Irene Monti; headed Haddon Hts. library

Irene Nelson Monti, 99, of Voorhees, who retired in 1976 as director of the Haddon Heights Public Library, died Saturday, Oct. 18, at the Samaritan Inpatient Hospice Center at the Virtua Memorial medical center in Mount Holly.

"They rebuilt the library during the time she worked there, and so she was very instrumental in the rebuilding or renovation," granddaughter Irene Richardson said.

"She used to take me there" as a child, Richardson said. At home, "I was always surrounded by books when I was growing up."

It was more than a job for Mrs. Monti.

"She had a lifelong love of books," Richardson said. "She read all the time," until her eyesight failed in the last year.

"She liked mysteries. She loved autobiographies."

Born in Norma, N.J., Mrs. Monti attended Audubon High School and a business school in Philadelphia before earning her librarian's certificate at Rutgers-Camden in 1957, when she was 42, Richardson said.

She had married in 1933, but "both my grandmother and her husband Vic ended up with tuberculosis," she said.

A family document stated that she was admitted to a Browns Mills sanatorium in December 1941 and was released in October 1943 from the facility that is now Deborah Heart and Lung Center, her granddaughter said. Her husband Victor Wunder died in 1946.

Besides her granddaughter, Mrs. Monti is survived by daughter Judith Tivald, stepson David Monti, and a sister. Her husband of 50 years, Peter Monti, died in 2011.

A visitation was set from 9:45 a.m. Friday, Oct. 24, at Sacred Heart Church, 260 High St., Mount Holly, before a 10:30 a.m. Funeral Mass there, with private interment.

Donations may be sent to the Deborah Hospital Foundation at www.deborahfoundation.org.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.mccannhealey.com.