Ellen Celia (Morse) Fuller (abt. 1846 - abt. 1937)

Born about 27 Nov 1846 in Oswego, New York, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 21 Jan 1937 at about age 90 in West Lafayette, Tippecanoe, Indiana, United States

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Biography

Ellen Cecelia Morse was born on 27 Nov 1846 in Oswego, New York to parents John Morse and Hannah Smith.

Ellen married Clark Sheldon Fuller on 22 Jan 1867 in Oswego, New York. These are their known children:

1. Clara Bell
2. Charles Clinton
3. Orville Morse
4. Ella Mae.

Ellen died on 21 Jan 1937 in West Lafayette, Indiana.^[1]

Notes

llen was born in New York and married Clark Sheldon Fuller when she was 21. On the date of the wedding, it was stormy and although they planned to go to the minister's house for the ceremony, they stopped instead at the house of Mrs. Chase, the mother of her brother James' wife. She said that James went after the preacher, Rev Wood, and he came and married them. The certificate was never recorded and the Reverend died causing some consternation and problems with establishing Ellen's relationship to Clark when she wanted to receive pension payments after his death.

Ellen had four children, three of who lived a full life. In 1874, Ellen and Clark moved to Indiana and lived there until they died. Ellen died in 1937 at the age of 91 of heart ailments, Bright's disease, and dropsy.

Ellen Morse Fuller took after her father (Theodore Morse) in looks-- dark brown hair, grey eyes, and a rather long face which she passed on to Orville Morse, his brother Charley, and his son Orville. All :: the Morse family had brown hair and fair skin. It seems to me that your Grandmother Ellen was a pleasant person and a little tomboyish. She told of climbing out of the bedroom window onto the roof of the summer kitchen after everyone was in bed so she could go on hayrides. Perhaps a brother helped her as he later married her friend Sate. She and Sate used to venture out to a farmers orchard to get apples, and one time he chased them and Ellen tore her dress on a barbed wire fence.

During the war, she worked in a shop across the river in Oswego making ladies hats. All her life, she loved to visit her friends, and would leave the three kids with her mother who was living with them at the time. They were a wild bunch and used to lead the Grandma, Hannah Smith, a merry chase.

I was influenced by grandma, and it seems to me now that her problem was possessive motherhood, perhaps because she lost one child that she still mourned over. She liked to hold me on her lap and tell me about her life and people she knew and little Ella. Most of what she talked about I have forgotten though I heard it many times. She was a happier person than Aunt Clara and in one of her gay moods would play the phonograph and we would dance around the room. I never heard her raise her voice at grandpa or me.

I had my playmates Virginia and Jerome that lived across the street. It was at their house I first had a taste of margarine and I ran home and asked grandma to get some, which she did, but it didn't taste as good. After your mother moved in I never asked to have any other playmates. Your mother probably saw grandma as a crabby old woman, as a young child would. Even if I didn't notice she might have been, because she was close to 80 years and her back hurt her a lot after she fell down the stairs." -Margaret

Sources

1. ↑ Find A Grave Memorial #18924960

US Federal Census 1850, 1860, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1930

New York State Census 1855

US City Directories