Obituary for Prudence Elizabeth Fuller
The family of Prudence Elizabeth Fuller is sad to announce Prue’s passing away on 3 June 2021 at Hilltop
House, a long term care facility in Squamish BC. She had been a resident there for the past four years
resulting from Parkinson’s disease. She was 85 years of age-- and down to the end felt a great sense of
gratitude for a rich and adventuresome life. A celebration of life ceremony will be held at 1030 am on
Wednesday 22 September at the Squamish Funeral Chapel. The ceremony can also be viewed on Zoom
with a link from the Chapel.
Prue made many good friends during her early active years in Squamish but sadly her health underwent
considerable decline due to several bad falls while mountain biking and hiking and the onset of
Parkinsons. These conditions put her much out of circulation during the last five years of life as she
lost her mobility and ultimately required long-term care at Hilltop. As a result, many people in the
community did not have the opportunity to experience the more vibrant, dynamic and adventurous
Prue of earlier years.
Prue’s zest for travel and adventure ran through several generations of her family. An earlier relative had served for many years in India in the British
Colonial Service. Another went off to Russia to serve as an English-speaking nanny and governess to the children of the great Russian writer Count Leo
Tolstoy. Yet another branch of her family emigrated to “The Argentine.”
Prue herself was born to Elizabeth and Basil Handford on 20 September 1935 in Lansing, Sussex, England, the third of four children. Her father was a
teacher of classical languages and history at Lansing College where she spent the first thirteen years of her life--apart from a period of several years during
World War II when the entire College was evacuated to Shropshire near the Welsh border away from the south coast of Sussex out of concern for a potential
German cross-channel invasion. Prue later attended the Froebel Institute at Roehampton where she received her degree in teaching.
As a child Prue accompanied her family on several camping trips to the war-torn continent shortly after World War II, including Yugoslavia. At the age
of 18 she traveled on a tramp steamer from Southampton to Cape Town and then on by rail north to Northern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with her uncle
and aunt to help look after her young cousins there whose father was a doctor in the British Colonial Service. She returned by herself later to the UK by
the same route. Several years thereafter Prue’s older sister went to Canada for several years to work as a physiotherapist, her brother served with the UK
Armed Forces in Hong Kong, while her father accepted a teaching job in Connecticut in the US. Prue then decided herself to travel to the US to teach at a
private school in Massachusetts for several years.
Prue met her future husband, Graham, during that period--introduced by their parents who were friends. The two shared an interest in travel and foreign
countries. Prue later always enjoyed telling women in various developing countries that she too had an “arranged marriage.”
After getting married in 1963 she spent a year living in San Antonio, Texas while Graham underwent basic training as a draftee into the US Air Force.
Shortly thereafter, Graham was recruited into the CIA, particularly on the basis of his skill in foreign languages. Beginning in 1964 Prue and Graham
proceeded to live in a series of foreign countries: one year in Germany, two years in Lebanon (Arabic language school), three years in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia; two years in San’a Yemen; three years in Kabul, Afghanistan; and finally four years in Hong Kong — with occasional intermittent tours back in
Washington DC.
Residence in these distant and often difficult environments brought out the best in Prue’s character — a sense of curiosity, adventure, a readiness to put up
with hardship without complaint, to work at learning enough of several difficult languages in order to run the household under often difficult conditions.
She always maintained a positive and open attitude towards life in all these places — appreciating them for their cultures, arts, curiosities and ways of life.
Their two daughters, Samantha and Melissa were both born in Beirut, Lebanon Prue was actively engaged in both practical and diplomatic life at all
these locations. She claimed her favorite posting was Istanbul, Turkey, where she spent a lot of time learning the city, sitting drinking tea with merchants
in the Covered Bazaar, and practicing her Turkish. She also worked with orphans in Istanbul. While living in these countries she and Graham regularly
traveled around to back country areas, later often with their kids in tow. While in Kabul, Afghanistan she had to protect both children during the bombing
and violence of a military coup in in 1978 while Graham was trapped in the Embassy. Prue always kept her cool in the finest British tradition of can-do
and carry-on. While living in Afghanistan the family was able to travel not only around the back country there, but to India and Pakistan, Indonesia and
Thailand and Taiwan as well.
Prue read widely about the history and literature of the countries in which she was living. But she also had a life-long love of the outdoors. She especially
loved dogs and horses, and rode in numerous equestrian dressage events including working with physically and mentally challenged children in Hong
Kong as part of equestrian therapy program. Prue also had a mystical sense about the presence of bears in Squamish, and somehow managed to encounter
more of them out on trails than anyone else in the family.
Prue provided the main organizational dynamic for multiple family activities over the years. She learned local food markets to learn how to make the
native dishes. She took gleeful delight in knowing perhaps fewer foreign words than Graham but knew many words that he did not know for foods, and
practical household thing issues (like wells running dry and cockroaches). She created incredible birthday parties with traditional games for smaller
children. She brushed up her teacher’s skills and taught in a primitive elementary school for foreign children in Yemen. She later supported and joined
Melissa in more serious dog training. She organized and balanced her children’s disparate hobbies, schedules, endless transportation duties with
household tasks that were routinely more challenging in underdeveloped foreign settings.
While living in less travelled countries and cultures Prue built up a collection of tribal and Bedouin peasant jewelery including big neck pieces that she
sometimes wore on social occasions after getting back to the US. Prue had a lifelong interest in clothing and costumes and made almost all her own--often
quite unusual--clothes.
The couple adopted a one-year old Korean boy Luke in 1974 who in his early teen years sadly developed serious drug problems which led to related
complications with the law. Prue bore the daily brunt of many of these problems during later years when the family was living in California... Luke sadly
died of a drug overdose at age 21 in 1995.
After immigrating to Canada in 2003, Prue and Graham traveled around many parts of their new homeland. During her years in Squamish she
enthusiastically took part in horseback riding, hiking, regular trips with the Squamish woman’s bicycle group Women on Wheels (WOW), went kayaking,
as well as joining in quilting group retreats. Even when her diminishing sense of balance made it hard for her to bicycle any more she got herself a hi-tech
trike for which she was well known in riding around town.
Prue had lifelong interest in colour and unconventional art, starting in art college with Cubism and expanding to include textile collections of local
costumes that she often reworked into ball gowns for diplomatic life. She remained to the end bold in experimenting with her own ideas of fashion, colour
and embellishment, however unconventional - it was her style.
She also designed a series of diverse wooden spoon dolls, often influenced by foreign cultures, for new-born family members. as well as unique individual
quilts for numerous weddings of family relatives.
Prue had early aspirations to be a good wife and mother, which are qualities not always understood today. She was the product of very English upbringing
of a different era. Yet her quiet manner hid her considerable art training, her musical skills and education as teacher and her activism. In each location she
insisted on indoor and outdoor play, finding sport or music lessons and teaching children skills. She was a wife and a mother who strived behind the scenes
to make the family desires possible. Quiet competence, English-understated, curiosity, and never-to- say-no to the latest whim of husband or children.
She was a remarkable woman, whose playful supportive role was very special.
Prue is survived by her husband Graham, her two daughters Samantha and Melissa, and her sole surviving sister Camilla Olah in the UK, as well as her
granddaughters Mercedes, Reeve and Cian. Since so many widely scattered family members in the US and overseas cannot attend in person due to Covid
and distance the ceremony will be broadcast on Zoom to allow globally separated family and Squamish community to share memories and photos and
celebrate the understated adventuress that was Prue. Her ashes will be interred at the Squamish Cemetery in a private family reunion sometime in 2022.
No flowers, but donations to Hilltop House are welcomed.
House, a long term care facility in Squamish BC. She had been a resident there for the past four years
resulting from Parkinson’s disease. She was 85 years of age-- and down to the end felt a great sense of
gratitude for a rich and adventuresome life. A celebration of life ceremony will be held at 1030 am on
Wednesday 22 September at the Squamish Funeral Chapel. The ceremony can also be viewed on Zoom
with a link from the Chapel.
Prue made many good friends during her early active years in Squamish but sadly her health underwent
considerable decline due to several bad falls while mountain biking and hiking and the onset of
Parkinsons. These conditions put her much out of circulation during the last five years of life as she
lost her mobility and ultimately required long-term care at Hilltop. As a result, many people in the
community did not have the opportunity to experience the more vibrant, dynamic and adventurous
Prue of earlier years.
Prue’s zest for travel and adventure ran through several generations of her family. An earlier relative had served for many years in India in the British
Colonial Service. Another went off to Russia to serve as an English-speaking nanny and governess to the children of the great Russian writer Count Leo
Tolstoy. Yet another branch of her family emigrated to “The Argentine.”
Prue herself was born to Elizabeth and Basil Handford on 20 September 1935 in Lansing, Sussex, England, the third of four children. Her father was a
teacher of classical languages and history at Lansing College where she spent the first thirteen years of her life--apart from a period of several years during
World War II when the entire College was evacuated to Shropshire near the Welsh border away from the south coast of Sussex out of concern for a potential
German cross-channel invasion. Prue later attended the Froebel Institute at Roehampton where she received her degree in teaching.
As a child Prue accompanied her family on several camping trips to the war-torn continent shortly after World War II, including Yugoslavia. At the age
of 18 she traveled on a tramp steamer from Southampton to Cape Town and then on by rail north to Northern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with her uncle
and aunt to help look after her young cousins there whose father was a doctor in the British Colonial Service. She returned by herself later to the UK by
the same route. Several years thereafter Prue’s older sister went to Canada for several years to work as a physiotherapist, her brother served with the UK
Armed Forces in Hong Kong, while her father accepted a teaching job in Connecticut in the US. Prue then decided herself to travel to the US to teach at a
private school in Massachusetts for several years.
Prue met her future husband, Graham, during that period--introduced by their parents who were friends. The two shared an interest in travel and foreign
countries. Prue later always enjoyed telling women in various developing countries that she too had an “arranged marriage.”
After getting married in 1963 she spent a year living in San Antonio, Texas while Graham underwent basic training as a draftee into the US Air Force.
Shortly thereafter, Graham was recruited into the CIA, particularly on the basis of his skill in foreign languages. Beginning in 1964 Prue and Graham
proceeded to live in a series of foreign countries: one year in Germany, two years in Lebanon (Arabic language school), three years in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia; two years in San’a Yemen; three years in Kabul, Afghanistan; and finally four years in Hong Kong — with occasional intermittent tours back in
Washington DC.
Residence in these distant and often difficult environments brought out the best in Prue’s character — a sense of curiosity, adventure, a readiness to put up
with hardship without complaint, to work at learning enough of several difficult languages in order to run the household under often difficult conditions.
She always maintained a positive and open attitude towards life in all these places — appreciating them for their cultures, arts, curiosities and ways of life.
Their two daughters, Samantha and Melissa were both born in Beirut, Lebanon Prue was actively engaged in both practical and diplomatic life at all
these locations. She claimed her favorite posting was Istanbul, Turkey, where she spent a lot of time learning the city, sitting drinking tea with merchants
in the Covered Bazaar, and practicing her Turkish. She also worked with orphans in Istanbul. While living in these countries she and Graham regularly
traveled around to back country areas, later often with their kids in tow. While in Kabul, Afghanistan she had to protect both children during the bombing
and violence of a military coup in in 1978 while Graham was trapped in the Embassy. Prue always kept her cool in the finest British tradition of can-do
and carry-on. While living in Afghanistan the family was able to travel not only around the back country there, but to India and Pakistan, Indonesia and
Thailand and Taiwan as well.
Prue read widely about the history and literature of the countries in which she was living. But she also had a life-long love of the outdoors. She especially
loved dogs and horses, and rode in numerous equestrian dressage events including working with physically and mentally challenged children in Hong
Kong as part of equestrian therapy program. Prue also had a mystical sense about the presence of bears in Squamish, and somehow managed to encounter
more of them out on trails than anyone else in the family.
Prue provided the main organizational dynamic for multiple family activities over the years. She learned local food markets to learn how to make the
native dishes. She took gleeful delight in knowing perhaps fewer foreign words than Graham but knew many words that he did not know for foods, and
practical household thing issues (like wells running dry and cockroaches). She created incredible birthday parties with traditional games for smaller
children. She brushed up her teacher’s skills and taught in a primitive elementary school for foreign children in Yemen. She later supported and joined
Melissa in more serious dog training. She organized and balanced her children’s disparate hobbies, schedules, endless transportation duties with
household tasks that were routinely more challenging in underdeveloped foreign settings.
While living in less travelled countries and cultures Prue built up a collection of tribal and Bedouin peasant jewelery including big neck pieces that she
sometimes wore on social occasions after getting back to the US. Prue had a lifelong interest in clothing and costumes and made almost all her own--often
quite unusual--clothes.
The couple adopted a one-year old Korean boy Luke in 1974 who in his early teen years sadly developed serious drug problems which led to related
complications with the law. Prue bore the daily brunt of many of these problems during later years when the family was living in California... Luke sadly
died of a drug overdose at age 21 in 1995.
After immigrating to Canada in 2003, Prue and Graham traveled around many parts of their new homeland. During her years in Squamish she
enthusiastically took part in horseback riding, hiking, regular trips with the Squamish woman’s bicycle group Women on Wheels (WOW), went kayaking,
as well as joining in quilting group retreats. Even when her diminishing sense of balance made it hard for her to bicycle any more she got herself a hi-tech
trike for which she was well known in riding around town.
Prue had lifelong interest in colour and unconventional art, starting in art college with Cubism and expanding to include textile collections of local
costumes that she often reworked into ball gowns for diplomatic life. She remained to the end bold in experimenting with her own ideas of fashion, colour
and embellishment, however unconventional - it was her style.
She also designed a series of diverse wooden spoon dolls, often influenced by foreign cultures, for new-born family members. as well as unique individual
quilts for numerous weddings of family relatives.
Prue had early aspirations to be a good wife and mother, which are qualities not always understood today. She was the product of very English upbringing
of a different era. Yet her quiet manner hid her considerable art training, her musical skills and education as teacher and her activism. In each location she
insisted on indoor and outdoor play, finding sport or music lessons and teaching children skills. She was a wife and a mother who strived behind the scenes
to make the family desires possible. Quiet competence, English-understated, curiosity, and never-to- say-no to the latest whim of husband or children.
She was a remarkable woman, whose playful supportive role was very special.
Prue is survived by her husband Graham, her two daughters Samantha and Melissa, and her sole surviving sister Camilla Olah in the UK, as well as her
granddaughters Mercedes, Reeve and Cian. Since so many widely scattered family members in the US and overseas cannot attend in person due to Covid
and distance the ceremony will be broadcast on Zoom to allow globally separated family and Squamish community to share memories and photos and
celebrate the understated adventuress that was Prue. Her ashes will be interred at the Squamish Cemetery in a private family reunion sometime in 2022.
No flowers, but donations to Hilltop House are welcomed.