Dave Lott began life on a farm in Michigan, helped raise all sorts of animals and attended a one-room schoolhouse. It was a Norman Rockwell childhood for him and his sister.

During the Depression, Dave’s parents pooled their money with his maternal grandparents to buy a 75-acre farm with a 5,000-square-foot, Italianate-style home built in 1878. It became the perfect setting for large holiday gatherings. One Thanksgiving found 28 family members gathered around the long, extended table with his grandfather carving a turkey at one end and his dad carving another at the other end. 

Dave’s family raised Flemish rabbits, ducks, sheep, cows and Holsteins and tended a big garden. Dave, with his Cocker Spaniel puppy under foot, helped with all of them.  He also fished, biked, hunted pheasants and played sports.

Dave’s father was a master tool-and-die maker for the Henry Ford Trade School in Detroit, and Dave attended Henry Ford’s one-room Greenlane Academy. Periodically, three new, black Ford automobiles would thunder into the school yard and men in suits would alight, followed by Mr. Ford himself. Sometimes, he gave the children piggyback rides. The annual school bulletin recorded that Dave Lott got one such ride, but he proclaimed that “Mr. Ford was not as good a horse as his grandfather.”

During WWII, the sole teacher quit. Dave’s maternal grandfather, who sat on the school board, announced to Dave’s mother that she would have to teach kindergarten through 8^th grade. Dave cannot remember his mom ever being so angry at her father.  She agreed to teach on one condition: that the family engage a housekeeper. Dave recalls, “Mom made $60 a month and we paid the housekeeper $55 a month.” That arrangement lasted just one year.

When Dave finished high school, the Korean War was in full swing. At age 17, he began college at Eastern Michigan. After a year, he and his best friend enlisted in what they dubbed the “Draft Dodger’s Yacht Club,” or the U.S. Coast Guard. At boot camp in Maine, the boys learned to sail, operate boats and were taught rescue techniques by their instructor, Arnold Palmer. Palmer was not yet famous and spent the war years playing golf with the commanding officer.

While an Honor Guard, Dave attended the christening of a new nuclear submarine, Nautilus, by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. He recalls she shook hands with every sailor and gave them roses from her bouquet.

After three years’ service, Dave returned to work on his family’s farm and in his father’s tool-and-die shop. Dave attended Adrian College and majored in chemistry and physics. For college graduation, his parents gave him a large, unused hunting property in upper Michigan. His experience growing up equipped him to fix and build almost anything, so he began building a cabin that featured a floor-to-ceiling rock ledge fireplace, a bar and a slot machine. He spent weekends there and his family gathered there too. 

One summer weekend, a friend persuaded him to drive 200 miles for a party, where he met Sally. The pair married, moved outside of Detroit and Dave went to work for a chemical company. After 10 years in Detroit, Sally, who had two children, decided to move to Breckenridge, CO, so the children could ski. Dave ran a Belgium waffle restaurant near Peak 9 and got his real estate license while Sally opened a successful boutique, Frivolous Sal’s. Later, the family moved to Vail where Dave worked in real estate and his wife opened another shop. Eventually, the couple divorced.

In the 1980s, Dave moved to Denver and worked on real estate development projects.  Dave’s good friend was the property manager for some condos on South Monaco, and he led Dave to meet his future wife, Connie. 

Connie was a member of Montview, where they were married in 1982. Dave and Connie were involved in many activities at Montview, one of which was the famed Montview Catering Crew. At the time, Montview employed a paid cook and volunteers helped to serve. One fall, a lunch for 100 people was unduly delayed when the cook left suddenly. The late Shirley Burkhardt rallied her close friends, Frank and Janet Carter and Dave and Connie to serve the meal. That was the end of the paid cook and the beginning of the Catering Crew cooking for all Montview events. The group always prepared extra food for shelters; over the years, they estimate they served 200,000 to 300,000 meals to those in need.

Dave served on Montview’s Session for six years, three of them as chair of Building and Grounds. In that role he learned of all of Montview’s trap doors, coal chutes, and passageways, one of which went under the Miller Chapel and another underneath Fellowship Hall. He also served six years on the board of Montview Manor and chaired its Building and Grounds Committee.  

Dave and Connie were married 35 years until she passed away in 2017. Together they developed a very strong and supportive circle of friends at Montview and in their neighborhood, and they took time to enjoy quiet times together.

Dave attributes his longevity to growing up on a farm, working hard, growing all their own food, living in a multigenerational family, and having a loving wife and network of friends.

– Submitted by Brooke Durland