Helen Day Montanari

Helen Day Montanari
Born
Helen Ranney Day

(1881-02-17)February 17, 1881
Roxbury, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died1955 (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

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

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

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

  1. ^ a b Home Journal. 1904. p. 4.
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ Letorney, Adriana Teresa (2020-12-14). "A Vermont Town Reckons with its past". The Click. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
  5. ^ Hallenbeck, Brent. "Founders' 'anti-Semitic and racist beliefs' spur name change for Stowe art center". Burlington Free Press. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
  6. ^ "September/October 2014 - How Stowe's Women Saved The Helen Day Art Center by Cynthia Close". www.vermontwoman.com. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
  7. ^ Danilov, Victor J. (2005). Women and Museums: A Comprehensive Guide. Rowman Altamira. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-7591-0855-4.
  8. ^ Cynthia Close. "How Stowe's Women Saved The Helen Day Art Center". Vermont Woman. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  9. ^ photo, Courtesy (2021-02-11). "Dr. Marguerite Lichtenthaeler and Helen Day Montanari". Vermont Community Newspaper Group. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
  10. ^ Thayer, William Roscoe (1904). The Harvard Graduates' Magazine. Harvard Graduates' Magazine Association. p. 627.
  11. ^ Harvard Alumni Bulletin. 1943. p. 61.
  12. ^ Marshall: The Magazine of the George C. Marshall Foundation – Summer 2022, p. 8
  13. ^ Boston, Appalachian mountain club (1938). Register. p. 112.
  14. ^ Betsy (2019-11-13). ""We can never build a view like this!"". beesfirstappearance. Retrieved 2024-03-13.