Janice F. Prugh; Soprano

Janice F. Prugh, a longtime Glendale resident and accomplished soprano soloist who started as a child singer on radio before hosting her own weekly radio program, died after a long illness. She was 79.

Mrs. Prugh, who died Thursday, was born June 14, 1913, in Dayton, Ohio, and studied voice with the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. By age 12 she had performed on radio in Delaware and upstate New York.

Her devotion to music was inspired by her mother, who as a child in the late 1800s sang on what family members believe was the first phonograph recording for Thomas Edison, a close associate of Mrs. Prugh’s maternal grandmother.

As Janice Belle, using her given middle name, she was featured soloist on the coast-to-coast inaugural broadcast of Dayton radio station WHIO in 1934. She later sang light opera and show tunes as host of a weekly program on WWSW in Pittsburgh.

She married Harold H. Prugh in 1935. They moved to Carter Lake, Iowa, in 1944 and to Glendale in 1950. Mrs. Prugh then became a soloist for the Glendale Presbyterian Church choir and sang with a choral group on a Southern California television program hosted by evangelist Fred Jordan.

She is survived by her husband, Harold, of Glendale; two sons, Jeffery, of Glendale, and Vincent, of San Francisco; two grandchildren and two brothers, William Fryer of Lancaster and Harold Fryer of Dana Point.

A memorial service will be conducted at 3 p.m. Tuesday at Glendale Presbyterian Church, 125 S. Louise St. Kiefer & Eyerick Mortuary in Glendale is handling the arrangements.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be sent to the American Cancer Society or the Glendale Presbyterian Church.