Elaine McBride Pratt

Elaine McBride Pratt
April 22, 1922 - January 28, 2008
Elaine McBride was born to Emma Jane Hubbard and Don Carlos McBride on April 22, 1922 in Pima, Arizona. She and her twin brother were the next to the youngest in their family. She attended (then) Gila Junior College where she received an associates degree. She put that to good use in various secretarial and assistant positions when she served as the secretary to the Mesa Temple president, and assisted various patriarchs in both Arizona and California.
Elaine met her husband Hurley in Mesa when they both were serving in the Mutual program. They were married in the Mesa temple on July 17, 1946. Three of their children were born in Arizona before they moved to Walnut Creek, California to put down new roots there. Their family was completed when the three California children were born.
Elaine was an accomplished seamstress. She took classes to learn how to make men's suits, and her husband's suits were as well made as any professional tailor's. She worked once a week in the Oakland temple, both as an ordinance worker and a secretary. Elaine was a wonderful mother and an excellent homemaker. She was a very kind woman who was sincerely interested in people and their families. She seemed to always know someone in common with someone she had just met, or knew how they were related. Elaine enjoyed genealogy and making family connections with people. She had a great ability to recall the smallest details of how people are related.
Elaine served a mission with Hurley in the Montana Billings mission from 1991 - 1993. She had a great love of the scriptures and enjoyed teaching the gospel and serving others. After her mission, she started taking piano lessons, which brought her great joy to be able to play the hymns on the piano, just as she had always heard her children do. She had great tenacity to start learning music later in life.
Elaine is survived by her husband, Nephi Hurley Pratt, one brother (Vearl McBride) and sister (Florence Williams). She has six children: Sandra Hall, Louise Wynn (Jeff), Reo William Pratt (Merle Burnham), Neva Lewis, Ellen Walker (Jim), and Laura Jane Pratt. She has 27 grandchildren, and 26 great-grandchildren (and counting!).
Her children want to thank the wonderful nurses and aides and others of Comfort Care Hospice who have all offered their unfailing support both prior to and since their mother's passing.
Funeral services are Friday, February 1, 2008 at the LDS meetinghouse, 160 South 460 West, Salem at 11:00 a.m. A viewing will be held just prior at 9:30. Interment will be at the Salem City Cemetery. Online condolences may be submitted to www.serenicare.com.