Name/Title
Sue Moore Fullilove Gibson Letter to T.C.C.Entry/Object ID
2023.056Tags
Ward-BelmontScope and Content
A letter from former Ward-Belmont student Sue Moore Fullilove, dated Monday, January 12, 1920 and addressed "to Twentieth Century Club girls - my dear fraternity sisters and Miss Masson." The stationary used shows a letterhead from The St. Charles in New Orleans - possibly the St. Charles Hotel, which closed and was demolished in 1974.
In this letter, Fullilove writes of her life since her graduation from Ward-Belmont, three years ago at the time. She is fighting illness (but notes her health is improving), and has married John O. Gibson, who was a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and worked his way up to the rank of captain before being discharged. She sends her "love to each and every one of you - wish you all the happiness [and] love you so desire - a full future of good & godly things." She asks Miss Masson (Jennie Taylor Masson, longtime faculty sponsor of the Twentieth Century Club and the school Registrar) to send her the addresses of several former Ward-Belmont students and T.C.C. members - Frank McGee, Ruth Lemley, Hazel Mercer, Helen Wooley, Alberta Lake, Juanita Youngblood, Zelma Howell, and one other (Olive, Oliva, or Olivia Johnson or Johnston), as well as that of Mrs. Forrest (Marguerite Palmiter Forrest), her voice teacher in 1917.
She apologizes for having to write her letter in pencil on this stationary, but states that "under the circumstances I could do no better." Regarding her poor health, she says "it was the moving that got me - I did some heavy lifting that has almost ruined me." She notes that she and her husband have moved several times, and he recently purchased "a real and true [...] new house to live in" as a Christmas present for her after she "had fussed about it - so John said he had an idea and here we are living in the idea - and there's nothing like it." She also gives information on her son, who "is now 14 months old and a perfect baby - in health, beauty and disposition." She enclosed a photo of him at nine months.
In conclusion, she states "I suppose I now have all that any girl could wish for - and much more than most of them get - because there can't be many husbands like [John]."Context
Sue Moore Fullilove was a member of the senior middle class at Ward-Belmont in 1917. She served as an officer (custodian of the memory book) in the Twentieth Century Club, and was also a member of the Choral Society. She was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1897, and passed away in Alamo Heights, Texas in 1955. Her husband, John Owen Gibson, passed away in 1969. Per the 1940 Census, John and Sue were living in Alamo Heights at the time with their two sons, William Fullilove Gibson and John O. Gibson Jr. Their older son, John, was born about 1919 when Sue was 22, and William about 1923 when Sue was 26. Per the Alvin Sun, a Texas newspaper, their son William passed away on March 26, 2012, and was survived by several children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
The Twentieth Century Club (T.C.C.) was a student organization and one of ten social clubs at Ward-Belmont, organized November 24, 1916. The club's purpose was an excerpt from English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson's collection Idylls of the King, specifically “Gareth and Lynette" (1872): "Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King, Else, wherefore born!" The club's motto was "Ideas and Ideals." Per the 1943 Milestones yearbook, club members "strive toward one goal - the maintenance of the high ideals of both their club and their school."Collection
Harpeth Hall School ArchivesLexicon
Search Terms
Ward-Belmont, Sue Moore Fullilove, Twentieth Century Club, 1920, Letter
