Celebrating a Lifelong Learner

Born in 1923, Leonora grew up in Anderson, Indiana, a General Motors factory town. At age 9, her family moved to Washington, D.C., for her father’s government job. Growing up in the shadow of Capitol Hill prompted Leonora’s interest in international affairs and politics, which she later studied in college.  

Although educational opportunities for women were limited in the 1940s, Leonora always planned to attend college and have a career. She looked up to her father, who attended Harvard College—now Harvard University—and both her parents stressed that “education is the coin of the realm,” which is one of her favorite adages to this day. “Never, not once, growing up did I think that women were second class citizens,” Leonora said. “That was my experience at school, as well.” 

For her first foray into higher education, Leonora chose Wellesley College, a private women’s liberal arts college in Massachusetts that is one of the Seven Sisters, a group of historically women’s colleges created to provide women with an education equivalent to the all-male Ivy League schools of its day.  

Despite World War II breaking out during Leonora’s freshman year in 1939, she graduated in 1944 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics.

Massachusetts was where Leonora would meet her future husband, Jeff Montgomery ’41. A graduate of Texas A&M when they met, Jeff was studying at Harvard Business School while Leonora was at Wellesley. Although they did not begin dating until Jeff was called to WWII active duty in Washington D.C., he first learned of Leonora when he called Wellesley’s dormitory to obtain a list of girls from the Washington, D.C. area. At the time, it was common practice for eligible bachelors from Harvard to get a ledger of unmarried Wellesley girls who would share a post-graduation destination with them. “Well, I was on his list,” Leonora laughed.

Jeff's Legacy

For those who knew him, Jeff was an accomplished yet humble man. He worked hard and was named valedictorian in high school and at Texas A&M, earning his bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering in 1941. Once his Aggie ring was turned outward, he attended Harvard Business School and earned a law degree from George Washington Law School. Beyond his formal education, his children remember him as a well-read man who could spend hours in an armchair with a philosophy encyclopedia.

Jeff was offered a teaching position at the Command and General Staff School in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, during World War II, but he decided that he couldn’t teach soldiers about war without seeing it for himself. His superiors shipped him to Italy for six months, during which time he and Leonora wrote letters, seriously discussing their courtship and future lives together. While Jeff was abroad, the couple decided to marry during a five-day delay on his way home. They were married in a small chapel at the National Cathedral before returning to Kansas as newlyweds.

“I was not planning to marry,” Leonora recalled. “I was going to be an international journalist, and I wanted to be free to travel. And then I met this redhead from Texas A&M, and all I wanted was to be with him. When he came back from overseas and we were married, my whole life shifted to being an impecunious wife of a struggling young lawyer in Midland, Texas.”