move to Kansas (to be near her sister). He said he wanted me to have the house and no one would know anything about the sale for he was not going to advertise it in any way. It worked and we indeed did buy the duplex and I lived there until 2002.

The address of the duplex was 323 Rosario Drive, Santa Barbara, CA 93110 and I lived in the B portion. It was a lovely quiet duplex and I loved the little garden in the back yard. It was here that Bruce Holler came to live with me for 3 years when he was learning the truth. He fell in love with this area and is still in Ventura with his lovely wife and 2 children who are growing up. His experience of how we met each other (in the Santa Barbara Roasting Company) and the energy it took to help him prove the truth was what he had always been searching for was beautiful.

The responsibility of being a landlord seemed too heavy for me in due time. It was a time when the real estate market was going up and my sister, Barbara, and I decided to sell and I would look for a mobile home. It worked so well and the house sold quickly and I found a mobile home that was ideally suited to me. It takes only 3 minutes to go to the Kingdom Hall from my house. The new address for the next few years: 333 Old Mill Road, #259, Santa Barbara, CA 93110 for we purchased the mobile home on Sep 30, 2002.

And this is where the road has led me. Many people seem to move every year or two but I’m very pleased that my life has been quite ordered and especially now that I am elderly I have only a few things to fuss with. For the more permanent address when we will have a home in paradise---that will be a wonderful thing to write about – in the future. Thanks for sharing with me.

Your brother,

Weldon Howze
333 Old Mill Road #259
Santa Barbara, CA 93110-3595

Dated: June 16, 2015

Dated: January 9, 2015 

Weldon Howze finished what some called “a busy life” on December 11, 2015 in Santa Barbara, California. He was born on September 3, 1930, in Bakersfield, California but spent about 10 of his earliest years as a member of a growing family in Oklahoma as it endured the Dust Bowl years and the Great Depression. His father’s family were descendants of the Choctaw Tribe of Indians and when in Oklahoma they lived on land received from the US government for compensation to members of the Choctaw tribe who lived through what has been termed “The Trail of Tears.” In 1941 the family returned to Bakersfield, California where the father was a farmer but also he and the entire family became very active with the Christian group Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Weldon is survived by his brothers Noble, Burl, David and Gerald and his only sister Barbara Ann Judd. When he was 11 years old he and his father, his older brother (now deceased), his cousin and two aunts were baptized in an irrigation canal outside Bakersfield and shortly thereafter they were founding members of the first congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the little farm town, Shafter. That congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses continues to prosper 72 years later.

Weldon spent more than 15 years in Brooklyn, New York, at the international headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He had the joy of working with the Administration department but also helped with the actual binding of books and Bibles, an integral part of the disciple-making efforts the Witnesses pursue in over 230 lands and countries of the world. Some of his fondest memories was traveling to give Bible lectures in such delightful small places as Pennsburg, Pennsylvania and Quincy, Massachusetts, and possibly hundreds in Boston, Philadelphia and New York City, as well as at the larger conventions held each summer in such diverse places as Fort Worth, Texas, Providence, Rhode Island and Bakersfield, California. He loved to travel and was able to visit congregations and groups of Jehovah’s Witnesses and give lectures and illustrated talks in Venezuela, the Caribbean island of Dominica, Austria, Mexico and to many thousands on the west coast. One special illustrated talk used hundreds of slides and recorded music and was entitled “Youth—What is Your Future?” and was given to all Jehovah’s Witnesses in the states of Oregon, Washington and Utah at specially arranged venues. That same talk was first delivered in Los Angeles at the Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses and thereafter was shown in many other states by other speakers.

When he returned to his family in California in 1969 he settled with them in Ojai, California but was assigned to help a congregation in Ventura, California. His teaching and help with the Bible through personal studies helped many who today are a part of 6 different Ventura congregations in English and 4 in Spanish and 1 in American Sign Language. In 1984 he moved to Santa Barbara and continued the same outreach. He worked with 3 different congregations in Goleta and Santa Barbara. He always spoke of his greatest joys coming from the work he did at UCSB where the Witnesses are known for their public outreach to students and professors as well as the general public who visit the campus. To this time he kept in touch with some of those students who had graduated and moved on but were ones who received words of encouragement from Weldon through the phone, letters and e-mails.

His faith in the resurrection promises from the Bible were very alive, very bright. He died with a positive view of being reunited with all those many he encouraged and helped in some small way. It was said of him: He wanted to meet every one who passed by, to help them know Jehovah the Creator, and not a few he did.