Frances Marie Prusa

Frances Mahoney was born on 13 August 1920, in Niles, Michigan. At the age of four, she moved with her family, including her sister Emma Jean to Jackson, and went on to attend high school at the Ursuline convent in Quebec City, Canada where her deep rooted Catholic faith was further solidified. In 1948 she married Rudolph Prusa, a first-generation American born from Czech immigrants, and they made their home on the pear tree-lined expanse of Union Pier Road, where she lived for 67 years. The course of her life spanned 18 presidencies, included caring for her three children Jay, Rudi, and David—as well as her nephews and niece Frank, John, and Kathy Ehrhardt; the latter three were taken into Fran’s home after their parents’ deaths. That small army of children has since produced 14 grandchildren, 21 great grandchildren, and five great-great grandchildren. Much of the narrative her life will ring familiar to others in and around Union Pier. Weekly double-cart grocery shopping trips, daily summer walks to the Bohemian Beach for swimming and sunsets, and perfecting the balancing act of conflicting schedules and demands of her six children. Family road trips in their white Chevy station wagon would traverse the country, including sojourns to Jensen Beach, Florida, and California’s Disney Land—with all the chaos you’d expect (including once leaving one of the kids behind at a gas station for a few heart-beating hours). Throughout the course of her life she worked as a telephone operator in Chicago, as a secretary for St. Mary of the Lake Church and the Vice Principle of New Buffalo High School, and a night administrator at Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Michigan City, IN. But every night, they all gathered for a home-cooked meal—Bohemian roast duck with potato dumplings, perhaps, a dish her husband, Rudy, loved. After his passing, she’d beam with joy whenever one of her grandsons would mutter a few words of Czech learned after living in Prague. It reminded her of Rudy, who would occasionally speak to Frances in his native tongue. It reminded her of the life they’d made together. Not one to sit idle, she combated empty nest syndrome by traveling with her friends to places far and wide, from Central Europe to Russia to Washington, DC, where they drove down to catch the spring cherry blossoms. She loved spirited political debates, and finished the crossword puzzle each day almost as religiously as she attended St Mary of the Lake Church. And the promise of a home-cooked meal and lively conversation continued to lure her relatives back for frequent visits. Her extensive network of family and friends will remember her fondly as a voice of reason, good humor, strong will, and fierce intelligence. The way she navigated raising six children while her husband got the family construction business off the ground. The way the hand-me-down wool jackets would itch the skin of her grandchildren as they made snowmen in the front yard, with promises of steaming hot chocolate waiting inside. How conversations at meals would follow a serpentine path—politics, family drama, secret recipes—always with an undercurrent love. The way her grandchildren would gather around her big old box TV in her bedroom to watch the Bears as she cooked dinner with her daughter in the kitchen next door. The way she swam in the frigid waters of their swimming pool as her sweatshirt clad family watcher her in awe. The way she smiled at every wedding, and beamed with pride during the last family reunions, held in her honor of her 90th and 95th birthdays. Those…and so many more. She was loved and will be missed. A Celebration of Life service will be held on Sat., Sept. 2, 11:00am, at Sommerfeld Chapel – 15 N. Barton St., New Buffalo, MI. Burial will follow at Pine Grove Cemetery, New Buffalo. The family will receive visitors at the funeral home one hour prior to the service from 10-11am. Memorial contributions may be made to the River Valley Senior Center – 13321 Red Arrow Hwy., Harbert, MI 49115. Friends wishing to leave the family a message of condolence may do so at www.sommerfeldchapel.com