[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 62 (Thursday, May 18, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4187-S4188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO ALICE FULLER

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a 
remarkable woman, Alice Fuller. At the age of 81, she has two adult 
daughters, six grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren. She manages 
a thirteen-acre farm and garden, and still spoils her family with 
homemade rolls and baked goods at every family dinner. Her stamina and 
good-nature should be an inspiration to all Americans. A native of 
Missouri, she moved with her family to California in 1936, and in 1941, 
she married and moved to Oregon. Irrespective of her southern and 
western roots, she is an enthusiastic and loyal fan of the New York 
Yankees. On Mother's Day, The Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon included 
the following story on this, ``One Tough Mom.''
  Mr. President, I ask that this statement and the following article be 
printed in the Record.

                          A Farmer's Instinct

                (By Kimber Williams, The Register-Guard)

       Veneta.--Seated on a stack of newspapers astride her John 
     Deere tractor, dragging a brush cutter around her 13-acre 
     farm, she looks no bigger than a child.
       At 81, Alice Fuller is small--her slim, delicate limbs 
     whittled by the inevitable bending and shrinkage that come 
     with the years.
       Steadied by a wooden cane, she stands at 4 feet 6 inches 
     and weighs maybe 91 pounds.
       Don't be fooled. She's still got plenty of horsepower.
       Fuller has lived alone since her husband's death, tending 
     her beloved garden and fruit trees, hauling in wood to heat 
     her home--she prefers wood heat--cooking and baking her 
     famous from-scratch dinner rolls. As always, keeping her 
     place up.
       Hard work is the essential rhythm to her life--as sure and 
     steady as her own heartbeat.
       As the daughter of Missouri sharecroppers, Fuller grew up 
     working the land.
       Corn and wheat and oats, watermelon and canteloupe. She 
     quit school early to help her brothers, the baby of the 
     family intent on carrying her own weight.
       It was a good life, an honest life. But she would never 
     tell you that it's been hard.
       Like many children of the Depression--like mothers 
     everywhere--she simply did what had to be done.
       As a wife and mother in rural Oregon, Fuller learned to run 
     a chicken ranch--raising up to 75,000 chickens five times a 
     year. She could clean and dress 100 chickens, dissect a 
     chicken and tell you what killed it, then turn around and fry 
     up a batch for dinner.
       Once, when Fuller left to visit her own ailing mother, she 
     returned to find that someone had left a chicken house door 
     unlatched.
       Cows had wandered in among the 15,000 maturing broilers, 
     sending terrified chickens scrambling. Smothered chickens 
     were stacked in every corner of the chicken house.
       Without complaint, she went to work slaughtering and 
     dressing a couple of hundred chickens.
       Fuller's Poultry Farm is behind her now, but the will to 
     work remains, a siren song even in her waning years.
       Work is the call that propels her out of bed each morning. 
     It gives her purpose and keeps her moving. Call it a farmer's 
     instinct. It is the only life she has known.
       She is blessed with both extraordinary drive and internal 
     blinders that allow her to ignore many barriers of age--much 
     to the consternation of her grown daughters, Evelyn McIntyre 
     and Judy Bicknell, who view their tiny, determined mother 
     with love, gratitude and amazement.
       If there is a problem, Fuller tackles it. That simple.
       ``When a water pipe broke earlier this year, Mom went out 
     in the rain, muck and mud, and dug the hole for the plumber 
     to be able to fix the pipe,'' McIntyre recalled. ``She falls 
     often, and in fact, fell into the hole, but climbed back out 
     and went right back to digging.
       ``I don't think Mom ever, ever thought there was anything 
     she couldn't do.''
       At this, Fuller can't keep quiet.
       ``Well there's one thing that I can't do, much to my 
     daughters' delight,'' she said with a good-natured grumble. 
     ``There are four chain saws out in the shop, and I can't 
     start one of them. It's been so frustrating to me, and I 
     don't think anything could make them happier.''
       It might be hard to imagine a 91-pound woman with arms as 
     slight as a 10-year-old's waving around a roaring chain saw. 
     But you don't know Fuller.
       There's still a touch of flame in her once-auburn hair, and 
     a bit of fire in her belly.
       ``Oh, I'm pretty reckless,'' she jokes with a wave of her 
     hand. ``I stalled the John Deere yesterday--tried to put it 
     between two trees. The tractor would make it, but the brush 
     cutter wouldn't. Had to get out the Oliver, the big 
     tractor, to get her out.''
       It's like her. Over the years, she has developed a habit of 
     depending on herself.
       Once, while climbing a metal ladder to check a feed bin on 
     a rainy day, she discovered a short in the electric auger 
     that moved chicken feed into the bin. Her hand froze to

[[Page S4188]]

     the ladder, fixed with an electrical current. It wouldn't 
     budge.
       ``Well, the girls had gone to school, my husband had gone 
     to work and there I stood. I could not let loose of this 
     ladder,'' she chuckled. ``It was about 9 in the morning, and 
     I decided I couldn't possibly stand there all day.''
       With her left hand, Fuller grabbed the fingers of her right 
     hand, carefully prying each one off the metal.
       ``They just stayed stiff until they were all off,'' she 
     smiled. ``I was kind of lucky that time.''
       Other times, she wasn't so lucky. A cow kick that led to 
     knee surgery. A broken ankle. A torn rib cartilage from a 
     fall off a ladder. The rigors of farm life.
       ``Once she rode her riding mower under a sign, but was 
     looking behind her and forgot to duck,'' McIntyre recalled. 
     ``She hurt her neck quite a bit, but at the hospital the 
     doctors couldn't read the X-rays of the bones in her neck to 
     tell if anything had been broken because of so many arthritic 
     changes in her bones.
       Fuller wasn't one to complain.
       ``Mom always gave us the feeling that we could and should 
     accomplish the next challenge before us,'' McIntyre added. 
     ``She demanded absolute honesty--always counted her change 
     and checked the clerk's math, but would just as readily 
     return an error in her favor as point out when she was short-
     changed.
       ``One tough mom,'' she added. ``She's ours and we love 
     her.''
       Ask Fuller where she finds strength, and she shrugs.
       She doesn't give advice to others. She knows what she 
     knows. And what she knows is work.
       She'll tell you that she's slowed down. ``Not nearly as 
     active as I once was,'' Fuller insisted, a wistful note in 
     her voice. But in the same breath, she talks about the tasks 
     before her.
       It's spring out at her place, with calla lilies unfurling 
     and bleeding hearts and sword ferns awakening in the shade of 
     towering fir trees. Tall grass stretches upward beneath 
     gentle spring rain, a yard demanding to be mown.
       There is a garden to plant, nearly an acre of raspberry 
     bushes to tend, fruit trees in flower and a grape arbor that 
     promises 40 to 50 quarts of grape juice this summer.
       There are jobs to be done. And that's enough.

                          ____________________