Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, California, Friday February 8, 1991
SR woman dies in Mexico air crash
A Santa Rosa woman who makes an annual charity trek to Mexico is reported to have died Wednesday in a plane crash in mountains south of Guadalajara. Joyce Howard, who with her husband, Clayton, live in actor Harry Morgan’s home above Rincon Valley, was killed along with four other people, according to family friends. Friends said she died when their light plane crashed while making medical stops to villages in the area of Lake Chapala. There was only one seat left on the mercy aircraft, so Mrs. Howard took it. She left her husband behind.
Clayton Howard, a retired sales manager for National Controls, reported his wife’s apparent death in a telephone conversation to friend Jean Schulz in Santa Rosa.
The propeller-driven plane crashed close to Jocotic, a village near the border with Jalisco state, state Attorney General Pedro de Leon Sanchez told reporters. De Leon said investigators on the scene believe the plane had run out of fuel or developed mechanical trouble.
Cmdr. Manuel Rodriguez, a duty officer at the Zacatecas state judicial police, said the other victims were tentatively identified as Conroy Frederick Donesky, around 52, no hometown; Alfred C. Moody, around 65, of Neblack, Texas; John Henry Gunn, no age or hometown and John Heary, around 30, a medical surgeon from Fort Worth, Texas.
Howard was reported to be working with the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara to arrange for the return of his wife’s body. Efforts to reach Howard were unsuccessful Thursday.
According to Schulz, the Howards have traveled to Mexico for about the past five years, mixing vacation with volunteer charity work including distribution of clothing Mrs. Howard gathered or made herself over the course of the year. The couple drove down to Lake Chapala, Schulz said, and this year planned to help a medical relief program.
Schulz said Mrs. Howard was invited to accompany a medical team that each Wednesday hop scotches from village to village in the mountains surrounding the lake. She speculated Mrs. Howard wanted to make the flight so she could deliver clothing to the mountain villages. Howard who is a pilot, said he put his wife on the aircraft and watched it take off in good weather.
Schulz said the Howards have lived in Santa Rosa for about 12 years. Howard is a college friend of Harry Morgan and he and his wife have lived in Morgan’s upper Rincon Valley home for the past several years.
Mrs. Howard was active in Sonoma County charity events and operated her own cottage industry painting coffee mugs and making clothing. She also volunteered at Charles Schulz Redwood Empire Ice Arena.
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Obituary - Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, California, Tuesday, February 12, 1991
Joyce Howard – Services are scheduled at 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Burbank, California for Joyce Howard, the Santa Rosa woman who was killed in a plane crash in Mexico last week.
Howard, 50, was traveling with her husband, Clayton Howard, when she joined a trip by a flying medical service out of Guadalajara on Wednesday. The small aircraft, carrying five passengers, crashed into a mountain. There were no survivors.
She was a native of Rochester, New York, and moved to Burbank as an infant with her family. She and her husband lived in Rincon Valley. She worked for Charles M. Schulz Studios in Santa Rosa.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by her parents, John and Mary Trainor; a son, Louis Franco; a daughter, Tamara Quist; a brother, Robert Trainor; a sister Joanne Jansa; and one grandchild, all of the Los Angeles area.
The rosary will be recited today at 7 p.m. at Valley Funeral Home in Burbank. Burial will be at Forest Lawn in Hollywood Hills. A special celebration is pending at the Redwood Ice Arena in Santa Rosa, where a memorial bench will bench will be installed in the garden of the complex. Howard was a volunteer and staff member at the Ice Arena.
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