Howard Cole

Howard D. Cole, age 84 of Middleton passed away on Mar 18, 2018 at his home in Middleton WI. He was born on Dec. 6, 1933 in Topeka, KS, the son of Pearl and Howard Roger Cole. He married Ruth Lewis on Jan. 28, 1985 in Madison WI.

Howard graduated from University of Kansas in 1956 with a Bachelor of Science degree in business. He enlisted in the Army as a 2nd LT having completed Officer's Training in a 4-year ROTC program at KU. His active duty was in Ft. Bliss, TX as an Artillery Officer. Upon discharge from active duty he enrolled in Talbot Seminary in-order-to become an army chaplain. While he was in seminary he served with the California National Guard with an Infantry MOS. Brought in as a Liaison Officer he filled the informal role of chaplain for the unit. Once out of seminary and promoted to Captain with his chaplain credentials he sought a chaplain position. There were no openings. Howard committed to a 4-year pastoral position in a church in No. California. When the army came after him he was not free to accept a chaplain appointment. The window for chaplain openings closed when he was free to take one and he moved instead to another pastorate in central California. Altogether Howard served 11 years of active duty and national guard when he was honorably discharged from the Army. From there he was involved in several business enterprises in Southern California and Central California. And from there he moved across country to re-establish himself and start life anew after losing his first wife to cancer. Various roles in the Middleton Cross Plains School District included driving school bus and school maintenance. Once his son graduated high school he became a rep for products useful for farmers and golf course superintendents. It was his passion to introduce these products. Raising Brittany pups and training dogs and dog owners to hunt their dogs was another outlet for his passion to be a key resource. When he was pastor, when he was in business, when he was rep for a product, when he was selling dogs or training dog owners there was one common denominator. He was passionate about serving others. And he would go out of way to do this. Nothing gave him greater pleasure.

Howard is survived by his second wife Ruth Cole and their son Matt Cole and grandson Killian. From his first marriage he is survived by his son Brad and two granddaughters Amy and Megan and his daughter Suzanne Smith and two granddaughters Nicole and Brooke. He is further survived by six great grandchildren. Amy and Derek Brown's children: Colton, Easton and Eliana. Nicole and Aaron Wall's sons: Ashden and Anders, and Brooke and Matthew Lawler's sons: Fin and Kai. He was preceded in death by his first wife Lynne McMillan Cole.

A Visitation will take place from 4:00 pm until 6:00 pm on Thursday, March 22, 2018 at the Cress Center, 6021 University Ave., Madison, WI 53705. The funeral service will be held at 11:30 am on March 23, 2018 at First Presbyterian Church of Waunakee located at 5763 Co Rd Q, Waunakee, WI 53597. A visitation will be held from 11:00 am until the time of service at the church. Burial will follow at Middleton Junction Cemetery with full Military Honors.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made in Howard's name to Agrace HospiceCare, or the UW Carbon Cancer Center. Please share a memory.

"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also." John 14:1-3

PRAISE THE SAVIOR, you who know Him! Who can tell how much we love Him? Gladly let us render to Him all we are and have. Jesus is the name that charms us; He for conflict fits and arms us; Nothing moves, and nothing harms us while we trust in Him. Trust in Him ye saints forever; He is faithful changing never; Neither force nor guile can sever those He loves from Him. Keep us Lord, oh keep us cleaving to Thyself and still believing. Til the hour of our receiving promised joys with Thee. Then we shall be where we would be. Then we shall be what we should be; Things that are not now, nor could be soon shall be our own.
Ruth Cole
Receiving God's grace, Accepting His forgiveness

Howard Cole's Legacy

"You can take a boy out of the country, but you can never take the country out of a boy." That would certainly be true of Howard.

Howard was born to a mother and father whose parents lived through the great depression. This affected his mother deeply. She reported days when there was no food when she arrived home after walking 2.5 miles from practicing high school basketball. She tells of walking to her grandmother's house to fill her tummy before going home. She decided that she did not want her family to experience what she did. And she took pride in making sure that Howard was always the best dressed kid in school. Becoming a chicken sexer during World War II was how she provided for the family. As a result, she was one of only a few in the community who owned a car. And within a couple years with this income she was able to buy a house where the family moved when Howard was 10.

Howard's dad came from a more well to do family. His great grandmother Sarah Tyson Cole owned a coal mine. Story goes that this very small woman stood up to the miners who were disgruntled over low wages. She told them that if they were not satisfied with coal mining wages they could leave. A formative experience for Howard's dad came from breaking his back when he fell from a power pole working with Burlingame Power and Light. He was in a body cast for a year and could not work. After that he owned a Mobile Gas Station where Howard worked alongside him. He served as Mayor of Burlingame for more than one term. Prior to that he was city councilman. He was instrumental in expanding the generating capacity of the city twice as large as the city leaders thought was required. Today Burlingame provides power to surrounding farmland in peak seasons.

Howard's oldest uncle, Gordon, looked after him like a surrogate father. Gordon worked for the Santa Fe Railroad, providing summertime work for Howard while he was at the University of Kansas. Gordon was determined that his nephew go to university and would not let anything get in the way -- including a car that Howard wanted to stay out of school to buy. Gordon said that he would have him fired if he did not quit summer railroad work to go back to school. It turned out to be fortuitous for Howard since it was in KU his sophomore year that he met his first wife Lynne McMillan. They were married fall of his junior year. Had conjoined twins the following year who died at birth, the first of many heartbreaks. Gordon Bradley Cole was born his 5th and senior year at KU and his daughter Mary Suzanne was born the following year at Beaumont Army Hospital at Ft. Bliss, when Howard had graduated and moved on to his active duty assignment in El Paso, TX.

Praise the Savior, you who know Him! Who can tell how much we love Him?
Gladly let us render to Him All we are and have.

The University of Kansas (KU), a land grant university, required two years of ROTC of all male students. Howard chose to take ROTC for four years after which he was made 2nd Lieutenant upon enlisting active duty. Howard was part of an artillery unit for his first two years of enlistment. He became one of a few soldiers and officers to be selected for training in rocket science. He enjoys telling the story of working on computers when they were analog.

While Howard was serving at Ft. Bliss he became deeply involved in officer Bible studies. He was influenced by Officer's Christian Fellowship. It was his joy to be instrumental in inviting officers to join him in Bible study. This experience led him to pursue becoming a chaplain. He moved from El Paso to Southern California to study at Talbot Seminary. Enrolling in seminary to become a chaplain led to his becoming a pastor, first as an intern while in seminary. He did fill the role of Chaplain as a Liaison Officer for a national guard unit in Southern California. He could not officially be chaplain until he graduated seminary. He did officially become a chaplain after graduation and he was promoted to Captain.

At that time there were no chaplain positions open for him to take, so he became a pastor at an Evangelical Free Church in Loleta - back in the country. This took him into his element. Loleta was a country church in Northern, CA. It was a place where he could hunt and fish. He has many stories of doing this with parishioners. It was also a place where he could help in many ways including running a gas station for a parishioner while he was on vacation, driving a school bus, coaching basketball, being the go to person for anyone in need of a hand. Some favorite stories from hunting and fishing come from Loleta days. Picture Howard out with Candy, his Brittany bird dog, and you find a happy man. Howard loves telling about how Loleta was such a great place to raise his son Brad and daughter Suzanne. It was Brad that he coached in basketball. Away from the straight jacket of city life he felt a freedom that is palpable when he tells stories from that period.

Active duty chaplain was not to be since, when he was available the army no longer needed chaplains. So, after the four years in Loleta he went on to pastor a city church in Sacramento for seven years. After that he went back to seminary for a year to work on an advanced degree. While back in seminary he started a printing press to provide syllabi for professors at Talbot. He operated this press for a couple of years until his son's father in law invited him to open a paper distribution store in Fresno, CA. Having married off his son and daughter he moved to Fresno to do just that.

Jesus is the name that charms us; He for conflict fits and arms us;
Nothing moves, and nothing harms us while we trust in Him.

Fresno was where his life went upside down. He successfully established the paper distribution store. His great joy were his four granddaughters. Those were the ups. The downs were that his wife Lynne got brain cancer which was diagnosed not long after they moved to Fresno. She lived four years after her initial diagnosis working for three years as a Hospital Discharge Planner after recovering from her first surgery. But then she was fired because of her short-term memory loss. The hospital did not realize it was due to a recurrence of cancer. Meanwhile Howard's position was abruptly ripped from him when the man who hired him for the paper sales position was fired by the Chairman of the Board of the company and the next day Howard was fired as well. For a time, income was slim to none. Howard worked with an entrepreneurial golf course owner helping him establish a driving range and teaching golf lessons at the range. But this was not a pay position for the most part. Those were challenging years, culminating with Lynne's death. What does a country boy do when his heart is ripped apart?

Howard went back to Burlingame to get his bearings. He spent days following a Brittany hunting Kansas quail, back in the country. He talked with old friends. He prayed. He grieved. He returned to Fresno to determine how to go on with his life.

Not unlike prior direction changes his next move was prompted by a providential conversation he had in Kansas. One of the friends he saw was the widow of the best man in his first marriage. They had a son who was then working with the same company as a friend of the family whom he had known since he was in seminary. Or so he thought. He decided to find out whether the two knew each other. In characteristic fashion he decided to make an investigate phone call.

And that investigative phone call was the start of another chapter of his life which took him to Wisconsin. Long story short, Howard came to Wisconsin to marry Ruth Lewis. Providence enters the picture once again. They scheduled their wedding date to happen so that Ruth's parents could participate. And they were returning to Venezuela for a six-month stint to fill in for a missionary going on sabbatical. That meant they had to be married in February. When they went to Venezuela for a visit in August Ruth was pregnant with their son who would be born in January the following year.

When Howard got to Wisconsin he discovered he had roots here since his great grandfather Nathan Tindell was from Bee Town and his great grandmother Huldah Keirsey were from Mineral Pt, Wisconsin. In addition it turns out that Wisconsin farmland, while not entirely like Kansas prairie, was still good medicine for a country boy. He lived only five minutes from country and before long he began to feel at home.

Trust in Him ye saints forever; He is faithful, changing never;
Neither force nor guile can sever Those He loves from Him.

In Wisconsin Howard did many things. While his second son was in school Howard mostly worked for the Middleton Cross Plains school district. He drove a school bus, worked in maintenance among other things. His schedule was such that he was able to attend most of Matt's after school athletic events such as cross country, track, Karate, soccer. When Matt was in middle school Howard coached his Tri County basketball team. He also found his way to many musical performances that Matt was involved in starting in middle school with band, then chorus, then HS choir and many ensembles.

He had promised Matt, that he would have a dog - a Brittany -- when he moved from a condominium to a house with a yard. When that move happened he started with one dog, then two dogs, then pups -- lots of them. At one point there were 14 pups at one time in the house-- two litters of 7 pups each. Brittany pups led him to many acquaintances and fun times, including dog training and bird hunting. Hunting trips with Matt to Kansas, South Dakota and in Wisconsin became something he looked forward to.

Building golf clubs was another interest he had. Making chairs was another. All three of these endeavors were opportunities to do something that he could share with his son.

A joy came for him when he learned about a product that could be shared with farmers and with golf course superintendents, giving him the opportunity to be a key resource. It was a product that helped make water wetter and was useful to solve problems that come about when you have not enough water or too much water. He spent many days and hours learning how to present this and connecting with farmers and golf course superintendents. It was gratifying to see how they benefitted from using the product.

Howard was blessed with four granddaughters, Amy and Megan Cole, Nicole and Brooke Smith, and one grandson, Killian Alexander Cole. He was doubly blessed with six great grandsons, Colton and Easton Brown, Ashden and Anders Wall, Fin and Kai Lawler and one great granddaughter, Eliana Brown. Nothing brought a smile to his face more than these treasures.


His greatest pride came from his two sons. He used to say he had two fine sons, 30 years apart. The first son, Gordon Bradley, from his first marriage, and his second son, Matthew Lewis, from his second marriage. Both are family men who love their wives and their children and grandchildren. Both are successful in their professions. Both love the Lord. Brad's crowning professional achievement was being awarded CFO of the Bay Area for 2017 after being in executive management positions in Bay area biotech companies for over 30 years. Matt is a citizen soldier following his father's military footsteps. He enlisted as a PFC in the US Army. He is now serving in the Wisconsin National Guard as a military intelligence Staff Sergeant. In keeping with the business theme that runs through the Cole family he is a financial advisor.

Some of Howard's greatest challenges have been health issues, principally heart and colitis which later morphed into cancer. One autumn day in 2001 Howard was hunting and got stuck in a bog. At that point he was what one rescue officer called "strong as an ox." Over time the combination of heart issues and cancer zapped his strength. He looked forward to having a new body to serve people on the new heaven and new earth that God promised to make.

Keep us Lord, oh keep us cleaving To thyself and still believing,
Til the hour of our receiving promised joys with Thee.

What did Howard do? He did whatever came along that seemed useful. He did whatever he could do that would potentially help. He went out of his way to help people, no matter who they were. It made no difference. If he saw something that he thought he could do to help, he jumped at the chance.

He was direct, could be demanding, was generous, stubborn, funny, was not politically correct. He was a good man with a good heart. He took his cues from whatever presented itself. He was a country boy to the end. Howard was one of a kind. In keeping with Howard's terminology, he would be a hapax legomenon.

Then we shall we where we would be, Then we shall be what we should be;
Things that are not now, nor could be, Soon shall be our own.

Cress Center
6021 University Ave.
Madison, WI 53705
(608) 238-8406