Lillian Montgomery Turns 90

My name is Chris Montgomery and I am writing about my mom who turned 90 last week. My mother is first gen- eration, born to parents who emigrated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 1920s. She grew up in Collinwood and moved to Lakewood with my father in 1963 and has lived at the same house ever since. She bore and raised six sons: Michael born 1955, Thom born 1956, me 1957, Robert 1960, Douglas born 1962 and baby Martin, born 1963, died 1964. She is a regular churchgoer of the Catholic church. On Saturday May 7th she turned 90 years old.

My father’s name was Eddie Gene Montgomery (dob 12/25/1930). He sadly passed in 2015. My mother met him after she graduated from high school in Collinwood, Ohio in 1948 and attended Cleveland State. He was from Texas and she was forming a country dance club and recruited him because he was the only person she knew from the South who knew square dancing. They fell in love and married in 1952 (IIRC) and eventually moved to Lakewood from Collinwood, buy- ing a home on Westlake Avenue where they raised all of us boys. She is the second child of three daughters and the only surviving daughter as my Aunt Ruthie passed away last month. She has been more than a mother, leading a women’s bowling league - which won a trophy - in the early 70’s, volunteering with my Dad at the

Lillian Montgomery and her husband Eddie Gene Montgomery.

Lakewood YMCA, teaching catechism for the St. James Catholic Church, and being a professional photographer for a local corporation that gave me my scholarship to Rice University, and finally being a longtime paralegal for a lawyer in Lakewood until she retired in the 80’s. She has spent sixty years as a member of our community.

Her life means the world to me, my brothers, and all those who know and love her. Her name is Arlene Lillian Montgomery, but we know her as Lillian.

Chris Montgomery was born and raised in Lakewood Ohio. He was an honor student at LHS and a gradu- ate of Rice University 1980 with a J.D. from CSU Marshall College of Law. He currently practices in Vermont.