1964 – Pratt-Tenzler Hall Grand Opening Declared “Margaret Long – Frank Neal Day.”
By R. Franklin Thompson, President, University of Puget Sound
“We are gathered here today to pay tribute to one of the historic moments of the City of Tacoma – the dedication of the Pratt-Tenzler Hall as a part of the Tobey Jones Home. For many years, the Tobey Jones Home has rendered splendid service to many people. The joy and security which it has brought to deserving people are warm and glowing factors of the contemporary civilization in our own city.
“Today we add to that facility the Pratt-Tenzler Hall. As you have visited rooms and walked through the halls, and inspected the facilities which are being dedicated today, there is a warm glow in the heart because this beautiful building will bring a sense of security and rosy glow in the sunset years of the people who are its occupants.
“The genius of America is that the common man does the uncommon thing, and today we are met to pay homage and tribute to those people who have made the Pratt-Tenzler Home possible – the very fine gift from Mr. Pratt and the estate of his wife, and the very excellent fit of the Tenzler Foundation. The most subtle kind of help comes when lives are given security, a sense of joy, a sense of well-being, and all of these emanate from this building and from this Home. When a Home like this is established, it not only touches the lives of those who come to it in its beginning, but year after year, generation after generation, and decade after decade, it performs its function and gives those qualities which make lives great and fine. Without ostentation and without headlines, it touches life, after life, after life. Thus, our civilization is built, the influence is made powerful, and lives march on and on and on, in the name and memory of those who make such wonderful things possible in the community.”
Tacoma News Tribune January 6, 1964: “Pratt-Tenzler Hall, an 83-apartment addition approximately doubling the size of Tacoma’s famed Franke Tobey Jones Home, was dedicated with a formal ceremony Sunday afternoon. An estimated 250 persons, many of them contributors toward expansion of the retirement Home adjoining Point Defiance Park, were in attendance as Herman Tenzler, Tacoma industrialist and President of the Tenzler Foundation, presented a symbolic key to the Home to Attorney Frank Neal, President of the Homes Board of Trustees. The occasion, in fact, was informally declared “Margaret Long – Frank Neal Day.” Miss Long is a member of the Board of which she was for many years secretary. Illness kept her from the ceremony. In the words of Hugh Williamson, the Homes Vice Present who served as master of ceremonies for the dedication, ‘these two people have served on the Board of the Franke Tobey Jones Home for almost 40 years, since before the first unit was built in 1925. It would be fitting to name the day in Home of Miss Long and Neal.’”
Pratt-Tenzler Hall opened with the capacity for 70 seniors, dining hall, kitchen, gathering areas and modern infirmary staffed by registered nurses and the Home’s own physician.
