In the years after World War II, Betty Stallings remembers Opelika’s hungry knocking on the door of the home her grandfather, Willis Guary Prophitt, built across from Mrs. Story’s Dairy Bar. Her grandmother, Eula May Brewer Prophitt, fed everyone who came to her doorstep.“You fed anybody who came for a meal,” Stallings said. “Didn’t matter who it was.”
“For someone so humble, she’s pretty well-known,” said Prophitt’s oldest daughter, 91-year-old Ruby Worthington.
Born in Our Town in Tallapoosa County on May 10, 1904, and orphaned at age 6, Prophitt moved with her family to Opelika in 1936.
“And then we stayed,” Worthington said. “I was 12 when we came.”
Always active, Prophitt maintained her own home before moving in with Worthington about two decades ago.
“It was amazing. As old as she was … she could get everywhere in here that she needed to go,” Worthington said, adding Prophitt would still get her hair done every week. “She was never sitting here at home. She was always out.”
And on Sundays, Prophitt could be found at the head of the dinner table, surrounded by her five generations.
“She always sat at the head of the table,” Stallings said. “The last two weeks were the only times she wasn’t sitting in that chair.”Prophitt started working in textile mills in Alexander City at age 11 and continued working throughout her life. After her husband became a minister and helped construct Opelika’s Church of Christ, Prophitt also served as a Sunday school teacher. Prophitt’s daughter credits her mother’s upbringing for the relationships she built with area youth. “I suppose being an orphan, she was always kind to the younger generation,” Worthington said. “I don’t think she ever thought she couldn’t make it. I think she could handle whatever hardship came.” In her later years, when asked her secret to a long, full life, Prophitt’s answer was always the same. “What she told anybody that asked her was that she planted a seed every day. What she meant was she planted a seed in a person,” Stallings said, adding her grandmother’s legacy is the “inspiration to anyone that met her to be a good person.” Though Prophitt lived to see the election of every president from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama, her family wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye. “I have never known life without my mother. Her last request was for me to take care of the children. Big job. Big job,” Worthington said. “It’s sad. Believe me, it’s sad. But we need to be thankful because we had her for so long. We were not ready, even though she was ill. She was just an integral part of every single person.” Her funeral today was attended by many who loved her and she would have been so proud.
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