Mary Montgomery, a resident of Pacific Palisades and parishioner at St. Matthews since 1974, passed away at home on September 10 of natural causes. She was 93.
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia on August 18, 1920, Mary was the daughter of John and May Boyd. As one of four girls and one boy, she was a precocious child, teaching herself to drive her father’s Packard at age 11. At age 15, while touring Europe as part of a school group, she witnessed the Nazi German reoccupation of the Ruhr and upon returning home, warned her father of the coming war.
Following graduation from Crofton House in Vancouver, Mary attended the University of British Columbia (UBC) for two years and was elected president of her sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta. During a college anthropology project, she recorded oral histories of the century-old First Nation’s tribal members, asking the question: What was it like before the white man came? These histories are still cited as source documents to this day.
Mary’s university studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II and she volunteered to serve as a WREN in the Royal Canadian Navy. She trained herself to recognize the “fist,” the unique character of every Morse code signaler. She would then listen for German submarines to report in at night and identify this unique signal of each boat. Knowing what ship, coupled with the directional finding of the source signal, provided invaluable information on the location of submarine wolf packs, enabling convoys to be rerouted. Many decades later, Mary would proudly show her medals for her contribution to the Battle of the Atlantic to her grandchildren.
In 1944, she married the love of her life, Richard Alan (Dick) Montgomery, whom she had met at UBC, and they spent 68 years together until his death in 2012. He served as a radar officer on convoy duty and with Mary’s help, never lost a ship to a German submarine. The end of the war, and an offer for Dick to enroll in a Ph.D. program at Caltech, led to a fast discharge and a move to Pasadena. To support her husband, Mary worked as a sales clerk at I. Magnin at the Huntington Hotel, which led to her lifelong love of fine clothes.
After Dick completed his Ph.D., his first job was in Key West, Florida, where their first son was born in 1949. In 1952, they returned to the Northwest and lived in Bellevue, Washington. Five more sons followed, dashing Mary’s dream of one son and one daughter. After her sixth, she stopped believing her physician that there is a 50/50 chance of a girl.
With her six boys, and a husband who worked for Boeing and traveled extensively in the era before this was common, Mary used her military training to run a tight ship at home. She made sure that her six sons were doing their homework and chores. Ultimately, they received a combined total of 42 years of college and graduate school, and gave her the pleasure of attending graduation ceremonies at Cambridge University, Dartmouth, Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, UC San Diego and the University of Washington (five times). Her sons, who have enjoyed remarkable careers, credit her firm discipline in their childhood as a key factor in their success.
Mary was much more than a mother. Her generosity and commitment to helping others started at the age of 12, when one of her classmates lost both of her parents to tuberculosis. Mary brought her home from school and announced that there was a new member in the family, of which she remains a member to this day. Mary was also very involved in raising money for Children’s Hospital in Seattle, ran a guild to raise funds to build the National Cathedral and provided meals to the homeless for over 40 years both in Seattle and Santa Monica.
In 1974, Dick and Mary moved to Pacific Palisades and joined St Matthew’s Parish. She became very active in the Palisades Woman’s Club, the Assistance League of Santa Monica and the Altar Guild at St. Matthew’s, and she volunteered at the St. Matthew’s and Assistance League thrift shops.
Mary enjoyed gardening, fishing, bridge and golf. She celebrated her 70th birthday by catching a 50-pound salmon and scoring her first hole-in-one at her beloved summer home on Whidbey Island.
Mary is survived by her six sons, Boyd, George, Bruce, Michael, Robert and James and their spouses, Patricia, Heidi, Joanne, Nicole, Elaine and Annabel; 16 grandchildren: Chris, Andrew, Will, Lauren, Elle, Erin, John, George, Colyn, Michael, Jack, Sarah, Ian, Charles, Skye and Lachlan; and two great-grandchildren, Sydney and Madelynn.
A memorial service will be held at on Saturday, October 12, at 11 a.m. at St. Matthew’s Parish. To remember Mary, family and friends will further endow the Richard and Mary Montgomery Scholarship Fund at St. Matthew’s. This fund was established in their memory to assure the college education of the children of the Parish staff and already provides for five annual scholarships.
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