Fullenwider - Henry Newton - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

Source: The Waveland Independent newspaper, Waveland, Montgomery County, Indiana , June 21, 1956

To many of us in small communities such as this one, the adventures and excitement of far-away places is something to be read about as happening to someone else beyond the range of our acquaintanceship. But Waveland has a native son and resident in the person of H.N. Fullenwider who years ago succumbed to the lure of distant places. And having done this, he acquired a storehouse of knowledge and first-hand experiences which make for entrancing listening. Mr. Fullenwider spent his boyhood on the farm known as Pine Grove between Waveland and Browns Valley, where he was born Nov. 6, 1888. His boyhood was not much different from that of other farm kids in that era; he customarily walked the mile and a half to school at Waveland. But a variation crept into this phase of life during his high school years and the football season, for then he ran the distance to keep in top physical condition.

The Waveland football seasons of 1904 and 1905 have long ago gone into the record books, but in the minds of the players and the followers of the game, they still stand out as high points in the school’s entire athletic history. Because in those seasons, the Waveland gridders rode the crest of success. The season of ’04 was good, but ’05 was simply terrific. That season, Waveland ran rough-shod over its opponents in the eight-game season, running up a total of 106 points while holding its opposition to nary a single point. Beaten twice each by Waveland in that season were Rockville, Ladoga, Bloomingdale, and Kingman. And in the final game of the season against Rockville, Mr. Fullenwider was a special target for the Rockville players and received a broken bone in his leg-but he still managed to hobble around and finish the game! The 1905 football team of W.H.S. had no coach. The players trained themselves and developed their own plays. One member of the team was elected captain and another as manager who arranged for transportation and scheduled games. There were 12 players who could play away from home; 14 available at home. The next season, in 1906, he was a member of the freshman team at Purdue which defeated the varsity squad in a football game.

The year 1908 found the West beckoning to him, and he went to Montana where he soon became a cowpuncher thereby fulfilling the yearning which no doubt every boy at some time has shared. Two years later, his locale had shifted to Europe where for three months he toured many of the countries by means of a motor cycle. He had worked his way across the ocean by hiring on a cattle boat at Philadelphia as a hand feeding the cattle. Mr. Fullenwider considers as a high point in his European travels the Passion play at Oberammergau which he saw although he visited nearly every major capital to be found on the continent. Back home again in 1912, he was content to settle down to the arduous though less spectacular life of farming. In that year, he married Rosalie Durham. He became a field man for the Indiana Farm Bureau, was peace officer at Waveland, and a member of the Montgomery County Horse Thief Detective’s Association, a pretty important organization in those days before the advent of hard roads and the gas powered automobile. He also headed the Montgomery Taxpayers Association in a successful fight to reduce governmental expenses. He also was president of Brown Township Farm Bureau for six years and chairman of Waveland-Brown Twp. P.T.A. for 2 years. For 20 years, Mr. Fullenwider served as Superintendent of the Baptist church Sunday schools at Freedom and Waveland. In his work with the Farm Bureau, he necessarily had to travel over the state, and this factor was indirectly responsible for his eventual retirement as semi-invalid.

In 1937, an auto accident near Chandler, in the southwest corner of the state caused him to suffer a concussion of the brain. Two years later another accident near Rosedale in Parke County left him with a broken neck. A spinal operation was required in 1943, and all these misfortunes added up to produce the semi-invalid state in which Mr. Fullenwider now finds himself. But semi-invalidism is by no means a terminus point in life for Mr. Fullenwider; it has instead provided an opportunity for him to devote more time to hobbies. Always an avid reader, he has a substantial collection of books, nearly all which deal with a most tragic aspect of this country’s history, the Civil War, in which Mr. Fullenwider has always felt an intense interest. Probably few people, aside from those who are professionally concerned with the subject, have a better appreciation and understanding of the torturously complicated questions of that era than he.

Also, as may be readily seen from the accompanying photo, Mr. Fullenwider is interested in old guns and has a nice collection of his own along with gun accessories and Indian artifacts. To the visitor, this sort of collection seems to be in perfect harmony with the adventurous life Mr. Fullenwider has led. Mr. and Mrs. Fullenwider have three children. Bob, who is town marshal of Waveland; Terry with Austin Construction Company in New York and Betty Lou Banner of Ft. Lewis, Washington.

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