Virginia Irene (Eckert) Montonye |
| Posted 2008-12-11 by Judy Wight Branson |
| The Camp Verde Bugle, Camp Verde, Arizona Tuesday, October 28, 2008 Virginia Irene Montonye, 94, formerly of Cottonwood, died in Glendale. She was born July 18, 1914, in Prescott, where her parents, Fred and Margaret (La Mere) Eckert, moved from Bay City, Mich. The Eckerts moved to Cottonwood and bought into the Cottonwood Drug Store at Main and Pinal, where her grandfather, Fredrick Wilhelm Eckert from Germany, operated the bakery just behind the drug store and soda fountain. Her aunt Della La Mere was the pharmacist, and her mother worked the general business. She attended Cottonwood Grammar School, Clemenceau Junior High and graduated from Clarkdale High School in 1933. She attended Secretarial School at Northern Arizona Normal School (now Northern Arizona University). She married Claude Raymond Montonye, the boy next door, at St. Cecilia's in Clarkdale Oct. 20, 1935. After their son was born in 1936, they rented a factory home in upper Clarkdale as Claude worked for the United Verde Smelter. During World War II, Claude joined the U.S. Immigration Services Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas, and Virginia moved with her family to National City, Calif., and found a job at Consolidated Aircraft Company in San Diego as a forklift driver. She became a "Rosie the Riveter," delivering parts for the construction of B-24 bombers. When her husband was transferred to Naco, Ariz., she received a transfer to Tucson's Consolidated/Volute plant. She remembers that President Franklin Roosevelt visited the plant and the plant manager broke an egg on the wing of a bomber and they watched it fry. When Claude was transferred to a detention camp in Sharp Park, Calif., the family moved just south of San Francisco. After the war they lived in several Santa Clara County cities and she worked as a secretary for several companies. She returned to Clarkdale in 1978 and until July 2008 lived at Cottonwood Village. Survivors include two sons, Bob (Mary) in Santa Cruz, Calif., and Claude Richard in Nutrioso; four grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. She will be cremated, and burial will be with her husband in the Cottonwood Cemetery. There will be no funeral service. Interment will be private. |
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