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Notes
a. Note:   Excerpts from "It All Started", an autobiography by Mary Lou Montgomery O'Brien, Obie's wife; "My mother was May Belle Fitzgerald and my father was Ward Pease Montgomery. I am the youngest of three children. My sister, Marilla, was born February 17, 1907, and my brother, James Robert "Bob" was born December 13, 1911.
 May Montgomery's parents were James and Ida (Compton) Fitzgerald. May had an older brother, Clifford, a younger sister, Maude, and two younger brothers, Norris and Harold.
  May was born September 4, 1881. Ward Montgomery's parents were J. Ivor and Mary (Lett) Montgomery. Ward had an older sister, Jessie, a brother, Florian, and a sister, Edith. Ward was born October 24, 1879.
  Marilla, Bob and I all attended a one-room country school. Bob started first grade three months before his sixth birthday and shortly after my fourth birthday. He loved it and would come home and play school with me every day. I started school when I was six and the teacher put me in second grade after the first week, since I'd had such good tutoring!
  When I was nine I had a birthday party. The one gift I remember receiving was a box of candy - the first Whitman's Sampler I ever saw. Many things happened in the year that followed - some good and some bad. The first was leaving the farm and our pet hens, and our Collie, "Flossie", and our Shetland pony, "Bud". We used to ride him bareback and I remember one time our dad hitched Bud to a little cart and Bob and I drove him to our little red schoolhouse. So, we moved into Aurora and we went to city schools and we had electric lights! Then, I went to the hospital with a ruptured appendix and stayed there three weeks! But, worst of all was when my father was hospitalized with a ruptured duodenum and the doctor was unable to save his life. On July 2, 1923 he died at the age of 43. On the 18th I became ten years old. Bob was 11 and Marilla was 16 and in high school.
  So our mother, May, was left with three children to raise and support. Since Marilla had two years of high school left, it was decided that she would live in Aurora with our paternal grandparents, Mary and Ivor Montgomery. Mother, Bob and I went to our maternal grandparents, Jim and Ida Fitzgerald, who, with Uncle Harold, lived on a farm north of Wheaton, Illinois. May had taught school before she was married and she found a job at a country school quite a distance from Wheaton. This meant we got to see her only on weekends. The next year we all moved to Aurora and May taught in the East Aurora schools. In 1925 Marilla graduated from West High. She got a job and the family was reunited and had our own apartment. Bob's first job was as a paperboy and he spent five dollars of his earnings on a second-hand snare drum. Then, during his last year at East High, he worked after school and Saturdays at Fisher's Bakery at 25 cents an hour. Bob added to his drum set and was soon playing dance jobs. When he graduated in 1929, I took over his job at the bakery. I graduated in 1930 and continued to work for Fisher's, part-time.
  In 1931 we were living in a duplex on Evans Ave. and Mother took some summer classes at NITC in DeKalb in order to get more credits for her teacher's certificate. Of course we had no car and she had to depend upon public transportation. So, she was home on weekends only. One hot Friday night in August, Bob had played a job after having a headache all day. When he got home he had a backache, too, and couldn't get to sleep. He asked me to rub his back, which I did. I returned to my room and went to sleep. Soon, he was in my room, wanting me to rub his back again. I think he finally fell asleep in my bed. The next morning he was paralyzed and couldn't get out of bed. I don't know where Marilla was, but when Mother got home, that was what confronted her. She called Dr. Lindbergh, whom we knew from the Presbyterian Church. He was an osteopath and he came just about every day and massaged and massaged. He said it was polio and recommended lots of fluids, fruit and juices, which I took up to Bob. I used to help him out of bed, to the bathroom, back to bed, turn him over. I still worked at the bakery from 4:00 to 6:00 and Saturdays, so he wasn't left alone very much. When he got so he could go downstairs, he would sit at the top and go down a step at a time, sitting down. Then he used crutches and gradually got so he could do things and play the drums again. After this "recovery" he was still never able to run.
  Fisher's opened a second store in 1932 and I was there by myself every day! Mrs. Fisher brought the day's supply of baked goods and the money and helped me open the store. She came back at noon while I went home for lunch and returned to help me close up at 6:00. It was the beginning of the Great Depression and by 1933 it was obvious that the second store would have to close. As a result, I was out of work. Grandpa Fitzgerald had died in November 1932, so Grandma came to live with us. We moved to a four-bedroom house at 440 Weston in 1933 and that's when IT ALL STARTED.
  Bob was playing drums in a small band at a club north of Aurora and they needed a trumpet player. Obie was "between jobs" and joined the band, rooming with Bob. It wasn't long before Obie and I knew we were attracted to each other. He would wash the dishes (Bless his mother!) and I would dry them. So, we always said that love blossomed over the dishpan. Obie didn't have a car at that time, so when we had our first date in October we went to a movie by taxi.
  We got engaged on Christmas Eve then, early in January, he left to join Jimmy Garrigan's band in Dallas, Texas. Next they played in Galveston and then up to Minneapolis. While there, Obie came down to Chicago. Marilla and I met him and he bought my engagement ring. Then Marilla and I went shopping for my white organdy wedding dress.
  Obie rejoined the band, which went on to Denver. Jimmy was paying $40 a week plus hotel room, which was good, for Depression wages. During all of this time we were writing to each other just about every day. In fact I have a large box filled with our love letters. Phone calls were being made, too, because we were making plans for our wedding! In May, Mother and Marilla had given a Sunday afternoon Tea to announce our engagement. I had four bridal showers. Three cousins - Dorothy and Margaret Montgomery, and Mary Bernard, gave one of them. At noon, Sunday, June 10, friends and family were at the depot in Aurora as I boarded the train for Denver, Colorado. Obie had sent me a hand-trunk, which went in the baggage car. I carried a suitcase (shower gift) and my wedding cake (a gift from Fisher's Bakery) and a box holding my wedding dress. I was so nervous. Chicago was the farthest I'd ever been from home. And, besides, I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing. But, I got lucky.
  Bill Smith and Pat Patelski, graduates from East High in 1928, were on the train. They were going to Seattle, Washington and had a few hours' layover in Denver. So, they took me under their wing. There were no eating facilities on the train, so when we got to Omaha, Nebraska, everyone went in the station to eat. The next morning, the train stopped in McCook, Nebraska. We all walked up a little hill to have breakfast at a diner. We arrived in Denver at noon and Obie was really surprised to see me get off the train with those two fellows, but he invited them to the wedding. And they came!
  He took me to his place at the Winbro Apartments, then went to the apartment of the best man and his wife, Bob and Lucille Hill. On my wedding day, I couldn't find a washcloth, so I took my bath with a dishrag. I got dressed and we went to the Methodist Church for the four o'clock ceremony. "Skip" Letford, pianist with the orchestra, played the wedding march as Obie and I, wearing a gardenia corsage, went down the aisle together. Band members and wives attended and came to our apartment afterward for wedding cake and punch (generously "spiked" by several of the guys). The band had to play that night, but I spent part of the time napping in the car, making up for sleep lost on the train. Bands in those days often did "remote" radio broadcasts. That night Jimmy Garrigan's orchestra dedicated "I'll String Along With You" to the new Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien who were married that afternoon, June 11, 1934."


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