Fuller Earle Callaway

Other Events and Attributes:

• SSN issued: Texas, USA
• Social Security Number: 456-46-9997

Family/Spouse: Living. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Fuller Earle Callaway Jr.

Born in LaGrange, Fuller Callaway Jr. (1907-92) graduated from LaGrange High, Georgia School of Technology, and the Eastman School of Business in Poughkeepsie, New York. He started working in the mills at age fourteen and became president of Callaway Mills in 1935. He was a community leader and a benefactor of the town of LaGrange, LaGrange College, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Fuller Jr. operated Callaway Mills for many years and established foundations that gave away millions during his lifetime.

In 1948 Fuller Jr. took a ten-year leave from mill management. During those years, he painted, worked with electronics, and assembled a herd of Hereford cattle. He then returned to the helm of Callaway Mills and successfully guided operations until April 1968, when he shocked many by selling Callaway Mills for cash to Roger Milliken and Deering-Milliken Company of Spartanburg, South Carolina.

In 1930 Fuller Jr. married Alice Hinman Hand of Pelham. Fuller and Alice had met years earlier when their siblings, Cason and Virginia, married. Fuller and Alice had two children, Ida and Fuller. They lived at the Hills and Dales estate of his parents, where Alice worked for decades to preserve the home and gardens. Since Alice's death, the gardens have been renamed Ferrell Gardens at Hills and Dales and are open to the public on a limited basis.

Fuller Jr. helped to found the Institute of Textile Technology in Charlottesville, Virginia, and along with two other alumni, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, which supports research in all areas of the sciences. In 1943 he organized the Callaway Community Foundation (later the Callaway Foundation). The foundation carried on the work of the Textile Benefit Association organized by his father in 1919. The Callaway Foundation owned all assets of Callaway Mills and has made contributions from income to religious, charitable, and educational organizations. More than $251 million from the foundation have has been given to local, state, and national groups between 1943 and 2003.

Fuller married Alice Hinman Hand on 6 Aug 1930 in Pelham, Mitchell, Georgia, USA. Alice (daughter of Judson Larrabee Hand and Florence Mae Hollis) was born on 4 Oct 1912 in Pelham, Mitchell, Georgia, USA; died on 15 Jan 1998 in La Grange, Troup, Georgia, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Fuller Earle Callaway

Members of the Callaway family have lived in west Georgia since the mid-nineteenth century. Fuller E. Callaway (1870-1928) was born in Troup County to the Reverend Abner Reeves Callaway and his first wife, Sarah Jane Howard. At age ten, Fuller received a nickel for bringing water to men at a barn raising. The next day, he walked eight miles into LaGrange.
Fuller E. Callaway
After realizing that the nickel would not buy the boots he wanted, he chose three spools of thread and went back to the country. He soon found three housewives who paid five cents a spool, and he thereby made a dime on his first commercial transaction.

Young Fuller continued to peddle and to farm his own tract of land. His formal education was limited to about a year in public schools in Troup County. At age eighteen, he opened a five-and-ten-cents store with $500 he had saved. He later opened four other stores and entered the wholesale business. In 1895 Callaway invested in LaGrange's first modern textile mill. Dixie Mills opened with local fanfare and New England management; nonetheless, the mill began to struggle financially within a couple of years. Other investors convinced Fuller to take over management. They threw out the secondhand equipment and brought the mill onto solid economic footing. After Fuller got his money back, he decided to leave the textile industry.

Soon, however, the lure of the industry called again, and townspeople, including Fuller, invested in a new project. Unity Mills (later Kex Plant) shipped its first cotton in 1901. Fuller served as secretary-treasurer of the company, a position he would hold in other mill projects as well. Between 1900 and 1920, Fuller and others opened several mills located within 100 miles of LaGrange.

Fuller stressed the importance of the social and educational development of employees as well as their economic well-being. Mill houses, churches, schools, parks, greenhouses, and other amenities were built along with the mills, but Fuller did not open company stores that would have competed with existing businesses. He was widely quoted as saying, "I make American citizens and run cotton mills to pay the expenses." Such paternalistic interest in his workers also served to keep their morale up and thus to keep unionizing efforts from either within or outside the mill community at bay.

Fuller also established a variety of businesses, including banks, warehouses, and an insurance company. He held positions in national textile associations, and he was president of the American Cotton Manufacturers Association. He also served as a railroad commissioner of Georgia from 1907 to 1909 and was appointed by U.S. president Woodrow Wilson to the Conference on Industrial Relations in 1919.

Fuller said that one of his greatest accomplishments was marrying Ida Jane Cason of Jewell in 1891. They met while she attended Southern Female College in LaGrange and after their marriage lived frugally on what Fuller termed "cash street rather than mortgage street." Between 1914 and 1916, he engaged architect Neel Reid to design their Hills and Dales home on Vernon Road in LaGrange. The Italian style of the home complemented the gardens that Sarah Coleman Ferrell had planted on the site beginning in 1841. Fuller and his wife had two sons, Cason Jewell Callaway and Fuller Earle Callaway Jr.

Fuller married Ida Jane Cason on 28 Apr 1891 in La Grange, Troup, Georgia, USA. Ida (daughter of Alexander T Cason and Living) was born on 16 Jul 1872 in Jewell, Warren, Georgia, USA; died on 10 Apr 1936 in La Grange, Troup, Georgia, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Ida C Callaway
• Residence: 1880, District 114, Hancock, Georgia, USA
• Residence: 1900, La Grange, Troup, Georgia, USA

Notes:

Georgia Deaths, 1919-98 Record
about Mrs Fuller E Callaway, Sr
Name: Mrs Fuller E Callaway, Sr
Death Date: 10 Apr 1936
County of Death: Troup
Certificate: 12349

Judson + Florence Mae Hollis. Florence was born on 6 May 1877 in Sumter, Georgia, USA; died on 10 Mar 1969 in La Grange, Troup, Georgia, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1850, Division 90, Warren, Georgia, USA
• Residence: 1850, Division 90, Warren, Georgia, USA
• Residence: 1860, Mc Crarys, Warren, Georgia
• Residence: 1880, District 114, Hancock, Georgia, USA

Alexander + Living. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]