Elise M. Donnelley

Elise “Lee” Montgomery Donnelley died in Helena on June 4, 2012. Born in New Haven, Conn., on July 20, 1932, Lee was the second child of Ralph Keeler Montgomery and Olive Wolfe Montgomery. She graduated from the Day School in New Haven and attended Mount Holyoke College for two years. After her sophomore year at Mount Holyoke, Lee transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There she majored in art, graduating in 1954 and receiving membership in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

After graduation, Lee married James “Jim” Moran Donnelley. At the time of their marriage, Jim had recently graduated from Yale and was working by day and attending law school at night. After Jim finished law school, Jim and Lee moved to Guilford, Conn., where Lee was a homemaker. Jim was killed in an automobile accident in 1970, leaving Lee with four children ages 6-12. After Jim’s death, Lee decided to go to law school with the goal of becoming a legal aid attorney. She graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1975. Following law school, Lee worked as a VISTA volunteer for New Haven Legal Services. She then embarked on something completely different, moving to Bismarck, N.D., and becoming legal services developer for North Dakota Legal Services. She spent the remainder of her career specializing in elder law.

Lee was an accomplished photographer, painter and gardener, as well as a repository of vast amounts of trivia. She liked to travel, exploring Europe and, later, the American West and Alaska. Keenly interested in politics, she was a Democrat all her adult life. She loved to spend summers at the family cabin on Flathead Lake.

Lee was preceded in death by her parents, her husband and her sister, Mary Ann Phelps Montgomery. She is survived by her four children: daughter, Katharine Donnelley of Helena; son, James Montgomery Donnelley, and daughter-in-law, Sarah Reed, of Red Bluff, Calif.; daughter, Lisa Donnelley of Anchorage, Alaska; and son, Stephen Donnelley, and daughter-in-law, Judith Ryan Donnelley, of West Grove, Pa. She is also survived by her sister, Joan Montgomery Kratzer; brothers, Dan Montgomery and John Cavanaugh; brother-in-law, Lawrence Donnelley and sister-in-law, Lynn Donnelley; grandchildren, James Richard Donnelley, Michael Petrov, Allison Petrov, Seth Donnelley and William Donnelley; and several nieces, nephews and cousins. She is also survived by her little cat, Elf.