The Fuller Story
Dr. Samuel Fuller and his brother Edward came to America from England on the Mayflower and settled in New York. Edward died in the first year in the new land and his son, Samuel, was raised by his physician uncle. And so the story of the Fuller Family in America begins.
Our story picks up in the mid-1800's with the marriage of Zacheus Fuller to Emaline Briggs. Zacheus died while still in his middle age, leaving Amaline with three children: Lewis, Caroline and Adelade. Those four traveled with other members of the Briggs family, coming from around Sardinia, arriving here around 1840. Emaline shows up in the 1850 census living with a Pierce family north of Brunswick where she was probably a housekeeper. She died in 1896 at the age of 83 and is buried at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery.
At just about the same time, the Page family was migrating from the Connecticut Valley by wagon train and then by flatboat, arriving in Cleveland. The story goes that, farmers all, they arrived in the Cleveland area, kicked the ground and found it too sandy for farming, so kept going until they came to the fertile Hinckley area.
It was there, on the Ridge, that Elsie was born. The Pages, however, were true pioneers and decided after some time to move on to greener pastures. Elsie's choice was to move on or remain behind. She remained and married, on the day after the Civil War ended, Lewis Fuller. The Pages moved on to Iowa and eventually further west.
The Fullers had four children: Dora, Gene, Mertie and Earl. They settled on what the modenr-day Fullers call "The Old Place," on Sodom Street (Sleepy Hollow Road) across from Sleepy Hollow Lake on the corner of Shirt Tail Avenue (Carpenter Road). Oh yes, at the time, Laurel Road was called Pompey Street.
In 1878 the old house burned down and the family moved further west on Sleepy Hollow Road. Later they built a two story home (one large room on each floor) back on the old farm which had 50 acres of land and then about 10 years later, moved to the farm they purchased on West 130th Street. That was on 80 acres of the original 500 acre Phelps farm. Over the years, Earl Fuller was able to buy and put back together almost the entire farm, 480 acres of it. The farm covered the area from West 130th Street to Carpenter Road south of Sleepy Hollow. I-71 took 35 acres and 20 acres are used for the county sewer plant leaving 425 of the original Fuller Family Farm in the Fuller name today.
Of the children of Lewis and Emaline, Dora married Charles Scanlon who was the county commissioner in the 1920s. Their children are June (Wheeler), Thomas, John, Myrtie, Leatha and Zoe.
Eugene (Gene) married Lydia Graf of Abbeyville. He bought the property at 1959 Carpenter Road in 1903 where his son, Glenn still lives. There is no record of the age of the home, but the basement is supported by beams which are long logs complete with the bark still on.
Gene and Lydia had five children: Ora (now deceased); Gladys (Morton - wife of Vivan); Ethel (Holden); Marian (Schindelholz) and Glenn. Gene died in 1926 when Glenn was six years old and was buried on Glenn's seventh birthday. Lydia died at the age of 96 in 1970.
Mertie married Fred Manning of Bennett's Corners and they moved to Akron. They had one son, Eugene.
Earl was 39 before he met and married Nellie Ashdown who had arrived in the Brunswick area with her family from England in 1913. In fact, the family lived in the brick building which is now part of the Pine Tree Inn. Consequently, the children of Earl and Nellie are the youngest of the family.
Nellie was a youngster when she arrived here and helped her family by working at a variety of jobs. She learned to cook "Yankee" food to the satisfaction of everyone and her jobs included picking strawberries day after day. After marrying a "solid Yankee," Earl Page Fuller, they had four children: Harold, who married Althea Kugle, Lewis W. who married Roberta Davidson; Warren who married B. J. Moreland; and Gilbert who married Henrietta Armbruster.
The modern day Fullers who have remained hereabouts are active members of the community as were their forefathers when the community was young.
Glenn, who married June Cline (a woman who had won some fame as a tap dancer) has three children: Donna Wachtell, Darl and Denny. Glenn graduated from Brunswick High School in 1936 and farmed until he began working part time for the government in 1938. His first paycheck for one day was $4.50. In 1952 he began working full time for the U. S. Department of Agriculture and retired in 1974. Glenn was on the first zoning board of Brunswick Township, writing the first zoning laws; was a trustee for 15 years; was active in the separation of the Hills from the incorporated Village of Brunswick; and was a Hills trustee. He was vice-president of the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission, president and regional director of NASCO and on the Medina Hospital Board.
Harold had three children. Eugene is a linguistic expert and Bible translator working in the Phillipines. David, deceased, was an associate professor at Taylor University. Elaine lives in Oregon.
Lewis and Roberta have four children: Leslie, a vice president with Ken Cleveland Builders, Inc.; Jackie Morlock, a former school teacher who now lives in Westfield Center; Gary, an insurance salesperson who graduated from Bowling Green State University; and Randy, who graduated from Akron University.
Both Lew and Roberta have been active in many community projects. Lew was quite a baseball player, beginning at Hinckley in high school and proceeding after and even in the service where he served as a medical technician in Patton's Army. Among his activities: he was Brunswick Postmaster, member of the Chamber of Commerce, a real estate broker and fee appraiser. At 70 he still does some appraisal work and recenly retraced his movements in Europe in the Army.
Warren and B.J. are also active. Warren is an insurance agent with Equitable and she is a real estate salesperson. They have four children: Page, a graduate of Kent living in Alaska, Eric, Mark and Leah Pederson who graduated from Miami University. Warren lives on West 130th Street on property just down from the remains of the grandparents' home which had burned down.
Gilbert, the youngest, remains the farmer in the family. He has four children: Earl, Amy, Rebecah and Timothy.
Earl died in 1961 and Nellie winters in Florida but always returns home in the summer. She corresponds with friends from all around the country.
Lew, Warren and Glenn all remember either seeing or hearing about the family swimming and catching fish along Plum Creek on the old farm. Glenn's sister used to swim there and remembers finding bones which were said to be Indian bones - part of the legend of the area which was once called Indian Hill.
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