Boine Wilmer Fuller (1904-1983)

Portrait from the Lodi News-Sentinel, April 13, 1954.

    Popularly known by the nickname "Spud", Boine Wilmer Fuller was for over five decades a well-known businessman and public figure in the city of Lodi, California, serving as the Mayor of that city for one term in the early 1950s. A native of Tombstone, Arizona, "Spud" Fuller was born on April 17, 1904, the son of  Henry W. and Jennie E. Fuller. His early education took place in the state of his birth and he would later graduate from the high school at Globe, Arizona in 1921. 

   In 1921 "Spud" Fuller left Arizona and moved to California, first settling in Marysville. He remained here for nearly a decade and in 1931 resettled in Lodi, where he would take work as a manager of a Western Auto Supply store. Prior to his removal to Lodi Fuller had married in Yuba City to Mattie Belle Reamy (1898-1953), later having a daughter, Joyce Elaine, in 1929. After settling in Lodi Boine and Mattie would become parents to the first set of triplets to be born in the city of Lodi (Boine Raymond, Boyd Edwards, and Barrie Chalmer), their births occurring on Christmas Eve 1936. 

    In the early 1930s, Fuller and E.J. Crescenzi established a sporting and auto accessories store in Lodi, operating under the name of Fuller and Crescenzi. Their partnership would continue until 1944, when it was dissolved and the company underwent a name change to Fuller and Sons, with Fuller as its "sole owner". In 1945 he was elected as President of the Central Valley Sportsman's Council and in the following year began a lengthy connection with Junior League baseball in Lodi, helping to found the Lodi Junior Baseball League. Fuller had earlier helped to establish a youth basketball club in Lodi in 1940, and his devotion to the promotion of youth sport in Lodi later led to his being inducted into the Lodi Sports Hall Fame in 1977.

A cartoon of "Spud" Fuller, printed in the Sept. 16, 1954 edition of the Lodi News-Sentinel.

    Spud Fuller first entered Lodi city politics in March 1954 when he announced his candidacy for the city council. He would win election to that body on April 20, 1954, and shortly after being sworn in was "unanimously selected" as Mayor of Lodi by his fellow city council members, as the Lodi city charter provided that the mayor would "serve in that capacity as long  as a majority of the city council members vote him into office." The Lodi News-Sentinel reported in its April 21st edition that Fuller was entering the office with "mixed emotions", with Fuller stating that:

"I feel great pride, humility and fear in accepting this position.....In fact, I'm scared. Never has the Lodi City Council been faced with such problems as confronts this council."

Boine W."Spud" Fuller with outgoing Lodi Mayor Mabel Richey in 1954.

  Fuller succeeded Lodi's first female mayor, Mabel Richey (1903-1999), who had served two terms in office. Fuller's term extended into 1955 and during his year in office was a prominent booster for the Heart Fund, a health campaign started by the San Joaquin County Heart Association. Fuller would continue to serve on the city council after his term as mayor concluded, his last year of service on the council being in 1958. Widowed in 1953, Fuller would remarry in August 1963 to Lydia Herman (1911-1995), who would survive him upon his death at age 79 on May 26, 1983.  He was later interred at the Lodi Memorial Cemetery, also the resting place of both his wives as well as his infant son Boyd.

Portrait from the Lodi News Sentinel, May 27, 1983

Forsythe Charles Clowdsley (1895-1940)

From a February 1929 press photo.

   Despite his lack of years Stockton, California resident Forsythe Charles "Tod" Clowdsley left his mark in Sunshine State politics, being a four-term representative to the California State Assembly, as well as serving as San Joaquin County's District Attorney. The son of William Forsythe (1846-1917) and Virginia Olive Clowdsley (1852-1948), Forsythe C. Clowdsley was born in Stockton on February 6, 1895, and would attend the public schools of that city. 

   As a young man, Clowdsley entered into work on the staff of the Stockton Mail newspaper and continued in this employ until the dawn of American involvement in WWI. The American Legislative Leaders of the West denotes that Clowdsley "underwent two major surgeries to pass the physical examination" and after doing so was deployed to France as a Sergeant of Battery C, 143rd Field Artillery. He would remain here from 1917-1919 and following his return to Stockton resumed work with the Stockton Mail.

  Clowdsley married his first wife Helene Harpillard (a native of France) in 1920. Helene died in 1922 during childbirth and in 1933 Clowdsley remarried to Salina, Kansas native Suzanne Marie Humbarger, who would survive him upon his death in 1940. 

  Clowdsley first entered public life in San Joaquin County in 1921 when he was appointed as Assistant District Attorney. He would serve in that post for several years and in 1926 was elected as one of San Joaquin County's representatives to the California State Assembly. He would be elected to three further terms in the assembly and in the 1933-34 session served as Speaker Pro tem of the House, being noted as "the first Democratic speaker in California in 40 years."

  In November 1934 Clowdsley was elected as San Joaquin County District Attorney and was still the incumbent in that office when he died on September 25, 1940, of a heart attack. Just 45 years of age at the time of his passing, Clowdsley's burial location is unknown at this time but is presumed to be at the Stockton Rural Cemetery in Stockton, California. This cemetery is the resting place of both his first wife Helene (1900-1922) and his son, Forsythe Charles Jr. (1922-1929).

From the 1928 California Blue Book.

Arminius Titus Haeberle (1874-1943), Arminius Calvin Paulsell (1832-1893)

  Continuing on a theme set by Tuesday's article on Epperson R. Fulkerson, another oddly named American diplomat is profiled here on the site, Arminius Titus Haeberle of Missouri. Unlike Mr. Fulkerson, who briefly served as U.S. Vice Consul in Nagasaki, Mr. Haeberle was a career diplomat, serving as a Vice Consul or Consul in several different countries over twenty years time.

   Born in St. Louis, Missouri on January 23, 1874, Arminius Titus Haberle was the son of the Rev. Louis F.  (1838-1928) and Flora Lemen Bock Haeberle (1841-1909). Arminius attended school in St. Louis and later went on to study at both the Elmhurst College in Illinois and Washington University in St. Louis. After completing his studies Haeberle embarked upon a career as a teacher, eventually becoming an instructor at St. Charles College in St. Charles Missouri.

  After several years of teaching and serving as a principal at various locations in Missouri, Haeberle was named to the position of vice director of the Institute Ingles in Santiago, Chili, serving here from 1898-1903. Returning to the United States after his service in Chili Haeberle became the head of the modern language department at St. Louis's McKinley High School, holding this post until 1907. In the year following his leaving McKinley High School Haeberle was appointed to his first diplomatic post, that of U.S. Consul at Manzanillo, Cuba. After presenting his credentials and passing an examination, Haeberle arrived in Manzanillo on June 10, 1908. His service as consul concluded in 1910, and in that same year was transferred to the consulate at Tegucigalpa, Honduras. 

  After arriving in Honduras in January 1911, Haeberle threw himself into his new appointment, being described as "energetic" and "instructive" by the 1912 Congressional Serial Set. This same work also notes that Haeberle made numerous trips by mule through the six districts that comprised Tegucigalpa, and he gave detailed accounts of the region's agriculture, early history, industry, and the area's "considerable mineral wealth".

                              This picture of Haeberle appeared in a July 1914 edition of the New York Sun.

   Haeberle continued to advance as a diplomat in November 1913, when he was transferred to the U.S. Consulate in St. Michaels, Azores. His tenure here was quite brief, as he was moved yet again in February 1915, this time to the consulate in Pernambuco, Brazil. Haeberle spent eight years as U.S. Consul in Pernambuco, with his tenure concluding in 1923. He remained in Brazil as Consul in San Paolo from 1923-1925 and was then dispatched to Dresden, Germany, where he took the post of U.S. Consul General in 1925. His eleven-year tenure in that office saw the rise of Hitler in the early 1930s, during which time Haeberle sent home "confidential reports about him" to government officials.

  Arminius T. Haeberle retired from diplomatic service in 1936, having served as a vice consul or consul in six different areas of the world for twenty-eight years. Following his retirement, Haeberle returned to the United States and settled in Missouri. On October 26, 1943, he was stricken while shaving at his St. Louis home and died shortly afterward.  He was survived by his wife Ida Weineke Haeberle, who died in 1949 at age 76. Both were interred at St. John's Cemetery in Bellefontaine Neighbors, Missouri, the same resting place as Haeberle's parents.

Portrait from the San Francisco Call, March 28, 1893.

    In an update to this article (June 28, 2016), another politician with the first name "Arminius" has been located...Arminius Calvin Paulsell!! A standout figure in the business and political life of San Joaquin County, California, Paulsell was a one-term member of the California State Assembly from that county and was later tapped to serve on the State Board of Harbor Commissioners. 

    A native of Tennessee, Arminius Calvin Paulsell was born in Green County in that state on January 26, 1832, the son of John and Mary Ann Polly (Bailey) Paulsell. The Paulsell family moved from Tennessee to Illinois, where John Paulsell died in 1838. Arminius would reside with his mother in Missouri and at age 14 entered into work at a general store in Springfield. 

   Like many other young men of the time, Arminius Paulsell saw a bright future for himself in California and in 1853 permanently resettled there. Establishing himself in Stanislaus County, Paulsell married the following year to Almira Holford Gardenhire (1839-1910), a daughter of a pioneer Tuolumne County family. The couple are recorded as being the first to be married in that county later had a total of nine children: Mary Catherine (1855-1868), Martha Augusta (1857-1922), Lee Young (1862-1871), John Jefferson (1864-1930), Ann Jeanette (1866-1956), Arminius Calvin Jr. (died in infancy in 1874), Oliver Franklin (1875-1941), Edna (1879-1961) and Jessie (1880-1956).

  Shortly after his marriage, Paulsell resettled in San Joaquin County, where he purchased a farm and began farming and stockraising. Sources relate that he owned 3,500 acres of farmland and in 1872 sold off several hundred acres of it and moved to Stockton (also located in San Joaquin County), where in 1873 he helped establish the Farmer's Union, a cooperative formed "for the purpose of warehousing, buying and selling grain, bags, etc."

   In November 1873 Paulsell was one of two representatives from San Joaquin County elected to the California State Assembly and during this session (1874-76) served on the committees on Corporations and State Hospitals. Following his term, he briefly served on the city Board of Aldermen from Stockton's 2nd ward in 1878.

  After a number of years as President of the Farmer's Union, Arminius Paulsell left that post in 1883 to accept an appointment to the California Board of Harbor Commissioners, being named to that board by then-Governor George Stoneman. Paulsell would serve a total of seven years as a harbor commissioner and in 1890 was even floated as a potential Democratic candidate for Governor of California; his name being placed in nomination by then San Joaquin Superior Court Judge Franklin T. Baldwin.

  Touting Paulsell's experience as a businessman, Baldwin's nominating speech highlighted Paulsell's character and also acknowledged that:

"His sublime record had met with the approval of his fellow citizens in all parts of the state....and that no better man could be selected to act as the standard barer of the Democratic Party."

Arminius C. Paulsell.

   Despite the enthusiastic support of Judge Baldwin, Paulsell's gubernatorial hopes were dashed at the nominating convention in San Jose in August 1890. On the first ballot, he garnered 44 votes, and in the second round of balloting, 25 votes (compared to successful nominee Edward Pond's 217.) 
   After his gubernatorial ambitions had come to naught, Paulsell resided in San Francisco, where he continued in the "buying and selling of grain on a large scale." In 1893 he returned to Stockton, where on March 26, 1893, he died of the effects of Bright's disease at the home of his son John Jefferson. Before his death, Paulsell had been put forth as a possible Superintendent of the U.S. Mint in San Francisco, but his death prevented this from occurring. Paulsell was survived by his wife Almira, who, following her death in 1910 was interred alongside her husband at the Stockton Rural Cemetery.

Paulsell's death notice from the Sacramento Record-Union March 28, 1893.