Randolph  County,  Indiana

Fernandis  B. Mullin


             One of the most extensive and reputable lumber dealers of the state is Fernandis B. Mullin, of Winchester. Most of the mature life of Mr. Mullin has been devoted to the lumber business, and it would be hard to find one more expert in its details than he. For the last nine years he has been manager for the Greer-Wilkinson Lumber Company, one of the big concerns of the country. Mr. Mullin knows the lumber traffic from the invasion of the forest to the disposition of the finished product. There is no process through which the tree goes that he is not thoroughly familiar with. This intimate knowledge enables him to figure with the greatest accuracy and to close contracts with a surety and rapidity that are quite surprising. The reputation of a community, it is said, rests chiefly with its leading citizens, and Mr. Mullin is one of those who have made Winchester famous among the towns of the state.
            F. B. Mullin was born in Winchester, December 9, 1856, and is the son of Elihu Mullin and Mahala (Edwards) Mullin. He is one of seven children. Lewis Mullin, a brother, of Washington, married Flo Canfield, and is by occupation an architect. They have one child. Calvin, also of Washington, married Hattie Canfield, a sister of Flo, and is a farmer. They have three children living. Minnie, of Chadburn, North Carolina, married W. H. Hunt, a farmer, and has a family of eight children. George, of Muncie, who is a builder by occupation, married Flora Wysong, and has two boys. May, the wife of Ed. Heaston, of Randolph county, a farmer, has three boys and one girl living, and one died in infancy. Mary died in infancy. Mr. Mullin's father, of Irish stock, went originally to Wayne county and was for thirty years a carpenter and builder in Winchester. He died at the age of sixty-eight from a fall off the roof of a building he was erecting. His wife, a, native of Randolph county, survives, at the age of seventy-nine.
            Mr. Mullin was married December 31,1882, to Adella B. Naftzger, of Ohio, a daughter of Ephraim Naftzger, a miller. Two girls and one boy were the fruit of this union. Grace, the eldest, was born in Minnesota, January 4, 1885, and married John Bishop, agent of the Big Four at Winchester. She taught school five years with success. Cecil, who was born in Minnesota, February 17, 1887, died at the age of two years.
            Vera K., the youngest, was born August 31, 1891, in Winchester, and has a national reputation as a platform entertainer. She has made a feature of vocalism and is directed by the Central Lyceum Bureau. Nothing is more difficult in the realm of art than voice culture. Its secrets are harder to acquire and master than those involved in the vibration of musical instruments. There is that in the cultivation of the vocal cords which taxes the genius of the most intellectual speakers and singers, and probably no one has ever confessed to a complete understanding of their mysteries. Sarah Bernhardt and Nazimova, among dramatic artists, and Mary Garden and Tetrazzini, among lyric artists, are considered the greatest living exponents of vocal culture. And certainly no instrumentalists rank above them. Vera Mullin is one of the younger aspirants in the supreme art of vocalization and has not yet attained the maturity of her powers. She has range and timbre, the essential qualities of great voices, and has that extraordinary faculty of cultivation that makes control seem perfect. Miss Mullin belongs to the higher order of artists who have that rarest of combinations, genius and cultivation. Her reputation grows from season to season, and in the list of Lyceum Bureau entertainers she ranks with the top notchers. She is an ardent devotee of her art and claims that no great achievement comes easily. Besides her remarkable attainments in voice culture, Miss Mullin is eniment as a whistling soloist, rivaling in this peculiar department of art the renowned Alice Shaw. She is one of the most constantly employed and highest priced artists under lyceum direction.
Past and Present of Randolph County, Indiana, 1914.
Contributed by Gina Richardson

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