- Date Of Death: February 29, 2012
- State: Pennsylvania
Sergia Pereira Montz passed away in her home in St. Augustine, Florida on February 29, 2012. Born in 1916 in Guánica, Puerto Rico, she was the daughter of Vicente Pereira Calzada and Catalina Ayala Pereira. A graduate of the University of Puerto Rico, she was a teacher in the island before coming to Bethlehem in 1944 to marry her late husband, Richard Montz, whom she had met while he was stationed at Borinquen Air Base in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. She became involved in working with the Hispanic community soon after her arrival and was one of the founding members of the Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations of the Lehigh Valley. Mrs. Montz was president of that organization at least three times. Mrs. Montz worked as an adult education teacher teaching Spanish, and later taught Spanish at Liberty High School. Upon leaving that position, she was hired to teach Spanish at Moravian Preparatory School, where she remained until returning in 1971 to the Bethlehem Area School District as Director of Bi-Lingual Education to develop programs for the newly arriving Hispanic student population. Her major contribution in that position was the development of the Bilingual Program and English as a Second Language Program for non-English speaking students, only the second such program in the state of Pennsylvania. In 1965, Mrs. Montz graduated from Lehigh University with a Masters Degree in Education. A well-known leader in the Bethlehem Community, she was a member of the board of the then South Terrace Community Center and on the Board of the YWCA when that organization opened their new building on Market Street. During her residence in Bethlehem, Mrs. Montz was active in community work and held memberships on many boards, among them the United Way, the Bethlehem Public Library, the Private Industry Council, WLVT-Channel 39, the Community Action Committee, New Bethany Ministries, and the Bethlehem Housing Authority. Survivors: daughters Brenda Kalata and her husband Andrew, Lydia Foiles and her husband Charles; granddaughters Maria Sullivan and her husband James, Kathryn Dean and her husband Robert, Elizabeth Etheridge and her husband Michael; grandson Michael Kalata; great-grandchildren, Brenna Sullivan, Ruby Dean, and Atticus Dean.
