ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Dorothy Montgomery, 93, of Muskingum County, has dedicated 70 years to Ohio 4-H. She shrugs off any fanfare or honor people try to bestow upon her. But her service to 4-H wasn’t brushed aside so easily as she would have liked, and in March she was honored for her lengthy service during the Ohio 4-H Volunteer Recognition Luncheon held at the Ohio 4-H Conference Center in Columbus.

“Lots of people before me set a lot of good examples,” Montgomery said modestly. “One of those people was 4-H founder A.B. Graham, the schoolteacher from Clark County who founded the organization in 1901. I had the privilege of knowing him. He was a lovely person.”

Montgomery grew up on her family’s 24-acre farm. According to records, her great-grandfather received the land as payment for fighting in the Revolutionary War. Her family raised sheep, hogs, horses, chickens, turkeys and Hereford cattle.

Her parents ran a stock farm. Montgomery learned all about raising animals and crops long before becoming a 4-H member. She joined 4-H when she was 10 years old after finding her brother’s storage crate labeled “Megs Lop Eared Pig Club” tucked away in their family’s barn.

She continued from there into her teens when she became a member of the Muskingum County Junior Leadership Club until heading off to Muskingum University, where she received her degree in elementary education.

She attended a 4-H camp in Utica, Ohio, where she met her husband, John, who was a lifeguard. She was the camp’s music director. They married in 1953 and left the Zanesville area when John joined the Air Force. They returned to the Muskingum County area in 1955. The county agent for 4-H at the time asked both to become advisers for the Muskingum County Junior Leadership Club. Seventy years later, Dorothy is still an adviser.

“If you are part of your community, your community will be part of you,” Montgomery said. “And I guess green is in my blood.”

Montgomery grew up in the Great Depression without electricity and has lived to see the development of computers, cell phones and smart technology. Like many others in the county, life for Montgomery has always been centered around agriculture.

Her father worked for 50 cents a day and was able to buy a horse to build a team with the neighbor. Together, they helped one another with their farm work.

“If one of your family members or neighbors needed something, you shared what you had, but you also learned to make do with what you had,” she said. “That really was the beauty of the Depression because you had to.

“I was little and I didn’t realize, but I think the general consensus was we were all poor but we didn’t know it because everyone was the same.”

Her mother would take eggs, cream and butter into town to sell to the produce man, then turn around and purchase the bare essentials for the kitchen. Everything else was provided by the farm.

“We made our clothes out of seed sacks and, of course, lots of hand-me-downs as we had older cousins who shared their old clothes,” she said.

As a child, Montgomery attended Meigs Rural School and graduated in 1949. After college, she taught first grade in Zanesville for most of her career.

In 1971, she retired when her first daughter, Nancy, was born. She had a second daughter, Susan, in 1973. Nancy died in a car accident in 1990. Montgomery’s husband John died in 2014.

As her girls grew up, Montgomery was sure to give them an experience in 4-H, just as she did.

Daughters Nancy and Susan took eight to 12 4-H projects a year. And as Nancy and Susan got more involved, so did Montgomery. From the Muskingum County 4-H advisory committee all the way to the state-level committee. As she opened more doors, her daughters got even more opportunities, including state camps, conservation camp, leadership camp, sea camp and National 4-H Congress. 

Dorothy has served on 4-H advisory committees for Ohio State Extension at county, district and state levels. She was inducted into the Ohio 4-H Hall of Fame in 1990.

As advisers of the junior leaders’ program, John and Dorothy also took groups on weekend camping trips, held square dances to raise funds for the club, did community service projects and threw memorable parties for the 4-Hers in their basement, which ran the full length of the house. She opened the doors to 4-H to others throughout the county over the years.

“She has made herself part of the community and the community loves her,” said Jamie McConnell, Muskingum County 4-H youth development extension educator. “She’s had a tremendous impact on young people as leaders, who’ve become leaders in our community and leaders in other places, through encouragement, through setting high expectations for being the definition of a community servant. Dorothy’s impact is multi-generational.”

From 1993-2009, Montgomery was elected to the office of Muskingum County Commissioner for four terms. She said she owes all her life’s success to 4-H.

“I’d like to say I got my start in life thanks to 4-H, because it has opened many, many doors to me,” she said. “I’ve met so many people and have had the privilege of working with so many delightful young people and their parents. It’s just been fantastic.”

She remains active as a community leader at various capacities, including as an agricultural columnist for the Zanesville Times Recorder. She tries to help on the farm, but not as much as she used to. Much of her free time is spent watching grandsons Jack and Eli fish in ponds.

“I pull a weed now and then,” she joked. “I still know what a hoe is for, but I don’t get on the tractors anymore. One of my favorite spots is on my back porch where I watch the cows and the calves, and listen to the chickens sing to me when they lay their eggs.”