Glenda Richardson Fuller, as known as Grandma Fuller, has been a wonderful example to me. We are birthday girls, as we share our Dec. 27th birthday.
For my Media History class, one of our projects was to do an oral history. Here is Grams telling her memories of media.
Glenda Richardson Fuller Oral History Project
Interview with Glenda Fuller
Date of Interview: November 4, 2006; Provo, Utah
Interviewer: Catherine Shurtz
Transcriber: Catherine Shurtz
Begin Tape 1, Side 1
Shurtz: This is the Glenda Richardson Fuller, session number one with Mrs. Fuller on November 4. I am on the phone as Mrs. Fuller is in her home in South Carolina. Her home is located on 8 Woodbridge Circle, Anderson, South Carolina. The interviewer is Catherine Shurtz, Brigham Young University.
Shurtz: What do you remember from your first use with the radio?
Fuller: Daddy came home with the radio, oh, I had never seen one before, but I had heard about them.
Shurtz: What about the first time with TV?
Fuller: A TV?
Shurtz: What was the first time you remember watching one, getting one in your own home, and your favorite program?
Fuller: Oh, that was really another miracle. Catherine, we didn’t really have a lot of money, didn’t have a lot of things in the world, and we were so happy without them. But when we got these things, we were just caught up in others happy bliss. My daddy did buy one for Christmas one year for us. It was just a small one, and it was black and white of course. But boy, were we just so thrilled to have it and of course momma made us get our lessons before we got to watch the show.
Shurtz: Right, that is good, isn’t it.
Fuller: (laughing) Even in those days. But let’s see, what in the very early days were my favorite shows? It came down to the I Love Lucy, and also, Little House on the Prairie. And was that radio or was that television?
Shurtz: I think that is television.
Fuller: I guess it was. Okay, let’s see what else. Those were my two of my favorite shows. Those were two that I really did love.
Shurtz: When did you learn about historical events, like when John F. Kennedy was shot? Did you hear about it from radio, or a neighbor, or read it in a newspaper? Do you remember where you heard about that?
Fuller: You know, we were living in this little house in forty acres and my honey was going to going to Texas A&M to become the veterinarian. And I was standing in the middle of our little tiny house, that had been condemned, that the colored people had moved out because the little house had been condemned, but my honey rented it for us and we lived there three years.
Shurtz: Oh, really. Okay.
Fuller: I was ironing, I had my ironing board up in the middle of the floor by a potbelly stove and I had my old clad irons on the stove and I was ironing my honey’s uniform, had to have them stiff enough to stand in the corner, Catherine, how I ever did that hand wash I really can’t explain. He had to have a fresh, starch uniform that was done by himself, just almost perfectly done. He had to have one everyday. And you know, we did that, and I was ironing his uniform when that little radio was on. We didn’t have a TV at that time, we didn’t have a TV in our home until quite a number of years later. Anyway, on the radio, it announced it and oh, I just gushed into tears as I just stood there with that little old iron during that awful sad news. Hard to believe.
Shurtz: When you were living in that area, did you ever get the newspaper or did you get most of your news from the radio?
Fuller: You know, we got everything from the radio. Catherine, we really couldn’t afford the newspaper. They did have some in College Station, not anything very big, but little newspapers. You know, but we never, my honey went to the library, he had to know everything. He went to the library and read all the magazines. Kept up on all the news. That man, I wish you could interview him.
Shurtz: I am sure he would have been phenomenal.
Fuller: Oh, would he ever! In fact, I don’t think he would have been as interesting, because he never did used those old clad irons that I ironed with.
Shurtz: That’s true, isn’t.
Fuller: But oh, he could sure tell you some good ones if he were here. Anyway, the news like I said, he did keep up with the news from the A&M library there. We did keep in touch, we didn’t have anything in our home, but he would come home and tell me stuff, and then we could get our little newies from the radio sometimes you know too. So we felt like we were on top of the world, but we were really kind of back-woodsie I’m afraid.
Shurtz: Do you remember when did you buy your first TV that was color?
Fuller: Oh my goodness, let me think when did we get our, oh, that was way on down the road we didn’t have a color TV when we married and lets see, not until we left College Station. We had most all our kids before we had a color television. Let’s see, where were we living when we got that. You know, Catherine, I think we were living in Oklahoma City when we got that.
Shurtz: Was it a big change for you going from black and white to color?
Fuller: Oh my goodness. Yes, just about like night and day-all the difference in the whole world. It was really wonderful. We felt like our shows…you don’t want to know about my first theater I guess do you?
Shurtz: Oh no, tell me about that.
Fuller: Well, we were living on the hill and I was seven years old, Catherine, and my mommy and daddy had twelve kids. My daddy came home one day and one thing about it, my daddy had a dairy herd of jerseys and he sold enough milk and cream, so he got a brand new model T every three or four or fives. He would trade it in and get a new one that is one thing that we always had was a new model T Ford. He came home one day, and said that Ben Hur was showing at the theater in Thatcher and he wanted to take us up there to see our first movie. And of course it was a little tiny screen, black and white, and there’s no sound at all. And oh, were we so thrilled.
Shurtz: Right, I see.
Fuller: And I will have to tell you what happened on the way up there. We were driving along this little tiny narrow road we had to go 80 miles no pavement just little rocky roads about like cow trails most of the way. And there was pretty good side mountain right against the road and this baby road and then quite a ditch quite wide ditch along the other side and so we were putting along there and daddy heard and we heard someone say “help, help” yell up real loud and so daddy pulled to the side and stopped and looked down and there was a car sitting straight up down in that ditch and there was a little old man in it and daddy said, “hello down there, how are you?” and he said, “fine, but I just looked up at the desert and then I looked down I was in the ditch.”
Shurtz: Oh, wow.
Fuller: It was a little old Dutchman, and about five miles from Eden a very famous hot springs that people came from all over the world for that hot springs for health and hot baths you know for their health and this little wealthy Dutchman had come and he was on his way to Stanford. He just looked up at the weather and ended up in the ditch and so we had to go back to get someone to come out and get him and we did make the show and oh it was so wonderful.
Shurtz: Wow, that is a good story.
Fuller: Well, looking back, it was kind of comical and scary and funny.
Shurtz: When you did have your TV, was there a news program that you watched at night?
Fuller: Oh yes, Catherine, always, my honey would never miss it. I will have to ask someone, do you know what the programs that were on? Listen maybe I can think about it. They did have good news commentators. Grandpa would sit wherever he was to watch it.
Shurtz: Do you remember any other historical events how you found out about them? Like VE day or Pearl Harbor? How did you learn about it?
Fuller: Oh, Pearl Harbor, you know, we had just been married a short time and we had already gone, we spent the summer in Mesa, baby-sitting all our relatives’ homes, we took our little suitcase and truck and $40 in our pocket and a bus ticket and went down to seek our fortune at Texas A&M.
Shurtz: Oh, I see now.
Fuller: And you know we hadn’t been there just a short month, when we bought a trailer house and parked it in Mr. Samples service station and used his bathrooms and his light to light our trailer and that’s where we lived and we were in bed Sunday morning, I believe it was Sunday morning wasn’t it? Anyway my honey of course turned on the radio as soon as he woke up, we always turned on the news and right there, while honeymooning in Texas that’s when we heard about Pearl Harbor
Shurtz: Oh, wow
Fuller: Boy, things started popping from then on, Texas A&M was the place, you know that was the place where they trained the Aggies to fight. So that is very vivid in my mind.
Shurtz: What else do you remember?
Fuller: The drive-in theater was $1 a car. Once we packed our family and some Aggies in. There were 17 of us that got in for the $1 that night. I sold Christmas cards and all occasion cards to get money to buy things for the children. They still remember their holster gun sets and stuffed animals. I also worked out at the Bayard kennels to help out. Everything we did, we did together because I wouldn’t do anything where I had to leave the children. The children would feed the dogs. Some of them barked so loudly that I would have to feed those. On wash das, we hauled our dirty clothes to the wash-a-teria where we ran them through the wringers. As home, we hung them on the line to dry. We’d have a whole line of Levis beggest to least. It was quite a picture. When the Aggies would leave for the semester break, they always threw out the most wonderful things. Our family would visit the dorms and apartments to see what we could salvage. It really helped us out. Financially, we were destitute but we never knew it. One time Barbara came saying that she had found a kitty. Turned out it was a skunk. The only thing we could do was scrub her up in tomato juice and bury her clothes. What memories we have.
Shurtz: How did you get your news in more recent years?
Fuller: Well, I remember when on January 16, 1991, that war was declared at 6:00 tonight our time, nine hours different. Desert Shield has become a desert storm (desert cloud). Fighting has begun. War is declared 3:27 in the morning and bombs are dropping over Baghdad (missile, bombs, a missile attack). Baghdad’s radios are all knocked off the air so news hasn’t a word now, as well as hitting the airport, and electric plant. There were three waves of bombs already, also Iraq. Gas jumped $3.00 a gallon immediately. I remember “War has begun between US and Iraq.” The president set this date several days ago. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” were said many times. It is so true today.
Shurtz: What else do you remember about this time?
Fuller: I remember on March 8th or 9th of 1991, that I think “well, the war is over. Great to see them coming back home.” On TV, Barbara Walters on 20/20 said Mrs. Thatcher and her husband are in the White House with President Bush and Barbara Walters sat right next to the President. She asked him how it felt to hold the big meeting in Congress and have so many standing ovations. He very humbly said he realized it was not for him but for the men who fought and won the war. A beautiful president. Also, Barbara Walters interviewed Margaret Thatcher on 20/20. She said President Bush met with her to find her opinion as to whether to declare war. Margaret Thatcher said, “Remember George, this is no time to go wobbly.” Margaret Thatcher described herself as steady, staunch, and a true friend. When asked how she liked being called the “iron lady,” she said she liked it. When asked how she like being squeezed out, she said, “You take it and you don’t squeal.” She explained it meant you don’t complain. When asked about her husband, she was wonderful. She said, “He is a rock. He is loyal. The words do not exist to describe this man. I never could have done it without him.” Barbara asked her what Thatherism means. She said, “You keep your house windproof and waterproof.”
