My Mother, dearly loved and sorely missed.

Jeneva Lorene (Pruitt) Schaller, 95, passed peacefully away at 7:24 pm on May 26, 2015 after a long-term armed resistance against the ravages of old age and kidney disease. 

A Phoenix resident since 1952, she was born in Brown County, Indiana to Doyle Pruitt and his wife, Lula Belle. While the family moved around for a while during the depression years, she mostly grew up in Attica, Indiana, then trained as a nurse in Chicago, and married Robert W. Schaller in 1944.  The family relocated to Phoenix in 1952, for their first son's health and Dad's allergies. 

Mom as a teenager

The things she cared about most were her home, and her family. She always put others first, before her own needs.  Even at the end of her life, with everything that was happening to her and her physical disablement, she was still trying to care for others and worrying about them. She was always interested in and wanted to hear about what others were doing.

Mom loved gardening and flowers, and over the years turned a mostly-bare piece of desert ground in Paradise Valley into a beautiful desert oasis; the yard still blooms from her hand and efforts over many years.  Every year when the yard and the foliage is beautiful, I will think of her. She was very independent, self-sufficient and stubborn; she had opinions about everything. She was an extremely militant old lady!  I often referred to her as the Silver Panther (akin to "Black Panther?"  Same idea...)

Mom couldn't drive a car with a standard transmission, so she learned to drive in her 30s after Dad bought her a car with an automatic, and after that, he claimed he never saw her again. She continued to drive at high speeds until about age 90, at which time she hung up her keys and gave her car to her granddaughter.


L/R, Jeneva, Nelson, Doyle, Lula, Pearl and Mae

Nothing was ever more important to her than her family and she demonstrated that fact every day. She had two sisters Mae Whitmore, of Defiance, MO, and Pearl Moore, of Connersville, IN and one brother, Nelson, of Attica, IN.  Mom was preceded in death by two sons, Scotty and Tommy, her parents Doyle and Lula, her sister Mae and her brother Nelson, and husband, Robert W. Schaller.  She is survived by her beloved sister Pearl, her son Robert, and daughters Kristina and Ruth. She loved nine grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren. 

Her interment was on May 30th, 2015 at Phoenix Memorial Park, located at 200 W. Beardsley Rd, Phoenix. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do was to leave her there. Friends and family met at Hansen Mortuary, 8314 N. 7th Street, Phoenix AZ around 8:30 AM for a brief visitation and 9:30 AM motorcade to the cemetery. The graveside service began at 10:00 AM and friends called at the family home after the burial.  In lieu of flowers, we asked for donations to the Salvation Army or to Hospice of the Valley.