The Mother Who Earned Her Degree ‘The Hard Way’
Photo: Left to Right, Rear, Mrs. Mae C. Fuller, Albert, 14, Grady Jr., 18, Greta, 20; Front, Ophelia, 9, and Helen, 8. Not in this photo is daughter Jewel, 19.
Small children being led by their parents’ hands or babies pushed around in a stroller are not a strange sight in Aggieland. Many Aggies today are full-time students or full-time employees while also being full-time parents, if not all three at once. Generations of scholars around the world grew up on our campus as their parents taught classes or completed their dissertations.
In preparation for National Week of the Young Child (April 5 – 11) and National Library Week (April 6 – 12), but in advance of Mother’s Day and Commencement, the University Archives and Special Collections learned of the incredible story of a widowed mother who raised her children while earning her degree from A&T many years ago.
Monday, June 1, 1953 was the spring commencement of the “Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina”. Of the 400 recipients for degrees that year, the most famous and lauded at that time was Mrs. Mae Collier Fuller of Sedalia, NC. Mrs. Fuller graduated “with honors” from the college, but many knew that those honors did not count her six years of sacrifices to raise her six children.
Mrs. Fuller was a 1945 graduate of the Sedalia High School. Just two years later in 1947, her husband Grady died, leaving Mae and her children with a very uncertain future. That fall, Mae enrolled at the A&T College to further her education where her eldest children Greta and Grady would also be enrolled. She would travel from Sedalia to Greensboro by bus daily for the 10 mile trip to A&T for three years, sometimes making two round trips.
She worked part-time at the college library, which was in the Dudley Building at the time. Working part-time meant far less time for her family, but the work was necessary to cover her tuition, textbook costs, commuting, and a daily lunch. In some accounts she also provided hair care for female students in one of the residential halls at the Palmer Memorial Institute while also working as a domestic. What time she did have for her family was filled with cooking, washing, and ironing. To harvest food for the winter months, the family raised a garden plot.
For at least 2 years, daughters Ophelia and Helen, the youngest of the Fuller clan attended the campus “nursery school”. The A&T Nursery School began in 1941 and was the ancestor of our modern Child Development Lab. Child care on the Aggieland campus has even earlier roots with a practice school that operated as early as 1930 during the summer months for teacher training, and a private kindergarten run by First Lady Susie B. Dudley in the late 1910s.
For her senior year the Fuller family moved to Greensboro to ease the burden of commuting. Also sacrificing for the family was oldest daughter Greta who dropped out of A&T for one year to assist with the family’s expenses.
Mae Collier Fuller, 1953 Ayantee.
When Mrs. Fuller graduated from A&T, a photo of her in cap in gown with most of her children was published coast to coast, with story headlines like “N.C. Widow Receives Her Degree” and “She Earned Her Degree ‘The Hard Way’. The captivating story of the Fuller family, their sacrifices and the pride of the children in mother earning her degree were retold in daily and evening editions as a standout among national college and university commencement news. As A&T public relations director Ellis F. Corbett put it “not one eye shone more brightly, not one heart beat more proudly than the six Fuller children”
The fame of Mrs. Fuller was an amazing foretaste of the future headlines to come from the Class of 1953. The legendary graduates of that year include Justice Henry Frye, Shirley T. Frye, Dr. Velma Speight, Dr. Otis Tillman, and Dr. Lois Fears.
The day after her graduation, Mrs. Mae C. Fuller became a full-time circulation librarian at A&T. As the A&T Register student newspaper put it, she was a new librarian who needed “ no introduction to the student body”. The legacy of Mrs. Fuller and her dedication to her education and her children continued for decades. One of her daughters who was in nursery school was Helen Fuller Spriggs. Her 2013 dissertation at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro was dedicated to her grandparents, her siblings, and her parents Grady and Mae Collier Fuller.
This article is dedicated to our hardworking Aggie Moms and Dads and to our Child Development Laboratory. A special thanks goes to Dr. Jawan Burwell director of the CDL whose research questions led to the rediscovery of Mrs. Fuller’s story. Even more appreciate to my mother Mrs. Pearl Davis-Stewart who proved that Rams & Eagles can raise fine Aggies; and most of all to my wife Mrs. Shavon Stewart ‘08 who like Mrs. Fuller is an Aggie, a librarian, and a mother of tremendous love and devotion.
If you grew up in the Child Development Laboratory, or on campus with your parents while they worked at or attended A&T, or have more information about this story please email: libraryarchives@ncat.edu
By James R. Stewart Jr. ‘08
