Mary Ellen Prescott

MARY ELLEN PRESCOTT 3/18/29 —2/18/14
Mary Ellen Prescott was born on March 18, 1929, in Stillwater, MN, the only daughter of rural mail carrier George William Feis and his wife Hilda Caroline Nelson. She grew up in Stillwater, where she attended St. Michael’s School, meeting her future husband, the late Richard James (Dick) Prescott, when she was in second grade and he in third. They waited until high school, however, to begin dating.
While Dick went off to the Navy and then the U.S. Naval Academy, Mary Ellen began a career as a photographer’s assistant for Jack Anderson Studios, fostering a lifelong love of photography. When she’d saved up enough money from that first job, she bought her first Singer sewing machine, forging a bond with the arts of sewing and related crafts that lasted until her passing.
She married Dick eight days after his Naval Academy graduation, and embarked on the adventure of being a Navy wife. They moved frequently in those first few years, living respectively in San Diego, San Francisco, Long Beach, New London (CT), and Pacific Grove, before settling more or less permanently in the new neighborhood of Allied Gardens in San Diego. There was one more temporary relocation, a two-year stint in Virginia Beach in the mid-Sixties, but after that she returned to her beloved San Diego, where she and Dick put down roots and remained for the balance of their lives.
She was a great Navy wife. Dick could sail the seven seas confident that she was keeping the flame burning on the home front, and teaching their four children (Richard James II (RJ), George, Carol, and Kenneth) the importance of “Beat Army.” She delighted in finding the perfectly-laden citrus tree in front of which to pose the kids for holiday pictures, in order to remind the folks back in Stillwater that other places didn’t have the kind of winter she and Dick grew up “enjoying.”
When the kids were in high school, she became a Band Mother, accompanying the band at Patrick Henry High to parades and other events, always ready with a spot of shoe polish, needle and thread, or whatever improvised solution to the catastrophe at hand was needed. She also returned to school herself, earning an Associate of Arts degree at Mesa College. An avid reader and amateur historian, she possessed a wealth of knowledge in both general American history and US military history.
The game of bridge was a frequent source of entertainment, whether it was with the Navy wives, the visiting junior officers that Dick would bring home for dinner, or a variety of leagues in her later years. She delighted in an all-too-rare grand slam and despaired over “lousy cards” with equal enthusiasm.
Her skill at needlepoint was legion, and all of her children (as well as many of her friends) have been the grateful recipients of her handiwork over the years.
Both she and her husband were founding members of St. Therese Parish, located not far from their home in Allied Gardens, and Mary Ellen remained an active member right up until the time of her passing, acting in the capacity of both usher and greeter during her tenure there. Three of their four children were baptized in the Roman Catholic faith at St. Therese, and all attended the parish during their youth.
She is survived by those children, RJ (Polly), George (Diane), Carol (Thane Tierney) and Ken (Janet), and two granddaughters, Lindsey and Annemarie. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the San Diego Public Library Foundation or the Saint Therese Academy, San Diego.