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Dr. Howard F. Rand, American Medical Missionary College faculty member, 1902.

Photo courtesy of Department of Archives and Special Collections, University Libraries, Loma Linda University.

Rand, Howard Frederick (1859–1937)

By Milton Hook

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Milton Hook, Ed.D. (Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, the United States). Hook retired in 1997 as a minister in the Greater Sydney Conference, Australia. An Australian by birth Hook has served the Church as a teacher at the elementary, academy and college levels, a missionary in Papua New Guinea, and as a local church pastor. In retirement he is a conjoint senior lecturer at Avondale College of Higher Education. He has authored Flames Over Battle Creek, Avondale: Experiment on the Dora, Desmond Ford: Reformist Theologian, Gospel Revivalist, the Seventh-day Adventist Heritage Series, and many magazine articles. He is married to Noeleen and has two sons and three grandchildren.

First Published: March 27, 2023

Howard F. Rand served as a physician and surgeon at Battle Creek Sanitarium, medical superintendent of the Boulder-Colorado Sanitarium and St Helena Sanitarium and as a physician at Glendale Sanitarium.

He was born at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, on October 24, 1859,1 to Howard and Mary Ann (Reynolds) Rand. His father was born in Nova Scotia and his mother was also Canadian. He was the eldest of seven children. His younger siblings were Silas (b. 1865), Amy (b. 1867), Mary Eliza (b. 1870), Eunice Gertrude (b. 1873), Thomas Henry (b. 1876) and Joseph William (b. 1876). The family moved from Massachusetts to farm at Warsaw, Minnesota. As a young man, Howard did farm work in Minnesota until 1884.2

Battle Creek Years

After becoming a Seventh-day Adventist in 1884, Rand enrolled at Battle Creek College, later trained as a nurse at Battle Creek Sanitarium, and began medical school in 1890. He worked as a cook and as a nurse to pay school and living expenses.3 He was one of several Adventist medical students who, by arrangement with the University of Michigan Medical School, took their first year of training at Battle Creek Sanitarium in 1890-1891, then went to the university in Ann Arbor for the remainder of their studies.4 After completing his degree in 1894, Rand joined the medical staff of Battle Creek Sanitarium, holding the position of assistant in surgery. He also served as professor of Surgical and Comparative Anatomy at the American Medical Missionary College.5

During these years he also did extensive work among the indigent and destitute in Chicago as part of the Chicago Medical Mission initiated in 1893 by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association.6 He also found time to pen many articles for health periodicals.7 On December 13, 1899, he married Dr. Jeannette (otherwise Nettie) Maud Brown (1870-1965) at Battle Creek.8

One of his colleagues later wrote:

One of my tenderest recollections is of Doctor Rand back in Battle Creek days when he would stand by Doctor J.H. Kellogg doing twenty to twenty-five operations one after the other, and then taking care of them personally himself through the long night without rest. In addition to this every poor Adventist in Battle Creek felt free to call Doctor Rand night or day and I never knew of his refusing a single call.9

Colorado and California Years

Dr. Rand was appointed superintendent of the Boulder-Colorado Sanitarium in October 1902 and remained there until April 1906. He then moved to California to serve as superintendent of St. Helena Sanitarium.10

In January 1912, Dr. Rand transferred to the Glendale Sanitarium, Los Angeles, as a consulting physician.11 His capacity for surgery was compromised at this time because of trembling hands.12 He remained at the sanitarium until December 1918, for part of the time as medical superintendent, and then engaged in private practice in the Glendale area.13 While in California he was ordained to gospel ministry and frequently occupied the pulpit at Los Angeles-area churches.14

Dr. Rand was returning home after seeing a patient on January 22, 1937, when he was struck down by an automobile and died at age 77.15 He was laid to rest in the nearby Forest Lawn Memorial Park.16 When Nettie passed away on October 5, 1965, aged 95, she was interred alongside Howard.17

Sources

“Faculty of the American Medical Missionary College.” Gospel of Health, June-July 1897.

“Howard Frederick Rand.” FamilySearch. Accessed January 26, 2023. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/M7SG-Q3Y.

“Howard Frederick Rand.” Find A Grave. Memorial ID 138007081, October 30, 2014. Accessed January 26, 2023. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/138007081/howard-frederick-rand.

“Jeannette (Brown) Rand.” Find A Grave. Memorial ID 138007083, October 30, 2014. Accessed January 26, 2023. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/138007083/jeannette-rand.

Rand, Howard F. “Foreign Bodies in the Ear and Nose.” Gospel of Health, September 1899.

Rand, Jeanette B. and Howard F. Sustentation Files, RG 33. General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, MD (GCA).

Russell, Riley. “Howard Frederick Rand obituary.” ARH, March 18, 1937.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbooks. General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Online Archives. https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks/Forms/Allitems.aspx.

Notes

  1. Riley Russell, “Howard Frederick Rand obituary,” ARH, March 18, 1937, 22.

  2. “Howard Frederick Rand,” FamilySearch, accessed January 26, 2023, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/M7SG-Q3Y.

  3. Howard Frederick Rand Sustentation Fund Application, December 1, 1936, Jeanette B. and Howard F. Rand Sustentation File, RG 33, Box 9768, GCA.

  4. Daniel and Lauretta Kress, Under the Guiding Hand: Life Experiences of the Doctors Kress (Jaspar, OR: Adventist Pioneer Library, 2018, 66-69.

  5. “Faculty of the American Medical Missionary College,” Gospel of Health, June-July 1897, 68.

  6. Russell, “Howard Frederick Rand obituary.”

  7. For example, Howard F. Rand, “Foreign Bodies in the Ear and Nose,” Gospel of Health, September 1899, 156.

  8. “Howard Frederick Rand,” FamilySearch.

  9. George Thomason to Brethren of the General Conference, December 10, 1936, Rand Sustentation File, GCA.

  10. Rand Sustentation Fund Application.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Jeannette Rand to whom it may concern, December 20, 1936, Rand Sustentation File, GCA.

  13. Rand Sustentation Fund Application; Russell, “Howard Frederick Rand obituary.”

  14. Russell, “Howard Frederick Rand obituary.” Rand is first identified an ordained minister in the Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook for 1913, Southern California Conference listings.

  15. Ibid.

  16. “Howard Frederick Rand,” Find A Grave, Memorial ID 138007081, October 30, 2014, accessed January 26, 2023, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/138007081/howard-frederick-rand.

  17. “Jeannette (Brown) Rand,” Find A Grave, Memorial ID 138007083, October 30, 2014, accessed January 26, 2023, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/138007083/jeanette-rand.

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Hook, Milton. "Rand, Howard Frederick (1859–1937)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. March 27, 2023. Accessed February 18, 2025. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=8A0G.

Hook, Milton. "Rand, Howard Frederick (1859–1937)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. March 27, 2023. Date of access February 18, 2025, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=8A0G.

Hook, Milton (2023, March 27). Rand, Howard Frederick (1859–1937). Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. Retrieved February 18, 2025, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=8A0G.