Evening star., 1936-06-21

T UNABLE to pay the District
government sos 900 in back
taxes, three elderly women
~ who once. as the Prall
sisters" we're leaders in the world of
wealth here. face possible eviction
from the venerable vine-clad house in
which they we're born-on~ Sixteenth
street, near Lafayette square.
Impoverished by nearly a quarter
of century of litigation over owner
ship of the valuable. but sadly run
down, brick building in which they
had hoped to spend the rest of their
days, the sisters yesterday learned
with emotion of plans of the Com
misSioners to auction their home for
the taxes.
1T has been through no fault of
ours that those taxes accumulated
during all those years of litigation, -
explained one of the sisters, Mrs
Emma Prall Knorr, in an interview
yesterday in the old house, 918-20
Sixteenth street. I'VE could not pay
the taxes while the ownership of the
property was being decided by the
courts, and when the District Court
of Appeals finally awarded us the
property in 1926, our funds had been
exhausted"
Rearing Granddaughter.
Mrs Knorr lives in the old building
with her sisters, Miss Virginia M.
Prall and Mrs. Annie Prall Fahne-
stock, and with her 14-year-old grand
daughter, Gerald Lavagnino, better
known as Jerry. Jerry's mother was
killed in an automobile accident IL
years ago and her grandmother has
reared her since. All three sisters are
between IS and 10 years old.
I'VE can't go out on the street
but there is no place else for us to
go if they put us out of here" Mrs.
Knoor declared, as she sat on an an
cient sofa in the old-fashioned par
Ior of her home. My sisters and I
fought for our rights to the property
for more than 20 years-and now that
we finally have been given sole title
to it for life, the government wants
to take our home from us.
I'VE are not tax evaders. We want
to pay our debt to the. government,
but by the time we were adjudged own
ers, the tax bill had grown to more
than $4,000. We have tried every
way we know to sell this property
for e reasonable price, but people are
not buying property in this neighbor-
hood, it seems,
Two Adjoining Structures.
The sisters make their home actually
in two adjoining brick structures. One
of these, at 900 Sixteenth street, is
the original residence of their father,
the late William E. Prall, 1st, noted
engineer and inventor. The other was
built by their father on what was
the garden Of the house, to
the south. He also built the Gordon
Hotel, Immediately adjoining the
sisters home. Making more than half
a million dollars on his inventions,
which included motors Of various
types, Prall acquired mucn Valuable
in downtown Washington
near Lafayette Square. f.
Prall's will left the property to his
son, william e. Prall, I'd, and his
daughters, Virginia, Annie and Emma.
All remained in harmonious poses
sion Of the property until the younger
Pralls death in 1908. Then troubles
Of the, sisters began.
Prall's will left the property to his
sisters. His wife went to court to
contest the WILL. claiming the prop
erty should have been willed to her.
After some years of litigation the
succeeded in breaking
the will and was awarded custody of
the property. The sisters fought this
action through To court for many