Prall, Eva P. – 1911-2010

COONS, CRABB, GREENFIELD, MC COY, PRALL, ROMERO

Posted By: JCGS Volunteer
Date: 6/26/2010 at 11:08:52

Eva Pauline (Crabb) Prall, 99, of Newton died on Sunday, June 20, 2010.
Pauline was the granddaughter of Civil War soldier Thomas William Crabb and his wife, Susan Coons, of Milo, Iowa, and the youngest child of Daniel and Josie Jane (Greenfield) Crabb of Milo. Both couples are buried at Belmont Cemetery east of Milo. Pauline remembered her Civil War grandfather, Thomas Crabb, since he didn’t die until 1917 when she was 6. The Civil War was over in 1865; thus, there aren’t many Civil War grandchildren left.
Pauline was born on a farm south of Milo on June 20, 1911, during cherry-picking time. Pauline grew up on various farms around Milo and rode a pony to one-room country schools. In 1927, Dan and Josie sold their team of farm horses and equipment and moved to Milo, where Pauline graduated from high school in 1930 as president of her senior class. During high school, she worked as a telephone switchboard operator in Milo, a “hello girl” in the time of large, hand-cranked phones when everyone was on a party line and had to count the number of rings to know when to answer the phone. Pauline was probably the oldest alumni of Milo High School. Pauline met Simpson College student, Dwight Emerson Prall, in Indianola. They married in 1934 at the parsonage of the Milo Christian Union Church. Dwight was the younger brother of the late District Judge Stanley E. Prall of Indianola and the late Arthur Miller Prall, owner of the Carlisle Brick and Tile.
Through the years, Pauline and Dwight lived in Altoona, Milo, Indianola, Des Moines, Carlisle, Avon Lake and, since 1948, Newton, Iowa. Pauline reared two sons while Dwight farmed, attended Drake University, worked as a guard at the Ankeny Ordinance Plant during World War II, served in the Army, was a teller in the Carlisle bank as well as the First Newton National Bank in Newton and a lawyer in the Caldwell Law Office in Newton. Pauline was an active member of the First Baptist Church for more than 60 years.
Pauline loved to cook for her family, relatives and friends, tended a big garden and canned the resulting vegetables and fruit. She crocheted, quilted, sewed and made all kinds of hand crafts. Her children and grandchildren have excellent examples of her skillful quilting and crafts. Pauline will be long remembered for the old family stories she told and retold from her rural youth in the first decades of the 20th century, an age when horses pulled the wagons and plows and Coleman gas lanterns pushed back the darkness. In the winter when the snow was too deep on the country dirt roads, her father hooked up the team to the sled and took the family to town. After 99 years, Pauline witnessed the horse-and-buggy era evolve into the space and computer age.
Dwight died in 1998. At the age of 99, most of Pauline’s contemporaries are deceased. Survivors include her two sons, Richard Dwight Prall of Albuquerque, N.M., and Daniel E. Prall of Santa Fe, N.M.; grandson, Kirk Dwight Prall, and wife Tanya of Boise, Idaho; granddaughter, Kim Denise McCoy, and husband Jim of Albuquerque; three great-grandsons, Jon Romero and wife Andrea of Philadelphia, Penn., and Sean and wife Rickie Prall of Bloomington, Ind., and Zane Prall of Boise; and great-great-grandchildren, Maximo and Ria Romero of Philadelphia.
A funeral service took place at 2 p.m. today at the First Baptist Church, 620 S. Eighth Ave. E. in Newton. In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorials to the First Baptist Church. Memorials may be left at the Wallace Family Funeral Home. She was buried beside her husband of 63 years at the Newton Union Cemetery.
Source: Newton Daily News; Tuesday, June 22, 2010