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Note: N1 She arrived in New York 26 June 1887 on the S.S. Aurania, which had departed Liverpool 18 June, then stopped at Queenstown (Cobh), County Cork.
Her granddaughter wrote the following essay about her for a high school class ~1945:
"Grandma was born in Ireland. Her father was an Episcopal minister. She came alone to this country when she was sixteen. She must have been very pretty with her auburn hair and deep blue eyes. She is now seventy-five and her hair is white, but she is trim and active and still has that 'school girl complexion.' My Dad is her only child and she came to live with us when Grandpa died. She stayed with us for seven years.
"[One day in 1936], a man called and said that Grandma had an Irish Sweepstakes ticket on a horse which would run in the final race. He told her she had a chance to get from one thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, according to how the horse ran. He offered ten thousand dollars for her ticket before the race. She knew she might get less, but decided to keep it.
"The day of the race she listened to the radio and heard that her horse had come in first and that she had won one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. She left immediately for Cincinnati as she knew the excitement in the village where we lived would be more than she could stand.
"[. . .] Reporters, photographers, movie men and strangers of all sorts seemed to pour into our place. The telephone rang constantly and hundreds of letters came every day. [. . .]
"Grandma is still in Cincinnati, where she is very active in church and Red Cross work. She had done so much work in the last war when Dad was in France, and now with her two grandsons in the service she seems to be doing even more. She is proud of her stars and pins which she has earned and is so happy that she is still able to help.
"Grandma has a remarkable memory for dates and never forgets a birthday or holiday. We always look forward to the gay little cards with a bill inside. And the first thing we do is to smell it! It always carries the faint violet scent that Grandma has."
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An Associated Press story that ran in the Lima (Ohio) Sunday News on 1 Nov 1936, and probably other papers as well:
"Woman, 65, Is Recipient of Sweepstakes
"Mystery Of Identity Of 'North Of North Bend' Finally Solved
"Ohioan Wins $150,000
"Mrs. Montague Feels 'Just Like Cinderella'; No Plans Made Yet
"Cincinnati, Oct. 31 (AP)--Mrs. Elizabeth Montague, 65, who held the $150,000 Irish sweepstakes ticket listed under the name 'North of North Bend, O.,' said today she felt 'just like Cinderella.'
"She disclosed her identity after a three-day search of the little village of 700 persons on the banks of the Ohio River, 12 miles below Cincinnati.
"It was her first sweepstakes ticket, she said, adding 'I had always wanted to buy one.'
" 'After I got it I kept saying to my son and daughter-in-law, "Just you wait till my sweepstakes ticket pays me $50,000." But I never dreamed of getting more than that, and I hardly dreamed of ever getting that.'
"She purposely went 'visiting with friends' to avoid the publicity she felt certain would follow the disclosure of her identity and said it was a lot of fun sitting in the bus to Cincinnati and hearing fellow passengers speculate as to the identity of 'North of North Bend.'
"What would she do with the money?
" 'I don't know and that's the truth. I shan't buy diamonds and automobiles with it, tho. There's plenty of ways I can use it.'
" 'And,' said Sam F. Montague, the son, 'it's the more interesting because Mother was born in Ireland.'
" 'Mother likes to play penny ante and plays horses in a small way, but this, I am sure, is the first time she ever played a "big" race.'
"What does she plan to do with her new-found fortune?
" 'That,' Montague replied, 'doesn't seem to be worrying her. She's very calm about it all.
" 'First, I'd like to see her get everything her heart desires. I'd like very much for her to take a trip back to England and Ireland to visit sisters she has not seen since she left.' "
She never did make the trip, as far as anyone knows. With the $88,000 she netted after U.S. taxes she did buy an automobile, for her son, and a small house for herself. Bad financial advice took care of most of the rest.
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In 1936, an Irish Sweepstakes ticket cost $2.50, with the proceeds to benefit Irish hospitals. Ticket stubs, or counterfoils, were mailed to Ireland to be drawn from a drum and matched with the name of a horse running in a major Irish or British race. The drawing in 1936 at Dublin's Mansion House inspired the <I>New York Times</I>'s correspondent to write, with that paper's typically leaden lyricism, "Grand opera girls with imposing headdresses of glittering sequins had to make way for trim, whitecapped nurses. Colonel Eamonn Broy, Chief of Police, took command. Smart, blue-uniformed army buglers sounded the grand salute on silvery trumpets. The Goddess of Fate having been fittingly saluted, the drum began to roll." For the running of the Cambridgeshire at Newmarket, England, on 28 October 1936, 62 horses were entered, with 16 tickets drawn and assigned to each horse. The largest prizes would go, of course, to ticket holders whose horses won, placed, or showed. Before the race went off, 40 horses scratched, for a field of 22. On race day, favorite Dan Bulger (probably named after a Trinity College Dublin track star of the 1880s) dropped to second-favorite after a shift in the betting at the track, but he won. Of the 15 other grand-prize winners besides Elizabeth, at least one was another Irish immigrant to the U.S., a Mrs. Margaret Cunner or Cuneen (the <I>Times </I>spelled it differently in two stories) of Brooklyn. Another Dan Bulger ticket was held by a group of ten young women who worked at a cleaning and dyeing firm in Edgewater, New Jersey, at a salary of $12 a week.
A synopsis of the documentary film <I>If You're Not In You Can't Win!</I> (2003, written and directed by Liam Wylie): "The Irish Hospital Sweepstakes were once the biggest lottery in the world, offering enormous cash prizes. Tickets were sold all over the world, with a very large market in the US and Canada, under the belief that purchasing the tickets benefited Irish hospitals. The truth, however, was far more interesting. Sale of the tickets was illegal everywhere except Ireland; the tickets were smuggled in and sold clandestinely. The tickets were sent back to Ireland using postal depot addresses, thwarting the US Post Office's attempts to shut down the sweepstakes in this country. For over fifty years the Irish government turned a blind eye to the sweepstakes' operations, while founding members of the private company that ran the sweepstakes made vast fortunes." The <I>Times</I> story of 24 October 1936 reported ticket sales totaled 2,706,291, of which 497,004 was to go to the Irish hospital fund, 165,668 to the Irish Free State exchequer in stamp duty, and a little more than 14 percent to the cost of running the sweep.
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