Lemon Orange Fuller: Bootlegger

My grandfather*, Leon Arthur Merrick, married Anna 'Grace' Fuller. Her father ran moonshine. The good news is (if there be any) when he died in an automobile accident on July 3, 1930,  he wasn't transporting 'hooch,' (death certificate here). His descendants are quick to tell you so.

Lemuel and Mary Frances
(Gilland) Fuller

Lemuel Orrin Fuller

Known as Lemon Orange, records in Hartford City, Blackford County, Indiana list him as Lemuel. His middle name is always given as 'Orange,' but this researcher prefers to think his actual name was Lemuel Orrin. No evidence.  It just sounds less silly than naming your firstborn son after a fruit salad.

Lemuel Orange Fuller was born on December 20, 1878, in Blackford County, Indiana, when his father, Price London, was 28 and his mother, Harriett, who went by her middle name, Amanda (Frye), was 24. He was their third child and first son.

He married Mary Frances Gilland (unofficial copy of marriage at link)  on January 19, 1901, in Blackford County, Indiana. His younger sister, Etta, had married his wife's older brother, Thomas, four years earlier.

 Left-Mary Ann (Fuller) Layman
Right-Etta (Fuller) Gilland

His World War I draft registration card (hosted file here) dated September 12, 1918, describes him at forty years old, tall, slender, grey eyes and dark hair. He lived in Gideon, Missouri and was employed as a farmer by an A. Creek. He signed his name, Lem Fuller.

'Farmer' is listed on the federal census' as great-grandpa Lem's occupation. But the family knew he was a 'moonshiner.' It was a family affair. He was in business with his son-n-law, Ray Wilson. Ray married Inez Fuller, my grandmother's older sister. My mom's, my son's and my own DNA test results match a test done by a grandson of Ray and Inez. We're in contact, and he's heard the 'moonshiner' stories, too.

Moonshiner Stories

A story handed down is that great-grandpa Lem and great uncle Ray lived in two houses next door to one another. The parents sent the kids to play on the porch of the house where the moonshine was stored when the law came around, The officials, not wanting to involve children, spoke to the adults at the other home.

Through this ruse, though their stills were broken up, their 'hooch' was never found. His children remembered the 'revenuers' coming to the house and breaking up the still. Building a new one usually began as the law was driving away.

Death

Lemuel Fuller died in a car accident on July 3, 1930, in Pemiscot County, Missouri, at the age of 52 and is buried there in Portageville. His four oldest daughters were married; he left the two youngest siblings, orphaned. Great-uncle Melvin was fifteen at the time and our grandmother, Anna Grace Fuller, eleven years old. Their mother and grandma's twin brother both died in childbirth.

Her sisters, Leona and Inez, and their husbands took in my grandmother. She was shuffled back and forth until she was fifteen years old. One night, while in bed, she heard her sister's husband Ray complaining about taking on the responsibility of his sister-in-law. Grandma thought, at fifteen, she was old enough to take care of herself and ran off that night. That was about 1934.

l - r:
Son, Kenneth, and Parents
Inez (Fuller) and Ray Wilson

She married my grandfather, Leon Arthur Merrick, on May 22nd, 1937. On the 1940 census, she said she lived in Pennsylvania in 1935. How she got to Pennsylvania and met my grandfather is anyone's guess. But then, my grandmother never waited around much for folks to catch up to her.

 Good Ol' Mountain Dew
Stringbean

*Note: Relationships, such as grandmother, 2nd great, etc., are expressed from the perspective of the grandchildren of Leon Arthur and Anna Grace (Fuller) Merrick.

Terms of relationship - grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousin, etc.  - are used here generically to include relatives such as fourth great grandfathers, great grand uncles, second cousins twice removed, etc.