Emma B. Howe was the sixth of thirteen children. She grew up in a log cabin, on a twenty-acre farm in Wisconsin that barely supported her family. In 1915, she hired on as a proofreader for W.R. Hotchkiss, founder of Deluxe Check Printers in the Twin Cities, and worked there for twenty-three years. Deluxe became a Fortune 500 company, and Emma became its largest individual shareholder.

 

When she died in 1984 in a nursing home, few suspected that she left an estate of $22 million. She directed that, upon her death, the company stock be used to create a foundation "to aid children, the poor and the handicapped and to support medical research, health services, education, and civic improvements." The Emma B. Howe Memorial Foundation was established in 1985 as a supporting organization of The Minneapolis Foundation.