Jessie Pratt

Jessie Rich Pratt, 102, passed away Wednesday, August 22, 2018, at her home in Ottawa. She chose to donate her body to the University of Kansas Medical School. Memorial services will be held at 2:00 P.M., Saturday, September 8, 2018, at the First Baptist Church, Ottawa. Jessie was born Saturday, October 2, 1915, in Katy, Texas, the daughter of Richard “Dick” Lester and Lilly (Cobb) Rich. She moved from Texas with her family, at the age of three, to Enid, Oklahoma and to a farm south of Wichita, Kansas, at the age of seven. She moved to Ottawa, Kansas, to attend Ottawa University and has lived there since that time. Jessie graduated from Derby High School in Derby, Kansas with the class of 1933 and attended Ottawa University. Jessie was united in marriage to Harry M. Pratt April 25, 1937, at Derby, Kansas. He preceded her in death on August 12, 1995. She was also preceded in death by her parents, Richard “Dick” and Lilly Rich; sisters, Darlene Horton, Virginia Rich and Garnet Rich; stillborn brother and brother, Berton Rich. She is survived by sons, Dale Pratt and wife Nita of Aurora, Colorado, Marvin Pratt and wife Sandra of Northglenn, Colorado and Allen Pratt and wife Marcia of Creighton, Missouri; daughter, Lilly Coultis of Ottawa; brother, Clifford Dale Rich and wife Barbara of Wichita; sister, Carol Marley of Oklahoma, City, Oklahoma; fourteen grandchildren; twenty-two great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren. Jessie was a lifetime servant of the Lord. She was a ten-year member of First Baptist Church in Derby; a very active forty-year member of the North Baptist Church in Ottawa and a member of First Baptist Church in Ottawa since 1980. She was PTA President of Lincoln Elementary School from 1945 to 1950; a Ransom Memorial Hospital Auxiliary volunteer receiving an award for the volunteer of the year in 2004; a reading mentor at Eisenhower Elementary for one year; a charter member of and a participant in Sweet Adeline’s from 1959 through 1972 and a member of Kiwanis Queens. She also mentored elementary school students. Jessie taught school in a little country school ten miles south of El Dorado in Butler County for the school year of 1936-1937. She was a homemaker and worked five years at the Sunflower Ordinance Plant in De Soto, Kansas and along with her husband, partnered in the ownership of the Select Dairy in Ottawa from 1955 until 1972. She worked as credit manager at Ransom Memorial Hospital from 1972 until retiring in 1978. Memorial contributions may be made to First Baptist Church of Ottawa c/o Dengel & Son Mortuary, 235 S. Hickory, Ottawa, Kansas 66067. Family and friends are encouraged to post condolences and memories on Jessie’s Tribute Wall at www.dengelmortuary.com