Engineer Michael Howlett knew enough thought could solve most of life’s problems | Canada Voices

Michael Patrick Lewis Howlett: Engineer. Philanthropist. Father. Problem solver. Born July 29, 1932, in Montreal; died June 30, 2026, in Montreal; after a fall; aged 93.

When Michael Howlett was five years old, and his brother, John, was two, the boys were shuffled off to live in a small apartment on the other side of Montreal with their father’s unmarried sisters. His father felt ill-equipped to deal with two small boys after his wife died suddenly of peritonitis in 1937. Michael’s aunts were equally unprepared to raise young boys, but somehow they all muddled through.

Michael met Ellen Mary Routledge in high school. It was the 1940s and the Catholic school taught boys on one side of the building and girls on the other. Outside, a fence divided the playground, but somehow they still managed to find each other.

They married in 1956 after Michael returned from the University of Connecticut, engineering degree in hand. Ten months later, Susan arrived, followed by three more children over seven years: Brian, Anne-Marie and Debbie. The family eventually settled in a home on Montreal’s South Shore.

Michael loved to drive, especially the family’s annual 10-hour trip to the Cape May seashore. He was behind the wheel all night determined to get his family to the beach in time to watch the sunrise. Michael would offer to drive anyone, anywhere, any time. And when his children were old enough, he made sure they knew how to drive on ice and practise turning the steering wheel into a skid.

As a father, he was not a man of grand gestures or emotional speeches. He never raised his voice. Not when Susan came in late or Brian smashed up his car or even when Debbie got arrested.

In 1982, Anne-Marie was killed while crossing the street to her nursing college. It was a loss that could have broken her parents, but Michael and Ellen turned to love, faith and philanthropy to pull them through. They established a bursary at Montreal’s Dawson College in her name, which continues to this day.

Michael was an engineer by trade and in many ways, engineering reflected who he was: Problems were meant to be solved, things were meant to be fixed and nothing should be left worse than you found it.

His ingenuity knew no bounds. He knew how to make a toaster – and 10 other useful items – from a wire coat hanger. When Corky, the family cat, kept climbing the Christmas tree and knocking it over, he simply nailed the tree stand to the floor. He liked to warm up his side of the bed with a hair dryer in cold weather and when he needed new underwear, he traced an existing pair on a piece of craft paper and took it to the store, complete with a tape measure to find a new pair.

In his later years, Michael made sure donations to charities were considered monthly bills that had to be paid. He was generous with his time, too. Michael helped a newly widowed neighbour set mouse traps, and – as a eucharistic minister at St. Francis of Assisi Church – once delivered holy communion to a homebound parishioner. That he took the sacrament in a clean urine-sample container which he had on hand just seemed sensible.

Michael was always there for friends and neighbours but family was at the centre of his life. He took great pride in the people he loved and found joy in watching his family grow, succeed and occasionally make decisions he felt could have been improved upon. He never said a word, a look was enough.

Ellen died in 2019 and her death took a toll. Managing the large family home became too much and he moved into a seniors residence. From his balcony, he had a view of Montreal’s Champlain Bridge but by then he had lost his licence and wasn’t driving anywhere.

Michael wasn’t perfect. He couldn’t swim, he couldn’t speak French despite living in Quebec his entire life and he couldn’t sing or dance, even after enrolling in the Arthur Murray Dance School decades ago to try to impress Ellen.

Michael was a man who believed deeply that most problems could be solved with enough thought, persistence and, sometimes, a wire coat hanger.

Debbie Howlett is Michael Howlett’s daughter.

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