Helen was born December 25, 1921 to Elliott and Myrtle Connelly, with a blessed delivery from a midwife.  During this time, the midwife was the only one around that delivered babies!  She was a healthy baby girl, the second of ten children.  She worked as a housekeeper and baby sitter for a family in Drexel during her teenage years.  She attended a two room school house (for black children) and helped to take care of her younger siblings.  At a young age she married James Fullwood - also known as "Hambone" - and were blessed with ten children, all of which are still living.  She quit working outside the home to work inside as a wife and mother, where she spent time making gardens, cooking, sewing, killing hogs, raising rabbits, selling rabbits, and raising chickens.  She also had a pet goat, along with cats and dogs!  Helen loved to can vegetables she grew from her three gardens.  She stated she loved her life while growing up, doing what she had to do to take care of her family; she even remembered having cows, a horse, and a donkey.  She also raised her nephew Steve Surratt, who loved to be included in the Fullwood family.

Life was rough, yet good as she had to maintain the household as her husband Hambone left to work on the railroad, laying rails to make more money to keep his family going; he eventually worked forty four years at Drexel Heritage Furniture Company until it closed.  Wood from Drexel Heritage was used to build their home.  As Helen stated, "There was a time where we had to do or bust!"  In addition to raising her children and nephew, she raised her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren over the years, saying with a big laugh, "There is too many to count!" She loved to cook big meals and feed anyone that needed a plate.  She cooked on heat provided by a wood stove, which she still used presently.   Additionally, her hobbies included dewing quilts, writing poems, working puzzles, although she said her eyes weren't that good now.  Although she never learned to drive, she said she never needed to, as she loved to be a back seat driver.  Her daughters and sons never went without their needs and half of their wants.  Love within the Fullwood family still flows from heart to heart and breast to breast.   In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her sisters Eva, Addie B. McElrath, Omelia Armstrong, and one brother Fred Connelly.  Left to mourn her loss but cherish her loving memories are her six children: Annie Largent, Lula Belle Jenkins (Harold), Linda Sloan, Jacob Fullwood (Betty), Paul Fullwood, and Steve Fullwood; sisters Mary Will Hunt, Hester Cook, and Ophelia Harshaw Talbert; brothers William Connelly and Ray E. Connelly, and a host of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends.

A memorial service honoring the life of Mrs. Helen C. Fullwood will be held Wednesday March 6, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. in the Corpening Memorial Chapel of McCain Funeral Home & Cremations with Rev. Frances Tate serving as eulogist.  The family will receive friends thirty minutes prior to the service.

The service will be livestreamed on the McCain Funeral Home & Cremations Facebook page and YouTube Channel; the links are found below:

McCain Funeral Home & Cremations Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/mccainfuneralhome/

McCain Funeral Home & Cremations YouTube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu4qb7IT7sO-Kc0BRs05J-A