Prentiss S. Leffler's Obituary
Mr. Leffler went home to be with the Lord on November 21, 2014. He was 95 years old having been born on May 28, 1919. His family’s residence at birth was Buntyn, Tennessee, an old historical part of what is now Memphis named after an ancestor of his. His roots in Memphis trace back to the early 1800s. He was educated at Memphis University School and Southwestern at Memphis, now Rhodes College. He left school in 1941 before Pearl Harbor and volunteered for the U.S. Army. He was assigned to the Air Corps and served three years in the South Pacific theater of WWII. Upon return to Memphis he married Jean Likley Leffler, who also attended Southwestern at Memphis. He was considered an excellent baseball player and pitched for an Army team at a time when many of the best players were in the service. He was known for his fast ball. Mr. Leffler was invited to play in the Memphis Chicks’ system. He spent his working career at International Harvester Corp. and was one of their earliest employees in Memphis, even before the construction of the plant located in Frayser, which became one of the city’s most important and largest employers. He worked for IHC as a Purchasing Agent. He was an excellent golfer and into his 80s was a regular at Overton Park Municipal course accompanied by his son, Prentiss Ray Leffler. He attended Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis and in addition to his son, he is survived by his daughter-in-law, Miriam Whipple Leffler, and a granddaughter and two great grandchildren, and a number of nieces and nephews. The family will receive friends on Monday, November 24 from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm and a graveside service will follow all at Memorial Park Funeral Home. There will also be a military honor guard from the Air National Guard.Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Memorial Park Funeral Home and Cemetery, 5668 Poplar Ave. Memphis, TN 38119, “Behind the Stone Wall.”
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