Howard D. Rawlings, a Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund claims supervisor, died of cancer Friday at Stella Maris Hospice at Mercy Medical Center. The Harlem Park resident was 67.
Born in Baltimore and raised on Arlington Avenue near Lafayette Square, he was a 1954 graduate of Douglass High School, where he played basketball. After serving two years in the Army, he earned a political science degree from what is now Morgan State University. He did graduate studies in urban planning at Morgan.
Mr. Rawlings was a window clerk at the old downtown post office at Calvert and Fayette streets, and later had a delivery route. He briefly taught adult education courses for the city school system before becoming an American Roads Insurance Co. claims adjuster.
He joined the state insurance agency in 1973 and was a claims supervisor at its Woodlawn office at the time of his death.
Services will be held at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow at Metropolitan United Methodist Church, 1121 W. Lanvale St., where Mr. Rawlings was a member and sang in the men's choir. For many years, he ran the church's annual crab feast.
Survivors include his wife of nearly 43 years, the former Dorothea Arvin Simmons, a city school teacher; a son, Mark D. Rawlings of Elkridge; a daughter, Arvin Rawlings Lyons of Baltimore; two brothers, William M. Rawlings and John Edward Rawlings, and three sisters, Melba Logan, Irma Givens and Merriel Rawlings, all of Baltimore; and five grandchildren.