Dolly CRABTREE

1925 - 2019

CRABTREE, Dolly Nashville, Tennessee Dolly Nance Fischer Crabtree died on March 28, 2019, following an extended illness. She was born on June 13, 1925, the only child of Raymond Bernard Fischer and Frances Drucilla "Dolly" Nance Fischer. Her early childhood was spent in Cincinnati, Ohio, where her father was employed by The Procter & Gamble Company, but following his untimely death in 1932, she returned with her mother to Nashville, where she grew up and lived the rest of her life. She was a graduate of St. Bernard Academy (at the age of 16), and of Vanderbilt University, where she was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. A lifelong and devout Catholic, she had been a parishioner of the Cathedral of the Incarnation, and was a long-time member of St. Henry's parish. She was a member of the Belle Meade Country Club, and had been a long-time member of both the Colonna Club and the Centennial Club, as well as an active participant in the Ladies of Charity. She had a long and consummately happy marriage to Nashville architect Bruce I. Crabtree, Jr., whom she met while they were students at Vanderbilt. For 66 years, they were the living definition of genuine mutual love and admiration (even if she was by the admission of her husband and children alike the "adult supervision"). She was open, warm-hearted and good humored (it was impossible to live in Bruce Crabtree's household without a sense of humor). She was genuinely and deeply interested in other people, and they returned that interest with warm appreciation she had an enormous fan club. Though she typically downplayed her own intellectual gifts, she was highly intelligent and well-read. She was a fine conversationalist, always accessible, and a great listener even her children's friends thought so. A child of the Depression, she was skeptical of possessions, frugal and always vaguely astonished at her own material comforts. Perhaps because she had grown up without siblings, she reveled in her houseful of children, in which she found great fulfillment. She was an involved and loving mother, and a quiet but formative example of self-discipline and strength of character. She practiced stringent restrictions on "screen time" (back when that was a comment about television), and was a strong believer in reading, outdoor play and "look it up in the encyclopedia." She managed to be, for all her children, at once both a strong moral role model and an ever-present source of continuing and unqualified love. She is predeceased by her husband, Bruce, but survived by their five children: Anna Hunter Crabtree, of Nashville; Bruce I. Crabtree, III (B.J.), of Atlanta, Georgia; Drucilla N. Pugh (Michael), of Pueblo, Colorado; Raymond F. Crabtree (Ashley), of Nashville; and Thomas W. Crabtree (Deborah), of Asheville, North Carolina. She is also survived by her nine grandchildren: Allyson Pugh Garrison (Greg), of Denver, Colorado; Emily Pugh Middour (Thomas), of New Orleans, Louisiana; Elizabeth Crabtree Akins (Jonathan) and Bruce I. Crabtree, IV (Erin), both of Atlanta, Georgia; Rachel Hunter Crabtree, of Asheville, North Carolina; and Thomas Balfour Crabtree, Preston Hunter Crabtree, Mary Claire Crabtree and Taylor Nance Crabtree, all of Nashville. She is also survived by her great-granddaughter, Garland Grace Middour, of New Orleans, Louisiana. The family is grateful to the caregivers from Band of Angels who attended Dolly for so many years, and in particular during her last illness, especially Donna Brinkman, Charlotte Malin, Rahel Mekonnen, Asmeret Wolde-Selassie and Wendy Garvon. Her life will be celebrated at a Mass of Christian Burial at St. Henry Catholic Church, 6401 Harding Road, Nashville, on Monday, April 1, 2019 at 11 o'clock a.m., with family visitation beginning an hour before the Mass. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in her memory to either St. Henry Catholic Church or the Ladies of Charity Nashville.