‘He would light up a room.’

Howard Humphrey was the embodiment of the old cliché “larger than life.” A heavy-set, babyfaced jokester with a prodigious intellect and an unbridled zest for life, he was at center stage in Springfield’s business and civic communities for nearly four decades. In his spare time he traveled the world, read encyclopedias cover to cover and wrote spy stories and mystery novels.

Humphrey died July 20, 2009, at age 75.

He left behind a legacy that included a 37-year career with Springfield’s home-grown Franklin Life Insurance Company, beginning with a job in the supply room and finishing with him being president, CEO and chairman of the board. He retired in 1996.

“He could have made it as a stand-up comedian, he was that good,” says Jack Watson, who was a Franklin management trainee with Humphrey in the early 1960s. “We were both small-town boys. I was from Riverton and he was from Taylorville. We joined Franklin because its founder, Charles Becker, was recruiting young college graduates to learn the insurance business from the bottom up. Howard was perfect for the job. He was fun and funny but he had a tremendous work ethic and was a stickler for organization. There was seldom even a single sheet of paper lying on his desk. When he called a meeting it started on time and never lasted more than an hour. He’d lock the door so no one showed up late. And he kept his office at about 50 degrees summer and winter so you didn’t hang around and waste his time.”

Watson recalls watching Humphrey with Lynda, his wife for 53 years, beside him, greeting scores of Franklin employees from around the country. He says Humphrey remembered every agent’s name and insurance sales record.

“Lynda was great. She filled in the blanks,” says Watson. “She knew the names of agents’ kids and events happening in their lives. Lynda and Howard were a great match and she was there beside him every step of the way.”

“Nobody was better at the podium than Howard,” Watson recalls. “He would light up a room. People assumed it was all spontaneous. In fact, Howard was an excellent writer who researched and worked out everything he said — every joke he delivered — well in advance. He made it look simple because he was very, very smart.”

Frank “Beaver” Schwartz describes his relationship with Humphrey as “best friends for 53 years.” Nearly 40 years ago the two bought 100 acres of undeveloped land west of Springfield and built homes for their families on either side of a three-acre lake.

“We even dug and laid the sewer together — a mile and a half using a trench digger. We hit boulders as big as a room.”

The two families were inseparable, raising their children together and sharing grief when the Humphreys’ daughter, Lee, died of cancer in 1996.

Family vacations took the Humphreys and Schwartzes around the world.

“Howard would lay out the itinerary,” says Schwartz. “He’d give us a lecture on the country, the customs, the food — everything about where we were going day by day. One trip we went to 30 different cities in Europe. Traveling with Howard wasn’t a vacation, it was a journey. The ground rules were that we could each have one small bag and we had to be on time for everything.”

“Howard always had a goal. Even if it was finding the perfect veal Milanese in all of Europe. We both worked in insurance, but I can’t ever remember talking business with him. He had so many other interests.”

The pair shared a passion for their alma mater, the University of Illinois in Champaign. Working with a handful of other die-hard Illini fans, they reactivated the Springfield Illini Club and took contingents of fans from central Illinois to support U of I teams wherever and whenever they played.

“I remember Howard organizing a couple dozen of us to go see the Illini basketball team play in the Final Four in Seattle,” says Bob Cohen, a Springfield attorney and one of the group that helped reactivate the club.

Cohen had a friend in Seattle who offered to lead the Illini fans to his favorite local eatery in a location so off the beaten path that a caravan of cars was organized so no one would get lost.

“It was impossible to find the place,” recalls Cohen. “None of us had ever been to Seattle, and the restaurant was on the second floor of a strip mall that was almost impossible to get to.”

“We assembled our cars to follow my friend, but Howard didn’t show up. We finally arrived and there was Howard at a table waiting for us. He had simply listened to the friend describe the convoluted location and figured it out. I don’t know if I ever knew anyone with a mind as sharp as Howard’s.”

Escapades of the Springfield Illini Club’s road trips are the stuff of legends, but one story in particular has made the rounds for years.

In 1984 some 50 locals, led by Humphrey, traveled to California for the Fighting Illini’s appearance at the Rose Bowl.

“It was New Year’s Eve and we booked a small private party room at the very fancy Newport Beach Yacht Club near Los Angeles,” recalls Schwartz. “The club members arrived in limos for their party. Some of the women wore pink mink coats. Our Illini group was not all that dressed up, but it was fun to watch the yacht club members as we made our way to our little party room.”

Cohen picks up the story from there. “Somebody put on a record of the Illini fight song and Howard appeared wearing a full feather Indian head dress that reached to his knees.

Everybody began chanting and Howard did a war dance, spinning around faster and faster until he crashed, not just into the wall, but completely through it. You could actually see the band playing for the yacht club party through the hole in the wall. Howard got up to wild applause and pretty soon we were all part of the yacht club’s party.”

“Some of the California people said it was the best New Year’s Eve party they ever had,” says Schwartz.

Howard Humphrey died in his sleep in Florida, not long after receiving a new pacemaker after years of heart disease.

“He went to bed, fell asleep and that was it,” says Schwartz. “I miss him a lot. But we should all be so lucky.”

— Julie Cellini