At 92 years old, Lois Pratt climbed aboard sea planes last August to accompany her family on a salmon-fishing trip in the remote reaches of northern British Columbia. It was an appropriate conclusion to a life of travel that had taken her to many exotic locales, including the South Pacific, the Far East, the Baltics and the Panama Canal. When their three grandchildren were still in high school, Mrs. Pratt and her husband, Lee, took each on a separate trip, letting the grandchild choose the destination as she planned the itinerary. The trip was a way for her to get to know each of her grandchildren better as an individual. “It took our friendship to a higher level,” said Deb Roby, the eldest grandchild, who chose Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti and Fiji for her trip. “It was an amazing experience.” Mrs. Pratt, of Ballard, died Oct. 4 at a local hospital, all of her dreams fulfilled — except one, and Roby plans to rectify that. When her grandmother was in the hospital this year, Roby asked her what else she still wanted to do. Her answer: Get close to Antarctica by going to South America’s southern tip. Roby said she wants to take that trip with her own family someday and spread some of her grandmother’s ashes there. “It’s something I would like to do in her memory, to take my boys, tell them the story and let them know she got there,” she said. Mrs. Pratt was born in Kalama, Cowlitz County. Her mother, Mary Morton Marshall Creveling (1892-1920), died when she was 4 years old, and she and her little sister, Betty Ann, were raised by their maternal grandmother, Ann Davies Perry Marshall, in Vancouver, B.C., until their father, an engineer with the state highway department, remarried Mrs. Edna Elma (Cox) Francis. The family lived all over the state, the longest stretch of time in Vantage, Kittitas County, where the father was helping build a bridge across the Columbia River. Mrs. Pratt attended school by crossing a ferry to Beverly, Grant County, on the opposite side of the river. During the Great Depression, the family moved to Seattle, where Mrs. Pratt worked as a live-in helper for a family headed by the director of Far East studies at the University of Washington. The family gave Mrs. Pratt six woodblock prints from Japan — a gift that began her passion for collecting Asian and Native American art. She also loved gardening and canning, and she was the family authority on pinochle and fishing. She had trained to be a nurse but didn’t finish certification. Yet she was a caregiver to the core, starting when she was a child by helping tend to her little sister, said Lois Roby, Mrs. Pratt’s daughter. “If anyone in the family needed help, she was there at the drop of a hat, no matter where they were,” Lois Roby said. Lee and Lois Pratt married in 1939. After graduating from the UW on the GI Bill, he started a marine-electronics business and she worked as his office manager. As the business grew, she was able to travel. In summer 1958, she took their daughter — 16 at the time — to Europe for three months. “She thought, because of her humble beginnings, she never would be able to do anything like that,” Lois Roby said.
Three years ago, Mrs. Pratt fulfilled another lifelong dream, visiting the State Hermitage Museum in Russia. Mrs. Pratt is survived by her husband of 69 years, Lee Pratt, of Seattle; son Lynn Pratt, of Moyie Springs, Idaho; daughter Lois Roby, of Seattle; three grandchildren; and four great grandchildren.