Howard F. Nicholson

NICHOLSON, WALKER, FLEMING, DONOHUE

Posted By: Tara (email)
Date: 6/19/2009 at 15:09:35

Howard F. Nicholson, 54, of Iowa City, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at UIHC, after an amazing fight with colon cancer.
Howard was born on June 13th, 1953 in Sulphur Springs, TX, the son of James B. and Alice Walker Nicholson. Howard was a graduate of The University of Iowa in 1975. On October 6th, 1984, Howard worked in the UI College of Medicine's Department of Occupational and Environmental Health starting in 1988 as a research assistant, doing field work for the Iowa State-Wide Rural Well-Water Survey. That study has been of international importance in documenting private rural well water contamination by farm chemicals and has helped raise awareness of this important issue.
He was a valuable research assistant because of his attention to detail and more importantly, his ability to connect easily with people of all walks of life, in that study and several other occupational health studies that followed in the Department and then in the UI College of Public Health.
In the 1990s, he was a research assistant in several studies of pesticide and paint exposures, and an international student-faculty exchange and training program which has trained dozens of environmental health specialists from Eastern Europe.
In the past seven years, Howard was project coordinator for two studies addressing occupational exposures at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant (IAAAP) outside of Burlington, Iowa: the Burlington Atomic Energy Commission Plant - Former Worker Program, and the IAAAP Munitions Workers Study.
As coordinator, he was the primary go-between between the research staff and the funding agencies at the US Departments of Energy and Defense.
He also was a self-taught computer guru but the role he most embraced was that of engaging IAAAP workers, former workers, and their surviving family members in assisting them with filing claims for compensable work-related illnesses, collecting their stories to recreate the history of events and changes that occurred over 50 years at that plant, and encouraging them to participate in studies of occupational health exposures.
He met and knew literally hundreds of workers and their families in the Burlington area, and either adopted them or was adopted by them as family.
He took this work and these people to heart and devoted himself to helping achieve justice and peace of mind to hundreds of families. Howard was committed to making the world a better place and lived his life accordingly.
To Howard, his family was the most important part of his life.
Howard is survived by his wife Beth, his two daughters Morgan and Emma and one son Adam, all of Iowa City, his father James B. of Washington, IA, one brother Jimmy (Pat) of Slidell, LA, one sister Teresa (David) Fleming of North English, IA and a loving dog Sadie. Howard was preceded in death by his mother Alice and his father-in-law Francis Donohue.
The Nicholson family would like to say a special thanks to Dr. Dan Berg, Paula McCue, Dr. Frederick Johlin and Mary Panther for their care and support through the last 5 years.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to the Nicholson Children’s Education Fund or to Colon Cancer Research at The Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center in care of The University of Iowa Foundation.