Howard Musselman Memorial Scholarship

This scholarship was given in memory of Howard Musselman of Orrtanna, Pa. He was born on January 23, 1908 in Lancaster County. When he was a small boy he moved with his family to Orrtanna where he lived the rest of his life.

Howard attended Goshen College from 1925 to 1929. There were only 75 students at Goshen at the time so the students and professors were very close and fiercely loyal to the college. Being a biology major, he was especially close to Dr. S.W. Witmer. He was a man of many interests and dedicated to all of them; but he especially cared about the world around him. He loved bird-watching and identifying and photographing flowers.

Howard met his wife, Ruth Miller, at CC, and they married in June of 1930. They have three daughters, all graduates of Bluffton College. Ruth describes him as a caring, dedicated and supportive father and husband.

After college, Howard and Ruth moved back to Orrtanna where his father owned an orchard and canning factory. Working in the sales and shipping department, he pioneered a new shipping method, still in use today, to get the products to their destination on time. In 1948, they sold the processing business to a cooperative Lucky Leaf.

Howard was administrator of the Brook Lane psychiatric center, the first such Mennonite institution, from 1960-1963. He had served on the board for 10 years and was dedicated to this job as strongly as any of his other interests.

Howard was also very involved in the church and enjoyed genealogy. He wrote some articles for the Mennonite Historical Library in Lancaster about the beginnings of Mennonites in the area.

Howard was killed in an automobile accident in 1981. The Muscleman’s were returning home from Laurelville Camp in Pa., where they had been attending an annual reunion with a group of students they had gone to college with. Fifteen minutes after leaving the camp, two tractor-trailers struck their car and Howard was killed.

Always a strong proponent of the church and of education, his wife thought it appropriate to remember Howard by leaving funds in his name for a scholarship at Goshen, a college that had meant so much to him. She leaves the scholarship open to any recipient but prefers priority be given to a student of biology or church history, Howard’s two main interests when he was at Goshen.