(Last updated on 30-Dec-2019 by James Keith Montz)

Ted Montz is my uncle, god father and my father, James Dalferes Montz's one year younger brother.  My father and Ted were best friends besides being brothers.  Ted was born Joseph Theodore Montz and had his name changed legally to Ted Joseph Montz because he felt it was better to have it changed so that people would instinctively know to call him Ted and not Joe or Joseph.   Ted was named Joseph after his grandfather Captain Joseph Dalferes who he did not get to know, because of his death before Ted was born, but Ted deeply admired Joseph and had his original Capt. Joe's River Boat License displayed in his house.

His love, friendship and generosity towards others went far beyond most people that I have known in my life.  He died when I was 27 years old and his funeral was attended by many of the "Who's Who" of the City of Houston.  There must of been a thousand or so people at the funeral.  To describe the impact of his life on others would take a large volume of work.  

Ted Montz graduated from Rice University in Architecture and was awarded a two year all expenses paid Grant to get his Masters in Architecture while studying in Europe.  The Grant was a national award that only two people a year were awarded.  After coming back, he was offered many career opportunities with several prestigious architecture and engineering firms where he eventually ended up at the University of Houston because of the rapid expansion occurring at all of the campuses which Ted was asked to coordinate, manage and approve when taking the position of Vice President of Facilities, Planning and Construction for the entire University Of Houston System and also a rotational Board Member for the University of Houston.  There was also a period of about 10 years where Ted was the Police Chief for the University of Houston where he had a Police Badge.  I remember Ted telling me, he was given the title and role because the University's Police department fell under the Facilities Budget and his Assistant Police Chief did all of the work which only required a little bit of Ted's time to provide oversight.

Ted had a beautiful house off of Memorial Park in Houston which he was restoring and had a wonderful life where he often had large dinner parties at the house.  Walking into Ted's house was like walking into a house that was featured in Architectural Digest Magazine.  Every room had amazing and beautiful works of art such as paintings, statues and furniture in rooms that had perfectly painted walls, trim and crown molding.  The art work was from multiple countries throughout the world from Ted's world traveling.  Nothing in his house was gaudy or ostentatious.  It was just perfectly balanced and everything had a story that could be told about it. 

My father, James Dalferes Montz, was the executor of Ted's Estate, where Ted gave all of his brothers and sisters a sizeable cash inheritance and also gave all of his nieces and nephews a very generous inheritance.  I remember helping my father going through the long hand written Estate's Will, that had each of the works of art and other pieces of the Estate assigned to his brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and others.  We spent many Saturdays marking each item with a piece of paper that had someone's name written on it. 

It is interesting, going by Ted's old house off of Memorial Park in Houston and it is still there with no external changes.  My cousin Drew Montz tells me the 1 acre plot of land, that the house is on, is worth close to $850,000 today, where many people are buying the old homes in the area and rebuilding more modern houses.  I mention this only to show that the changes that Ted made back in the 1970s and 1980s, to the house, apparently are still very much appreciated by the owners such that they have not desired to renovate or rebuild.

In my childhood and continuing until Ted's death, which was into my mid twenties, my family would at least twice a month meet Ted for a Brunch on Sunday at different restaurants in Houston.  My father, mother, my brother David and I would listen to Ted tell stories that would have us all riveted or laughing.  Ted was an amazing story teller where during his days in the Army, he would have sort of a regular Sunday evening stand-up comedy hour in the cafeteria which was attended by fellow officers and enlisted men.  Ted was always at the Montz family's Holiday Events, Birthday Parties and other days at our different houses as he loved being near family.  Because of his social life and travels, Ted also always had very interesting stories, where sometimes they were about very were close friends that were the Captains of Industry in Houston's businesses, where Ted never spoke about anyone or anything in a pretentious way. 

Ted became very engrained in the City of Houston's Who's Who, through his position with the University of Houston.  The University of Houston was always having exclusive and lavish parties for fund raising and celebrating new building being open in the different colleges of the university system.  Additionally, Ted's nationally known art work was displayed in many homes and boardrooms of major corporations where his art expos were written about in the Houston Chronicle Newspaper and often attended as a Black-Tie event with dinner.  My dad always wondered if Ted ever was at home before 10pm because he was always going somewhere and doing something to help someone.

Ted had over 20 nieces and nephews which he took a very active participation in their lives.  While we all were growing up in the 1960s we always looked forward to the Christmas Parties, which we had every year at my Grandmother Josephine Dalferes Montz's house.  Everyone would be anxiously awaiting Ted's arrival because he had multiple wrapped presents for each of us which would fill up the trunk of his car along with the insides of the car.  Our job, when he arrived was to unload and put the presents under the Christmas tree for later opening after Grandmother's Christmas dinner.  Greg Montz, oldest of all of Ted's nieces and nephews, reminded me that Ted would take months getting the gifts so that each and everyone of the presents were something we all were wanting.  Looking back, I could only imagine if Ted was stopped by a Police Car for some sort of traffic violation, then the Police would instantly have questions on who are all of these presents for and would have then possibly asked Ted if he needed a Police Escort to get to his destination on Christmas Eve.

Before graduating from University of Houston, I had the privilege of working for Ted at the University Of Houston as a clerk.  Also on many other occasions, I would often stay at his house to take care of his dogs when he was on business trips or vacation.  Ted had two Doberman Pinchers, Sam and Nicky, that were extremely well trained, protective and knew everyone who was allowed and not allowed to be near the house.  It was amazing to me, looking back, on how they would be in the front yard with me and were not allowed to leave the yard unless I gave them a command to go across the street to make their "doggie banking deposits" in the forest area of Memorial Park.  They would look both ways and then cross the street, run to trees, then repeat looking both ways before coming back into the yard.  Sam was very large for a Doberman at roughly 3 feet tall and around 135 pounds.  Nicky was a normal sized Doberman and a very wonderful dog.  On two occasions, Sam protected Ted and held two kick-in robbers at bay until the police came to his house where, on one of the incidents, one of the robbers required an ambulance service to apply stitches and bandages to his butt and legs before being arrested.

When I was working for Ted at the University of Houston, I remember my Uncle Ted had a standing reserved time on Thursdays at 10:30am to go pick up his mother Josephine Dalferes Montz from her house, and then later from the Senior assisted living center, to go to lunch and do any errands she needed to have done.  He was always gone for around 2 to 3 hours and Ted's secretary, nicknamed "Bee", would tell people on the phone that Ted was in a very important executive meeting where he will be returning later in the day.

Everyone that knew my uncle, remember him as a man who became like a father for so many families who had lost a father or just needed some extra help.  Ted was faithful in being there in both financial and many caring aspects.  Ted was that way for me and my brother David also.  A few years before I graduated from the University of Houston, my parents had moved to Jacksonville, Florida where my uncle and my god mother and cousin, Vivian Beauraneux, were always there if I needed anything.