Paul M. Fuller, 1897-1951
It
has over the years been believed that Paul Max Fuller was born on the island Corsica
on the 5th January 1897, based on reasonably reliable
family information. If the latest genealogical findings are correct, he may
have been born in Switzerland (born name Paul Colland), and his mother Sophie Colland
(1874-*), a seamstress born in the village
St. Aubin, married Erwin Furler (1877-*), a book binder born in Hüningen/Basel,
on the 13th April 1899 in the village Gelterkinden.
Paul Fuller stated once that he was born in Interlaken on the 5th June, as stated officially on the birth certificate, but
apparently, he celebrated birthdays on the 5th
January. The
first six months of his life in Switzerland are subject to ongoing genealogical
research. As a young man, on his honeymoon with his wife Friedel (Frida Schär), he went to Omaha in Nebraska to visit Friedel's
sister Louise, and Paul Furler may have thought that he could do well in the
States as an architect/designer. It is believed that Paul Furler worked as a
farm hand in Nebraska for a few years, while he learned the Anglo-American
language, and it is also believed that Paul Fuller took the middle name Max
from a friend when he applied for American citizenship. Max Peter Hofstetter (1899-1959) was a good
friend and fellow designer, who travelled on the ship Rotterdam from Boulogne-sur-Mer to New York with Paul and Friedel when
they were on their honeymoon. Max Peter was also the son of August Hofstetter,
the founder of Möbelfabrik Aug. Hofstetter in Basel,
and Paul Furler served a four-year apprenticeship at the Hofstetter factory
plus one year at another major furniture factory. According to the U.S.
Naturalization forms Paul (Furler) Fuller arrived in New York on the 20th August 1920, after the marriage to Friedel on the 7th May in Basel. In 1925 he designed and built his own
house ‘Twin Oaks’ on Sunset Lane in Deerfield and rebuilt the Presbytarian school in Deerfield-Bannockburn. At the same
time Paul M. Fuller started working for the firm Marshall Field & Co.
(hundred years later the fourth largest general merchandise retailer in the
States). At the
During
the years at The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company Paul M. Fuller had a total of 17
phonograph (jukebox) cabinet designs patented in his own name. The classic
Fuller designs started with Model 312 (patent No. D:99,277
filed on the 8th February,1936) and ended with Model 1100
(patent No. D:153,675 filed on the 8th September, 1947). Among the 17 designs
was one for a Model 260 Console Speaker and another for a very nice
remote-control unit for Model 1100 (filed the same day), but those two
designs were as far as it is known today never produced at The Rudolph
Wurlitzer Company in North Tonawanda. Paul M. Fuller also filed an additional
patent for a remote-control selector device on the 17th August, 1945 (patent
No. 2,612,710 granted on the 7th October, 1952), and he also designed electric
organs and keyboard covers for The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company in 1946 and 1947.
Paul M. (nickname Malt)
Fuller was together with general sales manager Milton (Mike) G. Hammergren and the
famed illustrator Albert Dorne responsible
for the whirlwind national Wurlitzer advertising campaign around 1947, and the dean
of jukebox designers finally left the major jukebox manufacturer at the
end of 1948 due to health problems and hospitalization, leaving behind a legacy
that transcended the mere product and helped to define an age, the Golden
Age of automatic coin-op phonographs. The last commercial phonograph model
Paul M. Fuller was involved with as designer at The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company
was Model 1250 alias Twelve Fifty introduced on the market in
February 1950.
In
the first months of 1949, leaving the jukebox trade and the Fairfax Hotel in Buffalo,
where he resided during the years at The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, Paul M.
Fuller purchased a factory building at 101-107 South Warner Street in Oneida,
and established his own design engineering company, the Paul M. Fuller Co.
Inc., designing mainly wooden chests and silver display boxes. The company was
active with up to 85 employees from the 1st April, 1949, until around the 1st
April, 1954. However, from the 1st April, 1951, and the next three years the
company was managed by James H. Keene (1904-1988) and Philip V. Clonan
(1911-1973), and the 30,000 sq.ft. production
facility was finally offered for sale on the 2nd May, 1954. Paul M. Fuller was
working with wonderful furniture and piano designs between 1949 and 1951, and
many years before, in 1937, Paul M. Fuller assigned a very nice, patented desk
design to the Chicago based The Clemetsen Co. (Clemco
Desk Mfg. Co.). After his employment at The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company Paul M.
Fuller was also vice-president in charge of design, production, and engineering
at the SuperVend Sales Corporation. The SuperVend
Corporation, originally based in Dallas, Texas, was acquired by a group
of investors headed by Milton G. Hammergren in January 1950, and the offices
were moved to 134 North LaSalle Street in Chicago.
Paul
Max Fuller suffered a
fatal heart attack during a general checkup at the Millard Fillmore Hospital in
Buffalo, and died at 7.30 a.m. on the 29th March, 1951, only 54 years of age,
and was cremated at the Forest Lawn Chapel two days later. According to the
obituary in the "Buffalo Evening News" Paul M. Fuller was survived by
his widow (married in July, 1944), the nurse Ruby Helen Rudd
Fuller (1907-2000), his
son Paul Norman Fuller,
and also by his brother Hans Furler* in Zürich in Switzerland. Paul M. Fuller's
first wife Friedel (Frida Schär) died in 1985 (☼ 30th
December, 1896) and his
son Paul Norman died on
the 5th December, 1999 (☼ 14th
September, 1927).
Unfortunately, his second son Charles Frederick (☼ 5th December,
1929) passed away from
meningitis at Highland Park Hospital on the 15th March, 1938. According to the
cremation permit (Reg. No. 5417)
Paul Max Fuller's ashes were scattered, and therefore no grave marker can be found at
the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo.
Gert J. Almind
* The editor needs copy of death
certificates to find the correct data of Sophie Furler (☼ 15th October,
1874), Erwin Furler (☼ 26th December, 1877), brother Hans Furler (☼
1901/1902), sister Elsa Furler (☼ 1908 in
Ziefen), and probably one or two other siblings. The
name of Paulˈs brother Hans was probably short for Johannes,
since his uncle Walter Furler also had a son named Johannes about the same age.
The name Johannes was in fact the name of Hansˈ grandfather and great
grandfathers on both sides in the Furler family.