On the back of this picture he wrote: "I might have looked better if I had have combed my hair. R"
Born: 17 Feb 1882 in Little Sioux, Harrison County, Iowa
Parents: Walter Duty Fuller and Florence Lucinda Hale
Married: Ola Ethel Hood on 25 Dec 1906 in Elkins, Washington County, Arkansas and 2nd married Charlotte Louisa Talbot on 26 Apr 1934 in Rupert, Minidoka, Idaho
Children: With Ola Hood:
1. Rollin Hood Fuller (1907-1970)
2. Jaunita Margarete Fuller (1909-1993)
3. Emma Florence Fuller (1913-1924)
4. Melville Linton Fuller (1918-2001)
Died: 18 Jan 1943 in Burley, Cassia County, Idaho
Buried: 21 Jan 1943 in Pleasant View Cemetery, Burley, Cassia County, Idaho
There is no headstone on his grave, only this marker put there by the cemetery.
Timeline:
1885 - Iowa Census - Little Sioux Harrison County, Iowa
1900 - US Census, Albion, Cassia County, Idaho
1906 - Married in Washington County, AR
1910 - US Census, Durhan Twp., Washington County, AR
1918 - Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma. Was a painter at Pan American Refining Company
1920 - US Census, Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma
1930 - US Census, Starrhs Ferry, Cassia County, Idaho
1934-1943 - Burley, Cassia County, Idaho
This is an excerpt from a letter written to my grandfather, Rollin Hood Fuller, from Russell Hale Fuller's brother Dale, just after Russell died:
'He was to be buried in Albion, but a blizzard started and it was impossible to go there, he was buried in Burley.
After he left Tulsa, he worked in every state in the US as a printer, known as "Idaho Slim", finally arriving back in Idaho in 1933, where he met a widow named Charlotte Pratt. They travelled all over the west in search of health for Russell, finally settling in Burley in 1936, when Russell entered the ministry in the Mormon Church. He was a priest about 2 years and was ordained as an elder, or full minister, and had the honor of working in the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was due for promotion to the rank of Bishop when he died, so the church buried him as of that rank. He was a deeply religious man during the last years of his life, and did lots of good work for the church, although he had to be constantly on the move as his heart and lungs were rotten and that was the only way he could live at all.
In 1928, 29, 30 he took a post graduate course in law at Boston College and was admitted to the bar in Idaho after he went there, but instead of practicing, went in to the ministry. He had performed every ordinance in the church that his ordination allowed him to perform, which is very uncommon for even a Mormon elder.
Right before he died he was very happy. He died with a smile and did not suffer or struggle, in fact he was ready to go. A mormon elder has no property, the church furnished him with everything. His wife worked in the Mormon sewing room to help pay the doctor bills (the church did not pay for medical or tobacco expenses). The funeral was held in the church he was minister of. When he started to preach, he started in an abandoned potato cellar. The church now is a rock building about 50x150 for the main auditorium with 3 Sunday school rooms that open off. There was hardly standing room in the church for the people that attended his funeral. Everybody in Burley knew Russell as "Father Slim". "
