He did it his way, and in so doing Pearson Howell was a paragon and shining example of Robert Butler’s idea of aging gracefully.
Robert Butler, who is commonly referred to as the father of gerontology passed away July 4 after battling leukemia.

Howell, the aforementioned “ideal” model, passed away some 17 months prior at the age of 82.

Butler would approve of Howell’s approach to aging because it was the antithesis of the way Butler described the process of growing older in his groundbreaking bestseller in 1976:  “Why Survive?  Being Old in America.” 

The book took a scathing look at how older people were treated with disrespect, often being placed in nursing facilities that were seriously lacking, when it came to qualified staff.   He was the first director of the National Institute on Aging and wrote scores of articles on the science and psychology of the process. He literally changed the way we respond, on a societal level, to those growing older.

Butler maintained that older people were more content, and thus more apt to live longer, when there time was structured and they engaged in meaningful activities.  Into his 80s, Howell exemplified this “way of being” by rising early in the morning, the same time every day, exercising regularly, and visiting his wife, Ruth, in the local nursing home. 
Even more remarkably, he maintained such a routine even though he was paralyzed from the knees down; he fell out of a tree at the age of 35.  The disciplines of a life well lived were never lost on him, however; he charted and stayed the course until the very end.

Dr. Butler credited his grandmother with instilling in him the idea that older people can live their lives courageously and with dignity, even in the midst of hardship.  He remembered that after being widowed during the Depression at the age of 60, she took a job as a seamstress in order to provide for herself and her young grandson.
Howell displayed similar fortitude.  His dedication to self discipline began at a young age.  As an adolescent, he ordered Charles Atlas magazines, studied weight training and faithfully lifted weights.  He was a runner long before the Cooper Institute touted aerobic exercise as an elixir of youth.
But, as often happens, life for Howell changed on a dime.  That was when the tree incident occurred; while building a tree house for his son, he plummeted down to the hard and unforgiving South Texas ground.

He became paralyzed from the waist down.  As part of his therapy and recovery, he relied on that self discipline he’d acquired through his physical fitness routine.  He continued to weight train, and he rode a bicycle 12 miles a day.

His day was methodically laid out: he got up at 5:30, and carried his rural mail route until noon. He came home and lifted weights for a couple of hours, to keep his upper body strong. Then, he would feed his livestock, and if need be, he vaccinated them, or, in particularly dry summer months, burned the thorns off of cactus so they could eat the pears and leaves without harming themselves.

After retiring from the Post Office at the age of 60, he devoted himself to his artwork, a talent he developed soon after his accident.  He kept himself busy, even when devastated over having to put his wife, who has Alzheimer’s, into a nursing home.
For aging baby boomers, Butler and Howell demonstrated how do to so with dignity and courage.  In this way, they both answered the “why survive” question with aplomb.