In the “good ole’ USA”
Born and raised in Scotland, this lady was destined to be in the United States. If you ask her, she will tell you. This is the first woman I have heard brag about the Illinois weather. “It is absolutely wonderful,” she said. Everything from the weather, to a simple tree, to Heritage Health, Mary Fulton is grateful for everything and that is why she is the spotlight at Heritage Health for June.
Mary (Stevenson) Fulton visited Gillespie in 1948 with a girlfriend. Her friend, Agnus, had an aunt that the pair stayed with. It was just a short getaway from Scotland, but that is all it took. She fell in love, for the first time. Mary loved the weather and the sunshine because, according to her, it is always gloomy and damp in Scotland.
A few weeks passed and her aunt finally got ahold of them by telephone. “I got you two visas, you can come back now,” Mary explained as she recalled the telephone call. In no time at all, the two were back in the Gillespie area and ready to start their second life. They both immediately got jobs at a local dress shop owned by Agnus’s uncle.
The two then got very homesick as Mary recalled. So, they went back to visit Scotland for weeks at a time sometimes. “It was back and forth, back and forth,” Mary noted. Finally, Mary’s father put an end to that. He was strict, she added, and he told us, “You either stay or you go, you have to choose.”
Well, their decision unfortunately left behind their families. The two were back for good now. Still working at the dress shop, Mary and Agnus found out that two good looking hunks lived next door to the shop. Put two and two together and you get two marriages. Both Mary and Agnus joined in marriage. Mary married Bill Fulton. She went on to say that she probably would not have stayed here if she did not meet Bill.
“We moved over here because of the nice sunny weather,” Mary added. The rainy climate in Scotland is just simply incomparable to “beautiful sunshine” here. She kept insisting to appreciate the wonderful weather here. In Scotland, you don’t get any of the heat you get here.
It wasn’t until after high school Mary and Agnus made the move. The two were childhood friends and attended kindergarten through high school together. They both got all of their schooling in Scotland. “It was very strict,” Mary referred to the schooling. She loved school and loved learning. Instead of college, the two made the voyage to Gillespie for the first time.
Upon arriving to Gillespie, she said she did not like the area at all. Don’t hold this against her, but it was very different for her. There was no dancing here for them and that was Mary’s number one passion in Scotland. Just call her the dancing queen. She made do though and finally settled in after 3 trips back home.
The pair went home to get back to the dancing again, Mary pointed out. “When we got to Gillespie, there was nothing,” she said. Nothing to do, no place to dance, and she felt left out. She loved ballroom dancing and, according to her, there wasn’t any where to dance. They were able to shake out the jives when they returned home.
Her husband’s parents and family lived in Scotland. In fact, oddly enough, very close to where she grew up: Ayrshire, Scotland. Her and her husband had one son, Robert Fulton. “He was very, very good,” Mary bragged.
Mary promised her husband she would take him to Scotland to see his family. He thought she was kidding. “You would do that,” he questioned. “Of course I would do that for him,” she laughed. The two finally went back and met his cousins and family that he was never able to see before. “He appreciated it and they have actually came back here to visit since then, in the good ole’ USA.”
She happily calls Heritage Health her home now, she loves it. “The company is great and the people are really nice,” she added. Mary loves to play bingo and enjoys coffee hour at Heritage Health. Although, she suggested that they get dancing so she can dance back to her youth.
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