Written by Anne Yallalee Wheelis
. . . the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. . . Galatians 5:22-23.
Sometime in the weeks before her death, Catherine Lenore Fuller Yallalee was asked what she would like said in her obituary. Katy, as she was known throughout her adult life, answered that she would like it said that she had a long happy marriage and raised three lovely children. This is the story of how she did just that.
Catherine Lenore Fuller was the youngest of eight children and the second daughter born to Anthony Fuller and Ida Harmon, who were of descendents of pioneers in the westernmost parts of what became West Virginia. Mom said that she could see Ohio and Kentucky from the farm in Huntington where she was born and raised. Although born over a period of 21 years, the Fuller siblings were emotionally close to each other. Roy, the oldest brother, took on the task of choosing the middle names for his youngest brothers and sister. His favorite poet when mother was born was Edgar Allan Poe, and so her middle name was taken from the famous poem The Raven.
The Harmon and Fuller families valued education. Both of Mom’s grandfathers were taught to read by their own fathers, who were bedridden before their early deaths—one from a broken back from an accident raising a log cabin, and the second from Civil War wounds. Ida Harmon taught school before her marriage, and several of Mom’s aunts, cousins, and her older sister also taught school. Mom and the two brothers closest to her in age were sent to the better school in town, rather than the closer country school, and they walked on the railroad tracks to get there. Mom once said that a side benefit of the depression is that many professionals and college graduates who lost their jobs became country school teachers, replacing those who had not yet completed their college degrees.
The Fuller and Harmon families were amateur artists and musicians. Grandpa Fuller was a fiddler, so there was music at home. Roy Fuller played the violin and was a talented artist, as were some of the Harmon cousins. Mom never claimed any musical or artistic talent, but growing up our home was filled with music, with books, and with art.
There was also the great natural world to explore and study. All her life Mother appreciated and gloried in the beauty and wonder of the world. Mom and Dad would pack us up for annual camping trips to Yosemite and other state and national parks. Later, during retirement, Mom and Dad traveled this country in various sized recreational vehicles, and on one adventurous caravan trip driving on the wrong side of the road in Australia and New Zealand. Mom’s souvenirs were likely to be “found” pieces of nature—rocks, shells, twisted pieces of driftwood, and orphan trees. Yes, in the corner of our lot in Sacramento was a grove of redwood trees “rescued” as babies from the roads and paths in national parks, where they would have been trampled to death anyway. One of Mom’s only disagreements with the dear friend who was the gardener at the condominium in Santa Rosa was over the oak trees that Mom was growing from acorns. Pasquale thought that the birds had buried them in the grass so he uprooted them. Mom couldn’t see how he would believe that jays were smart enough to bury acorns in a straight line, at regular intervals, along the edge of the lawn. In Santa Rosa and Monterey birds came literally knocking on the doors, waiting for the bird seed to be tossed out on the patio.
The Fuller farm was self sufficient, and while cash was not plentiful during the Depression, the family could raise their own food, cut their own firewood, and thrive using the old pioneer skills. Mom learned to cook, sew, grow and preserve food. She practiced these arts all her life, only giving them up when arthritis limited her strength and mobility. She also learned about sharing. All of the older Fuller children came back to the farm at one time or another during the depression, bringing their families with them. By partitioning the attic, the old farm house was big enough to accommodate all. And the farm provided enough to share with others. When a beggar came to the door during meal times, Grandma Fuller would take a plate and pass it around the table. Everyone was expected to contribute from their own plate to provide a meal for the beggar. What an expression of sharing and compassion! Mom and Dad provided that example over and over for us while we were growing up.
The Depression had another significant impact on Mom’s life, and on our family. Roy Fuller lost his job with a New York magazine, and moved back to the farm with his wife. Frances Fuller just happened to be the first cousin of William Yallalee. We understand that their first meeting, when Mom and Dad were aged 12 and 18, did not cause any sparks. . However, in 1942, Daddy came to Huntington again to visit his cousin and her relatives, including the young and beautiful Katy, and so began a courtship that was conducted mostly by mail during Daddy’s Army service in North Africa and Italy. During that time Mom was attending Marshall College, living in Huntington with her older sister Ethel. Mom wanted to study science, but the only scholarship available was in Home Economics, so she started there and took all the science she could. During the war years, she worked at the “Nickel Plant” in Huntington. She was one of the first two or three women the plant hired as a chemist. Mom teased her boss that they must be working on a secret war project. They were—it was part of the Manhattan Project.
Mom and Dad married in May 1944, in a simple ceremony that started with the best man climbing through a window to unlock the church—Mom and Dad found out later that the minister had left his wife’s deathbed to perform the ceremony. The honeymoon trip was to visit Dad’s relatives in New Jersey. They could not get two tickets on the Pullman car, and when the gentleman sitting next to Mom heard the story he hunted up Daddy in the coach and traded tickets with him. That meant that Daddy had to get off the train in Washington, but he caught another train and actually arrived first. Mom remembered he was eating a liverwurst sandwich at the lunch counter when she got off the train.
Their early years of marriage were filled with moves and transfers as the war and Daddy’s active duty service ended, and while finding a satisfactory career. Housing was scarce in those years, but Mom made a home where ever they were—in a trailer at Fort Riley, in rental homes and apartments, keeping house for widower’s family, living at times with Daddy’s mother in Berkeley. They lived in a cottage on ranch land east of Point Lobos while Daddy was stationed at Ft. Ord. Daddy’s military service began with the Calvary at the Presidio of Monterey; his last active duty station was Ft Ord, and their last home together was just outside of the Presidio, close enough to hear reveille and taps. In all those moves they gathered friends around them. One of the gifts Mom and Dad gave us is the appreciation for friends of all generations, and the example of loyalty and generosity to friends.
Eventually Mom and Dad settled in Sacramento, buying a house in what was then the country, a half acre on a street where you knew every one of the dozen cars that drove into town to work and came back at night. In the family tradition of referring to homes by their address, that was the “1833” house. By that time Anne was ready to start kindergarten, Jeanne was a toddler, and Bill was born the next year. Mom and Dad had already started the work of transforming the “back 40”—or back quarter acre– into a productive garden with fruit and nut trees, berries, grapes, and an extensive annual vegetable garden. Ornamental plants that would grow into beautiful bushes were started. Every spring, Mom grew a curtain of sweet peas over the dining room window. Every fall, she had a wonderful display of chrysanthemums, her favorite fall flower.
Over the years we kids had a succession of pets of all kinds—cats, a rabbit, a lizard, dogs. Jeanne used to collect insects, hold insect parties, and then release them each evening. But the pets that the Yallalee family was known for was a collection of geese and ducks. The practical incentive was that geese were known for eating weeds. I think Mom also saw the geese as food, but only she and visiting relatives were able to eat the first—and last–goose. Auntie and Uncle Roy didn’t know the geese, and Mom had been bitten too many times to feel sentimental over them. But the rest of the family could not eat offspring from the pair of geese, Honker and Flapper, who had been incubated in a cardboard box in front of the furnace in the living room. Honker and Flapper were good watchdogs, but never differentiated between weeds and vegetable seedlings. Mom fondly told how she ranked with the geese—coming home after work, Daddy would put a handful of corn in his shirt pocket, and pet the geese while they ate the corn—before coming into the house.. One of the hardest things about moving to Santa Rosa was having to retire the geese to a wildlife park.
Following family tradition, Mom was actively involved in the education of her children. First there was the inquisitive, caring, rich environment of the home, where reading and games and family interaction was the norm. Mom and Dad did not have a television until the 1970s, but they had radio, music on 78s and 33s, Daddy’s accordion and later a piano, and family games—word games such as 20 questions, scrabble, and yatzee, and outdoor games such as croquet, badmitten, ping pong.. Secondly, Mom taught us all to read before we went to school. No matter how tight the budget, she always squeezed out a quarter for a Golden Book when grocery shopping. A neighbor, Jeanne’s playmate, related recently to Anne that Mom taught him to read, deliberately or not, by including him in book reading sessions with Jeanne. Sitting on the couch, Mom would tuck him on one side of her, and Jeanne on the other, and she instilled in him the love of reading. This man now makes his living writing and producing for television, and he gives credit to Mom for starting him off. Third, Mom was a parent involved in her children’s education decades before that philosophy became a mantra and a mandate. In the early 50s, school districts struggled to build schools fast enough to meet the baby booming needs. In those days parents not only raised money and volunteered but built playgrounds and play structures. For many years the San Juan Unified School District had a policy referred to as the “Katy Yallalee Rule”. Mom was unhappy with Jeanne’s second grade teacher, and insisted that she be transferred to another school. Hence the Katy Yallalee Rule.
While we children were growing up, Mom was a scout leader, a 4-H leader, and always ready with lunch or a snack after school for children and friends. Sometime in the late 50s Mom went “back to school” to get her California teaching credential. The wife of a mechanical engineer was defeated by a 16 millimeter film projector in the required audio-visual course! No one is sure who was the most relieved—Mom, or young Bill, who could take the “latch key” from around his neck. Mom was also the consummate Do It Your Self-er. Every year that Daddy was away on his two week active reserve duty was the time designated for painting and other activities to maintain and improve the house. One year Mom wallpapered a wall in the dining room—her first and only wallpapering adventure. And sheet rocking became second nature as one by one the plaster ceilings in the house fell. Daddy’s reserve unit was activated during the Berlin Wall Crisis in 1962. As an officer, he was one of the few who knew that if the crisis continued the unit would be sent to Germany, so he chose not to bring the family with him to Illinois. Now, this occurred just as the house was being remodeled. Mom continued to work on the project—and was able to marshal help from an amazing array of friends to complete the work.
Mom was a charter member of the Morse Avenue Chuch of Christ, which was built down the street from 1833 shortly after we moved there. This was the time before electric coffee pots and microwaves, so our home became the place to get a cup of coffee and a snack, and Mom became the friend and and confidant of a long sucession of preachers. This continued in Santa Rosa. Many an evening was shared with various preachers, over dinner, perhaps a game of scrabble, and discussion of history and current events. Mom was an active member of her congregations. She supported all the various activities—camps, vacation bible schools. In Santa Rosa she cooked for a program the church developed to provide meals for shut-ins and senior citizens. Mom always liked to sit at the end of the fifth pew, on the right hand side of the sanctuary. At the end of her life Mom was too frail to attend church. She always paid attention to the clock on Sunday mornings, and would know when communion was served, and when Dean was preaching. On the last day of her life, in the emergency room, she looked at the clock at 12:10 pm and said “Well, church is out.”
Mom was always civically engaged, and had a keen interest and understanding in how politics and policy affect us in our daily life. The only election she confessed to missing was the last one in May of this year, when the ballot measures made no sense. When Mom was a teenager, when Jim Crow laws still prevailed in West Virginia, election officials would go door to door to register voters. They took the word of the youngest child, not yet of voting age, that the Fullers were all Democrats—which was a surprise to some of her family. Mom liked to remember that the 19th Amendment to the Constitution became effective shortly before she was born. She lived to vote for the first woman presidential candidate, and the first black presidential candidate. She had the gumption to take on the Board of Supervisors over zoning issues, the school board over school choice policies, and in Santa Rosa both she and Daddy served time and time again on the home owners association. The City of Monterey should count itself lucky that Mom was retired by the time they moved here!
Mom said many times that the key to her happy marriage was that she and Daddy never went to bed angry. As children we only once heard our parents arguing with each other. Daddy was late coming home from an Army Reserve meeting—it was his turn to drive the carpool– and it happened that at every stop he was invited in for a drink and a snack. Mom kept his dinner warm for hours—or so it seemed—and by the time Daddy came home she had dumped the plate into the garbage and was in fine, loud, logical, righteously offended form. We kids had never heard such a thing and were sure that a divorce would follow—not realizing that Mom had laughingly dispelled her anger before she went to bed. Mom and Dad were demonstratively affectionate to one another, a wonderful lesson for us. When Anne and Tim were courting, they had to take turns with Mom and Dad to walk the dog Ruff down to the local school and sit until the sprinklers went on. Their happy marriage was built on love and respect and trust. For example, Mom did not know how to swim. Yet she put on a life jacket and canoed, rowed, crewed a 16 foot sail boat and a handmade steamboat on lakes and rivers in California and Oregon. Mom and Dad also shared a mutual spirit of intellectual inquisitiveness and exploration, and a sense of humor.
Mom was a natural teacher, and she taught us much by example. Most of her descendents are gardeners—we like to say we were born with dirt under our fingernails—most are decent cooks, and can wield knitting needles and sewing machines. She also let us learn from our mistakes—Anne remembers a very dismal cherry pie, which she had baked to impress a beau who had come to dinner. Mom had tried to make a suggestion, but Anne insisted that she didn’t need help, and so presented a pie without sugar. One of Mom’s object lessons failed, though. While in a restaruant in Nevada, with little slot machines at each table, she took out a nickel to demonstrate the futility and wastefulness of gambling. Unfortunately, the nickels just rolled out of the machine!
In the late 1960s Mom and Dad moved to Santa Rosa when Daddy took a new job. This became their ground zero for retirement adventures. The kids were all out of the house, the little garden condo was big enough for visitors and a vegetable garden, yet could be safely left for weeks for traveling. For almost two decades Mom and Dad explored this country by trailer, RV, and train, and ventured to Australia and New Zealand. Both became involved in the Lion’s Club, and Mom once again found herself volunteering for local schools. At this time she joined the Sierra Children’s Home Auxiliary, and found another outlet for her sewing skills while creating scores of Christmas ornaments and decorations for the major fundraising event for the Children’s Home. We children all have examples of the crafts that were sold at the annual “Christmas Beautiful” in Santa Rosa.
In 1999, Mom and Daddy moved to Monterey, close to Anne and Timothy. This was the first time that they had lived in the same town as any of their adult children. Perhaps because of all the moves in the early years of their marriage, Mom and Dad had never protested when career paths moved their children to other towns and states. Now, Mom and Dad and Anne and Timothy had the chance to create close adult to adult relationships, and Mom was able to continue to teach—by example–how to grow older gracefully, how to accept what fate has in store. More than one doctor attributed their longevity to the healthful, simple diet and lifestyle that Mom practiced. But with long life comes infirmities, and Mom’s arthritis became worse and worse, and congestive heart disease was diagnosed. She lived in a state of controlled pain for the last several years, and was able to stay at home with care from several gentle and loving personal attendants, some of whom are here today. Mom accepted gracefully and accommodated for all of the personal indignities of growing older, except for the loss of her hearing. At our regular Sunday dinners, Mom and Timothy were seated so that each talked to the other’s worst ear. Daddy and I heard some amazing and amusing conversations between the two.
We children had held a party for Daddy on his 90th birthday, but six years later Mom was too frail for such an event. But we contrived to honor her 90 years by asking friends and relatives to send her cards and memories. Through the magic of the internet, nieces and nephews whom she had not heard from in years—Mom was the last of her generation—located and called or wrote to her. All of her children came to visit for the occasion. In the year preceding, all of her six grandchildren and six great grandchildren had come from four states to visit. Mom was not feeling well, but enjoyed the cards and flowers and the quiet visits with each of her children. Two days after her birthday, Mom went to the hospital. Because of the diagnosis, she had to risk surgery even with her frail heart, and went peacefully to heaven several hours later.
Once Mom told Anne that as long as she could find some joy in every day, she was content. She also was determined to be with Daddy as long as she could. To the end of her life she was planning menus to fit his lifelong preferences, making lunch for him, worrying about him, and chose to risk surgery because “Daddy still needs me.” They were able to stay together in their home until the end. They had the blessing of alert and cogent minds. And we all are blessed knowing that Mom went peacefully without suffering when God called her home on a beautiful moonlit night.
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