MEMORIES AND REFLECTIONS of JOE FULBRIGHT

A REAL "OLD TIMER"

by David Fulbright

(I interviewed Joe in his Springfield, Missouri home. He and his lovely wife Bertha bubbled with family information and stories.) Joe recalls the Dry Glaize, a home for several generations of Fulbrights. Members of the family moved there very early. While William and John moved to the Springfield, Missouri area, other members of John Fulbright's family settled on this "dry river bed." That is what Jim McClure, Joe's cousin called it. Jim once said, "It was a dry river bed and the best farm land around. You could lay it back with a double shovel. It was black, deep and rich. They made a lot of money on it. They knew what they were doing when they settled on that land." The head of the dry river bed is in Lebanon, Missouri, and its mouth is at the Lake of the Ozarks at Osage Beach, Missouri. The neighborhood lies approximately ten miles north of present day Lebanon, Missouri.

It was truly Fulbright country. Joe said at one point, "The old Greenstreet School had forty Fulbright cousins at one time." The family was dominant in that neighborhood. Many of them went to the Friendship Christian Church. (That may be a future story in itself.) Like the neighborhood, Friendship Church was full of Fulbrights.

Joe was the great grandson of Mahala Fulbright McClure. Mahala was the daughter of John Fulbright who moved to Missouri from the Smoky Mountains in 1815. His grandfather, David McClure was another pioneer in the area. He too needs a separate story. J.D. McClure and Minerva Bohannan were his grandparents. The Bohannans had settled on the Glaize about the same time the Fulbrights. On the other side of the family Joe had Fulbrights too. William Fulbright (Uncle Billy) who settled in Springfield was his great, great grandfather. His great grandfather was David Leander Fulbright and his grandfather was Samuel Roberson Fulbright ("Springfield Sam"). Samuel married Laurel Turner, the child of yet another pioneer Dry Glaize family. His father was Roy D. Fulbright who married Velma McClure. When the Roy and Velma married, two Fulbright lines converged! His great great grandfather Daniel (Mahala McClure's father) was his great great grandfather William's brother. Joe could not get away from being a Fulbright. What most of us have once, he had twice.

Joe recalls the story of Andrew Turner, his father's maternal grandfather, who went to Blossom Prairie, Texas to stay until the end of the Civil War. He had been on the Dry Glaize. He left the key to the smoke house with a trusted slave and told him to ration out the smoked, cured meat to the other slaves. Otherwise, the meat would have been quickly used. Tom came back after the war to find the smoke house empty, the slaves gone and everything changed.

I hope that everyone who knows anything about Aunt Lemon will contact the editor. She pops up in many Dry Glaize stories. Jean Burgess's understanding about Lemon is common. Lemon never married. She had been Captain James Harvey Fulbright's house slave. When the war was over, Lemon refused to leave the Fulbrights. She protested that she had "raised" the children. She had no intentions of leaving. Joe recalls Lemon. She did indeed refuse to leave, but he wonders if she was not a Turner slave. She would have been the only one left after the war. Whatever the case, Lemon went all over the neighborhood to help expectant mothers with their babies' births and with the new born infants. She practically took care of all of the babies in the neighborhood. Joe remembers her being with the Lambeths, another area family.

Joe's memory is that the Turner place bordered the J.H. Fulbright farm. His own father's farm also shared a border with the J.H. Fulbright place. Neighbors married neighbors and distant cousins were often important "kin."

Joe was born on the Dr. James "Jack" Titterington place that was also next to the J.H. Fulbright farm. Dr. Titterington had married Captain Fulbright's sister. Mrs. Titterington's sister, Mrs. Emma Ward also lived on a farm adjoining her father and mother's farm. For those of you who recall Dr. James Harvey Fulbright , a Springfield surgeon, (about whom we shall soon carry a story), he was the son of Captain James Harvey Fulbright. His model for becoming an M.D. was his uncle, Dr. Titterington.

With this background, it is no accident that we recently a diplomatically worded correction from Joe about something that recently appeared in this newsletter. He told us that we were wrong about the late James Atchley. He was indeed related by marriage to the late Daniel Fulbright, but Joe added that James Atchley was the son of Bert Atchley who was the grandson of Ephriam Fulbright and the great grandson of Levi C. Fulbright. James was indeed a member of the Fulbright by birthright.

Joe was born on July 7, 1910, on the Dry Glaize. He went to the Friendship Christian Church and the Friendship School. At age 15, he graduated from the eight grade. He boarded a passenger train at Sleeper, Missouri and headed for St. Louis where he boarded a Wabash passenger train bound for Salisbury, Missouri. He went to Prairie Hill High School and attended there for three years before moving to Stoutland, Missouri in Camden County. He graduated from high school in 1929. After high school, he acted as an automobile driver for a retired medical doctor who wanted to go to California. After many stops at garages to work on the automobile, Joe delivered the physician to San Bernadino, California. He had sixty-five cents in his pocket and no prospect of a job. A man literally drove up to him as he stood on the street and asked if would be interested in working in the hay fields near Banning, California. Joe was interested! After a few weeks of working in the hay fields, he got a job in Venice, California working in the oil fields. This job came with the help of his uncle, Clifford Fulbright. From there he went to work for the Macco Construction Company. He lasted only six months there. If one listens carefully to Joe's story, one has the strong impression that he might have come home to Lebanon, Missouri to be near a certain young lady. He worked for Swift and Company and on October 30, 1932 married Bertha Hillhouse whom he had met in high school at Stoutland, Missouri. Bertha was teaching school at the time of their marriage, and because of the strictness of the times told no one of her new marriage. She wanted to keep her job! She and Joe kept their secret for two years. Bertha taught at Stoutland, Montreal, Sweat, Pritchet, Sleeper and at Stoutland again until 1965. She then went to Waynesville, Missouri and taught from 1974 to 1979. Joe's career followed different lines. He began work at Fr. Leonard Wood, Missouri in 1942 and bought a farm two and one-half miles from Stoutland. Joe and Bertha are far from the farm now. They live in a lovely area of southern Springfield, Missouri. Joe's health has not been good recently, but please, remember this man retired early with heart failure thirty-five years ago. At 85, he still tells a good story and is a gracious host.

Joe and Bertha's personal story is not complete without pointing to their family. They have three girls. Dorothy JoAnn Knight is married to Robert Knight. They live in Waynesville. The Knights have four children, Robert Allen, Jr., David, John and Jackie Ohlms. Joe and Bertha's daughter Sue lives in Springfield, and their daughter, Patrician Ann lives at Waynesville. Pat and husband Billy Ransdall operate a recycling plant at Rolla, Missouri. They have two children, LeAnne who is married to Jason Jaskil (Waynesville) and Amy who remains in the home. Amy plans to finish Drury College this year. All of the other grandchildren have graduated from college. Joe and Bertha also have ten great grandchildren. Bob Knight has three daughters. David Knight has two boys. John Knight has a daughter. Jackie Ohlms has three girls. LeAnn Jaskil has a son. The family has gone on, hasn't it?