1899

News about our contribution to the 1967 Fund is in the making. A report will be forthcoming later. Thank you for your prompt beginning. Other news items must wait till fall. You will understand why in what follows.

On March 4 this year Montie Fuller's Martha died at daughter Miriam's home in San Francisco — complications connected with her successful operation for cancer twenty years before. She believed firmly that her recovery then was due to her prayers that she be spared to take care of Montie and their youngest child Miriam. Martha's entire life had been one of self-discipline and self-sacrifice for others. Finally in Montie's last sickness Martha had cared for him personally during his last six months. Now for herself there will later be held a graveside service over her own ashes either in Southfield, Mass., or in Peru, Vt., where she grew up.

Montie and Martha met when he was a theological student and she was attending Bible Normal College in Springfield, Mass., preparing for missionary work in the South. Then followed the usual trio - congeniality, friendship, romance.

They were married on New Year's Eve, December 31, 1902 in spite of a predicted tremendous snowstorm. Both storm and wedding occurred on schedule, prophetic perhaps of the long hard pull in the happy years ahead. Four children during the first ten years brought both the joy of parenthood and the challenge to those parents' wisdom and fortitude. Those little newcomers at home and the strong-minded deacons at church furnished a stout work-out for both those qualities. But neither of the young couple quailed or quit. They simply accepted the Second Great Commandment as addressed specifically to them, and they sought soberly and cheerfully in all their twenty successive parishes to remember "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

So, came the next move, Montie lifted his game leg into the driver's seat of the old Ford for the journey to some new pastoral field. Mark as the oldest would later take over this favorite responsibility. But in any case, kettles, bags, trunks, and a miscellany of battered household goods would wheeze and choke up dusty hills, or lurch down treacherous slopes, or dive into unsuspected hollows until the motley but well-trained crew could disembark at the new parsonage. For the parson and his spouse a moment to catch their breath, and then with unshaken optimism to face a fresh assortment of problems and perils, while their lively offspring in their own unexpected ways adjusted themselves to their share in this new environment.

The warm sympathy of all Ninety-Niners goes out to the four Fuller children: to Mark, now a top-flight, veteran flagman, as he helps maneuver the fast freights safely and in record time from Mechanicsville to Binghamton; to Marcia in St. Petersburg, whose husband died a year ago leaving her alone with their three sons while she returns to her old-time teaching; to Melville, whose wife has died and left their two daughters behind to finish their education while he continues as factory superintendent; and to Miriam, unmarried, with her room-renting in San Francisco as her own means of livelihood. And now with mother and father both gone all four realize more than ever how devoted their parents had been, how patient, tireless and humble in their effort to handle the greatest single task ever entrusted to human beings - the rearing of children. And the men and women of the Class of '99 remember with affection and admiration the genuineness of Montie's and Martha's religion, and the heartfelt way in which at Class gatherings our one and only pastor reaffirmed to the hearts and minds of his own Home Parish the significance of the "Old Religion" as he so sincerely and humbly interpreted it.

Present for the Pioneer Valley annual meeting from l to r were: Senior Fellow WilliamHay '67; Prof. Matthew I. Wiencke; Thomas Byrne '55, business manager ofKiewit Computation Center; Robert Czelusniak '59, president; Bert Kent '10, honorarypresident; and Andrew Schmidt '36, past president.

Secretary and Class Agent 40 Church St. Winchester, Mass. 01890