Harold Pruitt

Harold Francis Pruitt was born in the winter of 1937, the eldest of five, and served as an altar boy at Sacred Heart from the age of eight. He returned to the same parish every Sunday of his life that he was in the country, and for fifty years counted the collection on Monday mornings.

He worked for the railway, first on the platforms and then in the signal box, and wrote a letter every week to each of his brothers and sisters until the last of them died. He kept a chest of photographs that he could narrate for an afternoon, and often did.

He was predeceased by his wife, Mary, in 2019. He is survived by his children Catherine and James, six grandchildren, and the many people at Sacred Heart who called him Mr. Pruitt long after he asked them to stop.