Anne Marie Pratt

Anne (Cindrich) Pratt died at home of natural causes, March 2, 2023, at age 89. She was born Jan. 12, 1934 to Croatian immigrants Joseph and Dragica Cindrich in McKeesport, PA. McKeesport was then a blue-collar steel town where smoke from the mills’ blast furnaces occasionally darkened the skies. Grown children often followed their parents’ footsteps into steel factory jobs.

She and her five siblings grew up devoutly Catholic. They roamed the streets of their Christy Park neighborhood, getting into assorted shenanigans and proud of both their U.S. roots and immigrant heritage.

There was the time when Anne and her high-school chum Virginia jumped up to see if they could grab the cloth awning of a McKeesport storefront and ended up yanking the awning completely off the building. Girls will be girls.

Anne’s broad, white smile inspired her male admirers at Christy Park High School to take bets on the type of toothpaste she used. For the record, it was Colgate. After graduation she went to work on the telephone switchboard at U.S. Steel, where she met Gerry Pratt, a handsome but, in her own words, “full of himself” young accountant.

She didn’t immediately take to Gerry, but he persisted, saying he’d found the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. She and Gerry were married May 28, 1960 and had their first two children, daughters Christine and Karen, while still in McKeesport.

The Pennsylvania steel industry in decline, Gerry and Anne set their sights westward. They packed up their girls and followed Gerry’s accounting career, first for an approximately 2-year stay in Godfrey, Illinois, where their youngest child, son Joseph, was born. Joe was still a baby when they continued west to California, where two of Gerry’s brothers lived. The family later moved again, chasing a job lead to Portland, Oregon, where they settled and raised their family. Gerry died in 2006 after a battle with cancer.

Anne was a devoted wife, mother and grandmother who hiked Portland’s west hills with her children, co-piloted family outings to snow ski on Mt. Hood, camp in Central Oregon and beach comb on the Oregon coast. She loved rooting for her Pittsburgh Steelers and speeding downhill over roller-coaster road bumps, country music playing on the a.m. radio, to squeals of laughter from young Christine, Karen and Joe in the back seat of her old, “three-on-the-tree” Chevy Bel-Air station wagon. That was before the days of seat belts.

When the kids got older, Anne returned to work on the switchboard, this time at General Telephone and Electric (now Verizon) in Beaverton, Oregon. She retired from the company as a supervisor there and managed her own small post office franchise for a time before settling into full retirement.

Anne remained steadfast to her first and truest love – her Catholic faith – for the rest of her life. She was a regular at Bible study in St. Pius X Parish in Portland and, later, at St. Cecilia in Beaverton. She attended weekly Adoration, served as a Eucharistic minister and helped the Women’s Club with potlucks and memorial services. She visited the sick and attended the funerals of fellow parishioners and friends. She rarely missed Sunday mass or a Holy Day of Obligation. She relished belting out her favorite hymns and carols – especially “Angles We Have Heard on High” at Christmas mass.

If a soul can sing and laugh and pray and enjoy the company of friends and be useful, Anne has now found happiness. We’ll miss her.

Anne is survived by daughters Christine Pratt and Karen Eisenberg and son Joseph Pratt, as well as Karen’s sons Nicholas, Dougie and Matthew and the boys’ father Dr. Michael Eisenberg.

A funeral mass, followed by a reception with light lunch/snacks, is planned at St. Cecilia Catholic Church of Beaverton, OR, Thursday, March 9, 2023. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Catholic Charities or simply spending quality time with someone you love.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.peggpaxsonspringerfuneralhome.com for the Pratt family.