Helen Day Montanari
Helen Day Montanari | |
|---|---|
| Born | Helen Ranney Day February 17, 1881 Roxbury, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | 1955 (aged 72–73) |
Helen Day Montanari (February 17, 1881 – 1955) was an American educator and philanthropist. The Helen Day Memorial Library and Art Center in Stowe, Vermont, is now named for her.
Early life
[edit]Helen Ranney Day was born in 1881 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, to Frank Ashley Day, a Boston banker,[1] and May Emma Ranney.[2] Her mother died when Helen was around eight years old,[2] and his father remarried, to Mary Almeda Ellison.
Career
[edit]In the 1940s, Montanari and her partner, Dr. Marguerite Lichtenthaeler (1887–1974), ran an "Aryans-only" inn, the Attic & Barn, in Stowe. For nearly two decades, brochures offering lodging options for visitors to Stowe included those which excluded people of Jewish faith.[3][4][5]
Montanari and Lichtenthaeler, who shared intellectual interests, loved to travel, and shared a concern for the quality of life in Stowe, left a $40,000 trust to establish an art center and a library in the town. The Helen Day Memorial Library was founded in 1981,[6] in a building formerly used as Stowe Village School from 1863.[7] Years later, there was a successful campaign to raise the remainder of the money that was needed for the Stowe Free Library and the Helen Day Art Center.[8][9]
Personal life
[edit]Day married Carlo Montanari, a Harvard graduate and member of the Italian Army,[2] on April 20, 1904, the ceremony taking place in Eliot Congregational Church in Eliot, Maine,[1] although another source states it took place in Newton, Massachusetts.[10] They had two children: a son and another Harvard graduate, Franco Vittorio,[11][12] and daughter, Emma Maria.[2]
In 1938, Montanari was a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club in Boston.[13]
Montanari died in 1955, aged 72 or 73.[14]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Home Journal. 1904. p. 4.
- ^ a b c d Adams, Charles Collard (1908). Middletown Upper Houses: A History of the North Society of Middletown, Connecticut, from 1650 to 1800, with Genealogical and Biographical Chapters on Early Families and a Full Genealogy of the Ranney Family. Grafton Press. p. 360. ISBN 978-0-598-99434-9.
- ^ Writer, Andrew Martin | Staff (2021-02-11). "Was Helen Day Montanari a sign of her time, or something more?". Vermont Community Newspaper Group. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
- ^ Letorney, Adriana Teresa (2020-12-14). "A Vermont Town Reckons with its past". The Click. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
- ^ Hallenbeck, Brent. "Founders' 'anti-Semitic and racist beliefs' spur name change for Stowe art center". Burlington Free Press. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
- ^ "September/October 2014 - How Stowe's Women Saved The Helen Day Art Center by Cynthia Close". www.vermontwoman.com. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
- ^ Danilov, Victor J. (2005). Women and Museums: A Comprehensive Guide. Rowman Altamira. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-7591-0855-4.
- ^ Cynthia Close. "How Stowe's Women Saved The Helen Day Art Center". Vermont Woman. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
- ^ photo, Courtesy (2021-02-11). "Dr. Marguerite Lichtenthaeler and Helen Day Montanari". Vermont Community Newspaper Group. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
- ^ Thayer, William Roscoe (1904). The Harvard Graduates' Magazine. Harvard Graduates' Magazine Association. p. 627.
- ^ Harvard Alumni Bulletin. 1943. p. 61.
- ^ Marshall: The Magazine of the George C. Marshall Foundation – Summer 2022, p. 8
- ^ Boston, Appalachian mountain club (1938). Register. p. 112.
- ^ Betsy (2019-11-13). ""We can never build a view like this!"". beesfirstappearance. Retrieved 2024-03-13.