In 1976 Professor Howard Eves retired from the University of Maine at Orono after a long and distinguished career as a teacher, geometer, writer, editor, and historian of mathematics. Since then he and his wife have divided their time between Lubec, Maine and Oviedo, Florida, with the choice appropriate to the season. From 1986 to 1991 he taught at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Howard Whitley Eves was born in Paterson, New Jersey on January 10, 1911, one of identical twin brothers. Following graduation from high school in Paterson he attended the University of Virginia, graduating with a BS in mathematics in 1934. After two years at Harvard, at which he earned a master's in mathematics, he moved to Princeton where, after a year, his studies were interrupted by the death of his father and the problems created by the Depression. He worked as a land surveyor in New Jersey, taught for a year at Bethany College in West Virginia and served as a mathematician for the Tennessee Valley Authority from 1937 to 1942.

After short stays at Syracuse University and the College of Puget Sound, he became an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Oregon State College (now University), where he received a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1948. After further appointments at Champlain College and Harpur College he moved to the University of Maine in 1954. He has lectured in every state of the Union but one—Alaska—and has been active in various mathematical organizations.