Age 95 died June 17, 2019. Preceded in death by parents Willard and Florence, husband Laurie. Beloved mother of Bruce (Margaret Marier), Bronwyn (Mark) Schadegg, Barbara (Gregg) Ling, Hugh (Fariba) Pruitt and Daniel (Julie Johnson), 10 grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren. Other relatives and many friends. Member of AAUW, League of Women Voters, Campfire Girls of America.

Mary Florence Reeves was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin on January 31, 1924.   Her father, the future Reverend Willard Reeves, was in school at Carroll College (now Carroll University) and would soon take the family to Chicago to attend McCormick Theological Seminary.

A call to Chatfield, Minnesota would bring Mary to her first encounter with her future husband, Laurie Emerson Pruitt.  She frequently remarked that she never thought that "that skinny, little boy with holes in the knees of jeans" would someday be the love of her life and father of her children.  She was adamant that she was smart enough to marry him for his mind.

Another call would take her to Crookston, Minnesota and bragging rights about really being cold.  Here she would strengthen her social and thespian skills and exercise her adaptability to being both "new" and the pastor's daughter.  (A fate she got to share, of course, with her sister Barbara.)

A war brought a trip to the Naval Training Station in Farragut, Idaho.  This was a short intermission before heading back to St. Paul, Minnesota to attend Macalester College.  After graduating, a job with Campfire Girls of America took her to Des Moines, Iowa about the same time Laurie was being recruited out of Purdue as a research physicist for 3M in St. Paul.  Trips home would bring her to the dinner table with Laurie:  the story being he didn't know anyone else in St. Paul but the Reverend and Mrs. Reeves and they invited him for Sunday dinner and playing the piano.

Nearly fifty years of marriage and five kids—"none of whom are in prison at least"—transitioned to adjusting again after Laurie's passing in 1999.  She stayed in the family home on Stryker Avenue in West St. Paul before moving to Presbyterian Homes in neighboring Inver Grove Heights.  Recently she moved to St. Anthony Park Home spend the last year-and-half in comfort.  "I am, without a doubt, the most fortunate woman in the world", she would exclaim.

Indeed.

Memorials preferred to AAUW.