Joe Monteith is the father of Shaun and Cory Monteith; his youngest Cory became interest in music when he was a little boy, sadly Joe didn’t remained in his son’s life for long after Joe and his wife got divorce Cory’s struggle with drugs and alcohol hunt him for years, but nobody could anticipate not even Joe Monteith that Cory will be dead at 31, that was the news that Police in Vancouver told him on Saturday July 13, 2013.
31-year-old Cory Allan Michael Monteith was found dead in his room on the 21st floor of the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel on Vancouver’s waterfront at about noon Saturday after he failed to check out, no foul play is suspected, an autopsy is scheduled for Monday.
Joe Monteith and his then wife Ann McGregor had two boys during their lives together as husband and wife, in 1979 his eldest boy Shaun was born and three years later Cory came to their lives, sadly in 1989 Joe and Ann separated and eventually got divorce, his sons went to live with their mother in Victoria, British Columbia, but Joe got to see them from time to time.
Cory Monteith’s dad Joe a former soldier in Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, is the son of the late Phillip Murray Monteith of Hampton, NB, and Phyllis (Sweeney) Monteith, like him Joe’s dad served with the artillery in World War II. Mr. Monteith has two brothers Malcolm and Phillip.
Mr. Monteith moved to his natal town in Oromocto a town in Sunbury County in New Brunswick where one day he found out his young son became Finn Hudson in Fox’s television show Glee in 2009, he recalled feeling was ecstatic, not surprised after all music runs in their veins.
“He always had that in him,” Joe says of his son’s theatrical leanings, describing him as bright and energetic as a boy.
“He was into everything,” Joe says. “He was on the stage doing The Little Red Hen when he was six or seven years old. He was pounding on stuff at that age. He was never a shy boy. He always liked to be out in the view of people.”
“When both the boys were young we used to have speakers in their bedrooms and I would play Beethoven or classical music all the time for the boys. That just soothed them right out. They just loved it,” he says.
There was a time when Joe tried singing in public too, he enjoyed it so much that he began to sing more frequently, but he did it just for fun.
“I’ve been known to go up and win a karaoke contest every now and again,” Joe says.
“The crowd went wild,” Joe recalls. “And out of nowhere this guy came up and asked me if I had a manager.
“And I said, ‘I’m really not into this, I do it for fun. I like keeping a low profile.'”
Some people said Cory and his old man were not close and didn’t see each other that often. Joe and Cory didn’t see each other for 17 years after he and Ann got divorced, it was until 2009 that father and son reunited.
“We’d spoken maybe three or four times [during that period] and he reached out to me on Facebook. I couldn’t shut the door, so I got on a plane. He greeted me at the airport, and (he and stepmother Yvette) were so happy they were almost crying. It was a good time.”
His son Cory died after taking a lethal dose of heroine and alcohol, his body was released to Ann was released yesterday, she decided to hold a viewing at the hospital with Lea and Cory’s brother Shaun. Following the viewing, we’re told Cory’s mom decided to have him cremated. Joe wasn’t there..
I always loved both my sons and am going to miss Cory very very much, I’m saddened at the fact that I couldn’t have been there to see my son before he was cremated.’
Joe Monteith and his second wife Yvette Monteith reside in Saint John, New Brunswick with their three cats.
Find Joe Monteith on Facebook here.
