r6 A tribute, written by Charles Wilson of Kingfield, ME to honor the passing of Fred's wife tells their story. "At the passing of Mrs. Mary Elizabeth (Fuller) Weymouth on June 30, 1950, in her 86th year, Franklin County has lost a character full flavored of the virtues of the elderly days, the days of the pioneer spirit, when Maine was undeveloped industrially, and men and women stood squarely on their feet facing a life of toil with axe and plow and spinning wheel, with no thought of reliance upon anything but their own unremitting effort.
She was born in Eustis Dec. 25, 1864 to Samuel Rutillus and Mary (Pike) Fuller, of a line descended from Mathue Fuller who was born in England in 1603 and settled in Plymouth in 1640, becoming in 1643 a sargent of the military company of the Colony, commanded by Miles Standish. Embued with the pioneer spirit, the family had pushed north and south to the farthest frontiers and in the time od Mrs. Weymouth's childhood the early ways still prevail. She often told of how on the Eustis farm they rarely had white bread, the usual custom being to take the wheat on horseback to be ground into unrefined grist, in New Portland, and once in a very long time her father would ride horse back to Augusta with sacks of wheat to have it ground into the luxury of white flour.
They set up farming in Freeman in the old homestead, In the 11th year of their marriage, Fred died at the age of 38, and Mrs. Weymouth was left with five small children and a farm. It was then that her up-bringing as a pioneer came to her aid. Somehow with cows and wood, and the yield of nature's bounty, cultivated by the hoe and watered with the sweat of the brow, the family not only struggled on, but grew in pride and strangth and well being. Mrs. Weymouth had set but one rule that she laid down firmly to the youngsters, "That if you behave as well as you look, then good will come to you."
There was food, there was work, and there was fun, but money was a very scarce article. One year she asked the first selectmen to abate her taxes that year. He said no, he couldn't, that her children were all healthy and well dressed, she said that God and the neighbors had been awfully good to her children, but that she had just one cent of cash and that if the town wanted it they could have it. With the aid of Frank, the oldest boy, Mrs. Weymouth lived with the children twelve more years on the farm, until they had pretty well grown, then she moved to Kingfield where she lived the next 40 years. The Lord gave back to Elizabeth (Fuller) Weymouth what she had put into life. She lived into her 86th year hale and hearty andi died with an untroubled soul and a clear mind. |