Dogged but civil, Houstoun made muckraking memories

Back in the days before texting, email and caller I.D. eliminated unexpected conversations, a telephone would ring loudly in the Daily Herald newsroom and some reporter would actually pick it up and say hello. Most of the time, it seemed, the caller on the other end was Houstoun Morgan Sadler of Rolling Meadows.

And Houstoun, his voice booming, would be excited.

Maybe he spotted weird bubbles in Salt Creek and suspected a local business or government department of illegal polluting. Maybe he had been to the public library and come across a book that everybody should read. Maybe he had gotten a piece of mail from a city department that he was certain infringed on the freedoms of residents. Maybe he had heard a fascinating interview on talk radio that gave him an idea. Maybe he had met somebody at a public hearing who seemed worthy of newspaper coverage. Maybe he had seen a wire story mix up rugby and cricket and thought we should know. Maybe a story in that day's newspaper had reminded him of a soccer game he once played in Calcutta, or taking the last ship safely through the Suez Canal during World War II, or a Thomas Jefferson quotation that Houstoun memorized during his days in the debate society at the University of Virginia.

“For many years, Houstoun was one of our regulars, and he was one of a kind,” remembers David Beery, our former opinion page editor and current director of communications for Maine Township High School District 207. “A lot of regulars focus on one subject: O'Hare or guns or some columnist they don't like. But with Houstoun, I never knew from one call to the next what the topic would be.”

Houstoun once left nine messages on my newsroom voice mail before noon, each of them suggesting a unique column idea. When I returned to my desk that afternoon and started plowing through the messages, the first phone call I got was from Houstoun, apologizing for being such a “pest.” There were times when I didn't answer the phone because I didn't want to spend the time needed to explain to Houstoun that I didn't have the time to hear his story. But I was glad he kept calling. Out of the dozens (maybe hundreds) of ideas Houstoun suggested during two decades, I wrote a few columns inspired by his suggestions. But a search for Houstoun's name in my columns since 1995 turns up nothing. He never wanted to be part of the story.

Born on Oct. 1, 1932, in Melbourne, Australia, where his father worked in the oil business, Houstoun later spent a bulk of his childhood living in India. One of the few times (other than letters to the editor) that Houstoun's name appeared in this newspaper was during the killer heat wave of 1995 when his background gave him the experience to expound on the virtues of a good pith helmet, bandanna and ceiling fan.

“I think about him sometimes and what a character he was,” says Gordon Walek, the former Daily Herald writer who wrote that heat story and had the patience and curiosity to appreciate phone calls from Houstoun. “I loved that relationship that he had with newspapers, that he treated it as a real community institution that he was a part of. I often wish more people had that attitude.”

People usually call a newspaper to “get something,” says Walek, now an editor with the Chicago office of Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a national charity that works to revitalize distressed neighborhoods. “Houstoun wasn't like that. He was just interested in things.”

Houstoun's bachelor's degree was in primary education, but he quickly turned to sales to help his wife, Ellen, a nurse, support their daughters Catherine and Helen, and son, Houstoun. During the recession of the 1970s, the father traveled in his RV to antique car shows around the nation, hawking an adhesive for aluminum.

“He was a teacher at heart,” remembers his son. “He just enjoyed telling the stories. His infectiousness of wanting to right wrongs, that's what drove him.”

Calling Houstoun “a kind of archetype in democracy,” Daily Herald opinion page editor Jim Slusher sums up Houstoun as “a person who just likes to shake things up.”

Houstoun, who went by “Howdy” as a lad and often by “Howie” as an adult, died in his sleep on April 28 at Rosewood Care Center in Inverness, where he lived after a stroke. He was 78. I knew him well enough to know that Houstoun probably would have had something interesting to say about this column.