1925-2019
Helen was born to Italian emigrant parents Antonio and Maria Polito 13 April 1925 in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents emigrated to this country in 1907 through Ellis Island. Her father having been an ardent opera fan in Reggio Calabria, took Helen to the Metropolitan Opera at every opportunity. With this exposure Helen became an enthusiastic fan all her life. Her home was filled with the sound of tenors and sopranos every Saturday during the Texaco Opera series. When Pavarotti hit high C not less than nine times in Donizetti’s “La Filli du Regmenti”, she was in her fifth element with joy and thrills.
In 1948 she traveled to Lawton, Oklahoma to be with her older sister whose soldier husband was killed in an auto accident. There she met her future husband, also a soldier and WWII veteran, Ernest Glenn Montgomery (Monty), a student at the Field Artillery School at Ft. Sill. They dated a few times before he was shipped to the 25th Division Artillery, 8th FA Battalion at Nara, Japan. In 1950, the Korean War started where Glenn was among the first to arrive in KOREA, July 5, 1950. They continued their letter correspondence and in one of her letters written in Italian was the phrase, “Io Ti Amo”. Sixteen months later they were married in Brooklyn lasting 68 years which included a 30-year military career, Vietnam and Alaska at Big Delta where propane fuel stops flowing at 62 below. Their life, as life is in the service, was filled with travel, many moves, sights to see, separations and an uncountable number of surprises and a few disappointments are the ordinary. Two children issued from this union, Robert Glenn Montgomery and Mary Ellen Montgomery, both of the Springs and one granddaughter, Meghan Colleen Montgomery at the University of Montana studying for her MASTERS.
When retirement arrived, they built the dream of their lives in the form of a log home on the banks of the Rio Grande River near Creede, Colorado, altitude 9200 feet where the Rainbow, Cutthroat and Browns swim freely hiding amongst the rocks and rapids defying the fisherman’s best. Helen quickly acquired fisherman’s itch and some skill to better the kings of the Rio. As time passed, she became very skilled and an enthusiastic participant and went after the kings with gusto. She was always terrified of high roads, trails and out of the way places. Glenn was reduced from adventurer to follower and finally to chauffer and trailblazer serving at her call to drive her to a new rumored promising fishing hole far, far away in a remote area of the Weminuche, a complete surprise and shock to her husband who, by the way, was delighted!
A visitation will be from 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. with funeral at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, April 29, 2019 at Shrine of Remembrance “America the Beautiful” Chapel, 1730 E. Fountain Blvd., Colorado Springs, CO 80910. Interment will follow at 12:00 p.m. at Pikes Peak National Cemetery, 10545 Drennan Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80925.