(Nov. 5, 2009)
Former Powell resident, Priscilla Magdalen Streeter, died Thursday, Nov. 5 at Valley Health Care in Billings. She was 94. She was born on Oct. 8, 1915 in Mantador, N.D., the only child of Hubert and Mary (Schlener) Jacobs. She graduated from Parshall High School, Parshall, N.D. in 1934 as class valedictorian.
She enjoyed telling the story of how she and her husband-to-be met. She and a girlfriend were in Priscilla’s Model T Ford, driving the streets of Parshall when the friend spotted a fellow she knew standing on a street corner with another CCC boy. The women picked the men up and Priscilla met Donald J. Streeter, Sr.
In 1938, she came to Powell from North Dakota to work as a waitress at the original Coffee Cup Café owned by Don. They were married in Powell on Dec. 1, 1938. They had five children.
Don went into the motel business in 1948, building the Powell Motel, the first in town, and the ‘new’ Coffee Cup Café on Second Street. He died of a sudden heart attack at the motel office on June 25, 1962. Priscilla continued to raise her family and operated the motel with the help of her younger children until their son returned from serving in Vietnam. After finishing college, he and his wife took over the motel.
Priscilla suffered a slight stroke in January 1989 and later spent nine years at the Powell nursing home before moving to Valley Health Care in Billings to be near her youngest daughter and son-in-law. They made her remaining years so special by taking her to their home on a nearly daily basis and including her in social events with their friends in Billings.
Priscilla is survived by her five children, son Donald J. Streeter, Jr., (Denise) of Laramie, and daughters Virginia Sande (Wally) of Bemidji, Minn., Shirley Buttenhoff (Darryl) of Bend, Ore., Kay Karst (John) of Powell and Jackie Renner (Butch) of Billings; seven grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandson.
Thompson Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements for a private family service and burial at Crown Hill Cemetery.