# Montine Pate (1911-1996) ## Early Life in Arkansas (1911–1920) Montine Adeline Pate was born on 5 September 1911 in Faulkner County, Arkansas, the daughter of George Redmon Pate and Hattie Elizabeth Holt. Her earliest years were marked by frequent movement within Faulkner County. By 1912, she was living in Vilonia and later in Wooster, reflecting the mobility common to agricultural and working families in rural Arkansas during the early twentieth century. ## Westward Movement to New Mexico (1920–1930) By 1920, Montine had moved with her family to Otis in Eddy County, New Mexico. This relocation placed her childhood squarely within the broader westward migration patterns of Southern families seeking economic opportunity in farming, ranching, and related work. During the 1920s, she continued to live in New Mexico, and by 1930 she was residing in Lake Arthur, Chaves County, a community closely tied to agriculture and irrigation-based settlement. ## Marriage and Family Life (c. 1930–1940) Around 1930, Montine married Edward John McWenie. During the early years of their marriage, the couple lived in several Southwestern communities. In 1935, they were in Las Vegas, San Miguel County, New Mexico, and by 1939 they had moved to El Paso, Texas. These moves suggest a period of economic adjustment and opportunity-seeking during the Great Depression era. Montine and Edward had two children: • Frederick James McWenie • Patricia Ann McWenie ## Establishment in Tucson, Arizona (1940–1950) By April 1940, Montine had settled in Tucson, Pima County, Arizona, a city that would become her long-term home. She remained there in 1941 and was still living in Tucson in 1950, where census records list her as a married woman and wife within her household. Tucson offered relative stability compared to her earlier years, and it was there that she spent the majority of her adult life. ## Later Marriages and Final Years After her marriage to Edward John McWenie ended, Montine later married a man with the surname Flack; no children resulted from this union. Near the end of her life, she married Calvani around 2000, also without children. These later marriages occurred after her children were grown and reflect companionship rather than family expansion. Montine Adeline Pate died on 10 August 1996 in Tucson, Arizona, closing a life that spanned the rural South, the developing Southwest, and much of the twentieth century. ## Legacy Montine’s life reflects the experience of many American women of her generation—shaped by migration, marriage, and family responsibility, and marked by resilience through economic hardship and geographic change. Through her children, she carried forward the combined legacies of the Pate, Holt, and McWenie families, leaving a quiet but enduring place within the broader family history.