Robert Monroe Howle was the second born son of Evander Griffin and Eula Boswell Howle.  His older brother was James Purvis Howle.  His younger brother and the baby in the family was William Clyde Howle. William Clyde was also the son that stormed the beaches of Normandy. His sisters were Sadie Margaret Howle, Ruby Carolyn Howle, Robbie Sales Howle, Miriam Frances Howle and Ora Lee Virginia Howle. They were all born in Byrdtown, South Carolina in the county of Darlington.  He married Nannie Louise Jeffords (Hobson) on              and had one son named Robert Louis Howle.  At first Monroe and Chink, as everyone called Louise, lived in a wood frame house built by Evander Howle for him and his new bride next to the old Howle family home in Byrdtown.  Monroe attended Clemson College and had already received his college ring and was in the middle of exams when he became ill with appendicitis and had to go to the hospital. I have that ring from Clemson College and still wear it from time to time.  He never finished his exams and due to the cost of the hospital, never completed his studies.  At some point, He moved Chink and Bobby to Orangeburg, SC where he had acquired a job working at Ethel Cooperation making chemicals.  He retired from there.  While working there, an accident occurred in which acid splashed into one of his eyes and he was blinded in that eye.  I have always known granddaddy with one eye open and one eye closed.
Granddaddy was a very gentle man.  He was even tempered and it took a great deal to make him angry despite the best efforts of Chink.  I also remember him walking to and from Ethel Co. which was about a mile down Cannon Bridge Road from his house. 
I used to love to go to Granddaddy’s when we lived in Orangeburg for his cooking.  I loved his hamburgers on which he used to put French’s Onion Bit Mustard.  He also made the best southern fried chicken.  I remember that he was also somewhat of an environmentalist.  He would always cut out both ends of the tin cans that veggies came in and then flatten the cans with the lids in the middle so that the would not take up so much room in the garbage.  He would also drain the oil he used to fry the chicken through strainers and reuse it several times before using a new batch.  I don’t know if he really did this for the benefit of the environment or if he did it to save money but I think the results were both.
Granddaddy had two heart attacks as I remember.  I remember the last one he had in Orangeburg was just before we were to go to Santee for a vacation. I believe this was when he retired from Ethel Corp.  But after he recuperated, he went right back to working in his garden.  I remember strangers stopping in front of his house and taking photographs of his yard or pulling into the driveway to ask him how he made this or that grow so well or what type of flower it was.  I remember his flocks and tiger lilies the most.
I also remember picking peaches every year from the peach tree he had in his back yard.  He also had several types of pear trees but my favorite was a small brown round pear he called an Asian pear. He also had a scouffanong grape vine in the yard and I couldn’t wait to eat them every summer.  And then in the Fall would come the pecans from his pecan trees.  He had one tree that had the paper shell pecans and another that had very small pecans.  We would gather them every fall and I would help them shell them.