William Ellis Howard
& wife
Fannie (Wahab) Howard

William Ellis Howard, son of Enoch Ellis Howard & Cordelia Williams, was born at Ocracoke on May 10, 1857 and died at Ocracoke on June 24, 1933 [see death certificate].  He married Fannie Wahab on Nov. 12, 1879 when Fannie was 16 and he was 22.  Fannie was the daughter of William H. Wahab & Malsey Gaskill.  She was born Feb. 12, 1863 at Ocracoke and died Dec. 19, 1940 at Ocracoke [see death certificate]. William & Fannie, along with several children who did not live to adulthood, are buried at Ocracoke in the Howard-Williams Cemetery.

A story extracted from Ocracoke Island Journal: An Occasional Journal of Daily Island Life published by Phillip Howard on Friday, March 25, 2011 states that William's father was the island lighthouse keeper. William died in 1933 and Fannie died seven years later. During that interval she kept her casket in the parlor, propped up on two straight-backed chairs.