Otelia Shields married biology professor Roscoe Conklin Howard in 1936. Otelia Shields Howard died in 1945, in Petersburg, from complications related to multiple sclerosis.Cause of death from her death certificate, Virginia Department of Health; Richmond, Virginia; Virginia Deaths, 1912-2014, via Ancestry. A special "In Memoriam" edition of the Virginia Statesman was published in her memory, in March 1846. Her prize was continued, just renamed the Shields Howard Memorial Award for Creative Literature. Howard Hall, a women's dormitory named for her at Virginia State University, was built in the 1960s and demolished in 2010.
