100 YEARS IN THATCHER
1883-1983

REUBEN W. FUllER SR.
AMY C. LAYTON

Reuben W. Fuller was born July 17, 1865 in Salt Lake City, Utah. parents were F.W. and Elizabeth Miller Fuller. When he was seventeen he came to the Gila Valley.

The words pioneer, carpenter, builder, businessman, religious leader, all describe Reuben W. Fuller Sr. He was numbered among the first settlers of Thatcher. In 1886 he moved to Thatcher.

In 1895 he became associated in partnership with I.E.D. Zundel and Joseph Fish. Eighteen months later he bought out his partners and conducted the business alone until August of 1898. He then found it advisable to consolidate his interests with those of the old firm of Layton & Co. and he became a member of the thriving establishment of Layton, Allred & Co.

On New Years Day, 1886 he married Miss Amy C. Layton, the daughter of President Christopher Layton. Her mother was the eighth wife of Christopher Layton and her name was Septemma Simms. Four children blessed the union of Reuben and Amy: Maggie D., Reuben W. Jr., Lawrence, and Archie J.

During the years of 1898 and 1899 Mr. Fuller traveled in the interest of his church through the southwestern states, including Kansas and Indian Territory.

Amy Caroline Layton was born December 24, 1867 in Kaysville, Utah. She was the first child of Christopher and Hannah Maria Septima Simms. Little is known of Amy's childhood. She came to Arizona with her parents in 1885.

Amy was a small person scarcely five feet tall and well under one hundred pounds. She had brown hair and blue eyes and fair complexion. She was a hard worker and very thrifty and a good manager. She was a natural for curing people of their ailments. She had remedies and knew how to help the sick.

Amy's memory was good, even in her old age. She knew all her kin, even the great grand children as well as her neighbors and friends.

Most of her life she did the weekly family laundry in a hot or black tub with a fire under it to boil the clothes in a suds made with home made lye soap. Then used a scrub board to get the rest of the dirt out. In her later years she had it much easier. She got a washing machine with a gasoline engine on it.

Amy was a quiet person with not much to say. She was not given to gossip. When she did talk it was worth listening to. She told her grandchildren that her father would let the children eat all of the fresh peaches they wanted so long as they left the skins on. It seems like he figured the fuz on the peach was good for children.

Reuben Walter Fuller Sr. died in 1941 at the age of seventy five. Amy died March 25, 1943 at her home in Thatcher. They are buried in the Thatcher Cemetery.