He was 46 years old in 1971, when he penned some words about his present and the future, and how what had happened in the past was still affecting his outlook. Alton Hardy Howard declared that “Wonderful He Is to Me”, not just because he felt very fortunate to be in a home he loved in West Monroe, Louisiana (see the map, highlighting it in northern LA’s Ouachita Parish), but because an even grander one with his Creator awaited. Could Alton have known that time would come some three and a half decades later? He’d had a pretty eventful life, even at this point when he chose some words to express the reason for his delight. Had he been purposely spared in a conflict early in his life, allowing Alton to pursue so many beneficial ventures subsequently? Read some more about Alton Howard, and consider a life well-lived.
Alton Howard’s upbringing undoubtedly played a big role in his development and the trajectory of his life’s pursuits. Church-going parents who loved to sing communicated volumes to Alton and his brothers and sisters. Could Alton’s service in World War II (he was a gunner in a B-26 bomber, serving in the US Air Force in France and Germany) also have helped galvanize his life’s purpose following his return from the war? Certainly, something spurred Alton into multiple endeavors to serve those around him, both near and far. From a variety of business activities to the church and some related appendages, Alton was the model of a leader in the West Monroe community. He just never sat still, it seems, playing the part of entrepreneur in no less than a dozen business efforts from the mid-1940s onward. Besides editing and publishing three hymnbooks, which included the handful of songs he wrote, Alton authored three other books, including one (Money Grow$ on Tree$: How to Make, Manage, and Master Money) that underscored the success story that was his life. But, nothing probably brought Alton more satisfaction than the music, Christian youth camp, and international radio gospel program he helped to establish near the end of his life, all while serving as a shepherd in the church he served for over 40 years. It’s almost as if, in 1971, he was reflecting on how blessed he’d become over the previous 25 years, and was pondering how to keep the ball rolling for the next 35 years. It wasn’t a mystery to Alton Howard – it seems that not many things were a mystery to him – how to continue. It’s right in the words he wrote in 1971. The One above was the source of all things great and best in Howard’s life, both temporally and eternally.
Alton exuded all the was good and prototypical in the Christian life he led. And, he knew who was foundational in that life – the One who came ‘from portals of glory’ (v.1); the One who ‘leadeth’, ‘speaks’, and ‘lifted’ (v.2); and the One with whom Alton could envision walking forever (v.3). Alton knew ‘His riches and blessings’ (v.3) while on earth, but certainly expected them to be but a shadow of what was to come. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t limit his enterprising spirit to just one thing among all that he did. None of those things would last forever, Alton would have said, including his own flesh and blood. They were just special things to develop himself and those around him. All that Alton developed and helped make better was wonderful, you might say…’marvelous, wonderful, and glorious’ were not foreign to Alton. He just became really good at imitating the source of those adjectives.
See following links for information on the composer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Books
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_Hardy_Howard
See also “Our Garden of Song”, edited by Gene C. Finley, Howard Publishing Company, West Monroe, Louisiana, 1980.
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