Thomas Fullenwider Wood

  General Notes:

Thomas Fullenwider Wood (Tom)

"I was born November 17, 1912 near Alton, Indiana (Crawford County) at home, delivered by Dr. Josephus Meyers. I was named Thomas Fullenwider Wood by my parents Charles Forrest and Sallie Ellen Wood. Both my parents were born in Indiana.

My grandmother Fullenwider, who was blind at the time said I had a "nice shaped head."

Both of my parents were teachers. While I was an infant we moved several times, living in Alton, English and Terre Haute, all in Indiana. Dad trained in manual training and industrial arts in Terre Haute. Our next move was to Marian, Indiana, where we lived for about 12 years while dad taught in high school. After Marion we lived for one year each at Goodland, Indiana and Michigan City, Indiana. We spent three years at Franklin, Indiana and dad finished his teaching career at Seymour, Indiana where he taught for eight years.

In the meantime, with the assistance of a Rector Scholarship after my graduation from Franklin High School I was able to enroll at DePaw University. I graduated from DePaw in 1935 with Phi Beta Kappa Honors.

After working at various jobs for three years I enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri where I was a graduate assistant. I received my M.S. Degree in 1940. After graduation I was employed for 30 years by Givaudan-Delawanna (later Givaudan Corporation) in New Jersey except for a three year interval during World War II when I worked at United States Rubber Company in Passaic, New Jersey. It was here that I met my wife, Marie Kreiger. We were married May 3, 1945 in the St. Nicholas Catholic Church rectory by the Reverend Father Thomas Boyle. I was a member of the Baptist Church and Marie was a Roman Catholic. Later we became members of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Paterson, N. J. and later still the United Community Methodist Church in Wayne, N.J. When we moved to Pennsylvania we joined an ecumenical church at Hemlock Farms, Pa. and since retirement to Florida we became members of the United Community Church. Our marriage has produced three sons, Thomas Charles, John Benton, and Laurence Paul and five grandsons, Kevin, Brian, Jefton, Ryan, and Phillip Wood. They are all very dear to me.

(Tom died September 24, 1995 after a long illness. His memorial service was conducted at the United Church of Christ by Dr. Robert Gingery Oct 2. His ashes were taken to Alton, Indiana and he is buried at Orchard Knob Cemetery there. across from the Old Fullenwider Cemetery)

Marie add: While employed at Givaudan Tom authored or co authored 50 patents and similar foreign patents. He also was the co-author of a chemistry text and many articles on chemistry. He was a member of the American Chemical Society, Phi Beta Kappa, Indiana Society of Pioneers and numerous genealogy societies. In recent years he has written articles for genealogy magazines relating to his family.

The word that most people use to describe Tom as a person was that he was a gentle man. He was very quiet but could get quite enthusiastic about certain things like basketball! He was a down to earth man who loved sports and history and stories of the old West. He was proud of his Indiana heritage and was writing his family history when he died, which I am completing for him. While he loved to watch basketball he was proud of the fact that he managed to keep bowling and playing golf until his last illness. He enjoyed reading and some television but spent the greater part of his leisure trying to track down elusive ancestors and planning his next strategy or trip to locate them. He also tried to help researchers who were stuck and answered all letters of inquiry with his usual courtesy. He was a very honest man with high standards and expected everyone to be the same. He was incapable of believing anything but good about people and hadn't an enemy in the world. He could lose his temper but if he did you could be sure it was because some very important moral rule had been broken. He was very family minded and loved and respected his parents, his children and grandchildren and kept in touch with numerous "cousins'. Every visit to Indiana meant visits to cities and towns and "hollers" to see cousin So and So or an aunt or uncle who might still be able to tell him something more about his family history.

Although Tom lived the greater part of his life in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida, to him Indiana was always home. And so, his final resting place is in Indiana near his parents, grand and great-grand parents and his uncles and aunts. Our final act of love to him was to take him home again.

Both of Tom's parents were born in Indiana and lived there lives there. Tom loved his mother and father and admired what they had done to raise their children in difficult times. His parents retired to Alton, Indiana where Sallie was born. They are both buried at Orchard Knob Cemetery in Crawford County, Indiana. ¹

Thomas married Living