Margaret Metcalf Howie

1931 - 2021

Margaret Metcalf Howie

October 26, 2021

Born in Wauneta, NE in 1931, a great-granddaughter of Nebraska homesteaders. Margaret graduated from Wauneta High School in 1948, winning a Regents' Scholarship to the University of Nebraska. She received a B.A. degree with a dual major in Anthropology and English in 1952. She worked for the Missouri River Basin Survey after graduating, doing salvage archeology at dam sites in the Dakotas. When funding for the MRBS was cut in 1953, she went to the University of Denver where she received the M.A. degree in Library Science in 1954.

Margaret began working at the University of Denver Mary Reed Library, and then became a reference librarian in the Western History Department of the Denver Public Library where she worked from 1956 to 1959. She married John Howie in 1956; son Stephen was born in 1960. After an interval as a homemaker, Margaret resumed her career as a part-time cataloguer at the Hugh Stephens Library of Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, in 1969. She went full-time two years later, and became Head of Technical Services in 1977.

During the following years she supervised the transition from the traditional card catalog to an electronic cataloguing system, frequently visiting other libraries around the country to observe their systems and confer with their staffs. In the mid-1970s Margaret was active in labor organization among the Stephens faculty with the American Federation of Teachers.

John Howie died suddenly in 1990. Margaret retired in 1993. She continued to live in Columbia until she realized that "almost everyone I knew here had either moved away or died." In 2004 she moved back to Lincoln to be close to friends from college.Margaret enjoyed reading, genealogy, cats and chocolate.

Preceded in death by parents George Stephen Metcalf and Elizabeth Pepper Metcalf of Wauneta, and husband John Howie of Indianapolis. Survived by son Stephen Metcalf Howie of Lincoln, NE, and numerous cousins in various places.

Cremation; no visitation. Celebration of Life at a time to be determined.