By Wesley Harris
In 1914 Lenora Fuller was a teacher at Culbertson school in northeastern Lincoln Parish. Teaching was one of the few occupations open to young women, especially a 20-year-old one growing up in the small sawmill town of Dubach.
On the morning of January 5, the first Monday of the new year, Fuller noted one of her best students, Belle McAdams, was not present. The pretty 12-year-old Belle walked over a mile to school each day. If she was ill, there was no way her family could send word to Fuller. Few farms had telephones, and the rural system was unreliable at best.
That night, when Belle failed to return home, her family was not too concerned. Sometimes Belle stayed with the family of one of her friends who lived close to the school rather than walk home. Again, there was no way to send a message home to relay such a plan.
The next day, Belle failed to appear at school or at home. Alarmed by her absence, the family and men in the community searched the countryside around Culbertson and Cedarton. A neighbor found her brutalized body hidden in some bushes just off the trail between her home and the school.
We know nothing of Miss Fuller’s reaction to the loss of one of her students. We can only surmise that she was devastated, possibly regretting not sending word to her family that Belle did not come to school, obviously assuming she was at home sick. But could that act, the heinous murder of one of her best students, and the failure to identify the killer, eventually convince Lenora Fuller to change professions?
When Fuller began teaching school, she did not possess a college degree. Obviously, an asset, the college education was not a requisite for teaching in a small rural school.
After a few more years of teaching, Fuller enrolled in LSU to obtain a bachelors degree and then became one of the first women to seek a degree from the LSU Law School. Fuller was the only female student at the law school, an institution with only one female instructor.
In 1931, Lenora Fuller graduated with her law degree and returned home. Fiercely independent, she opened her own practice in Dubach. New lawyers often joined an older barrister to share expenses and learn the ropes. Not Fuller.
She later moved her office to the fifth floor of the T. L. James building in Ruston in 1932. Fuller likely knew businessman and philanthropist Thomas Lewis James since he bought the Dubach mill and moved in the biggest house in Dubach when Fuller was a teenager.
We don’t know much about Fuller‘s law practice. As a woman, other attorneys likely referred cases involving children or family matters to her. It was the type of case the few women in the profession were expected to handle.
Although she ran ads in the newspaper, regulations at the time did not allow much more than a lawyer’s name and contact information in advertising. According to news reports, Fuller handled criminal defense cases and was appointed to represent defendants in district court.
Fuller lived with her parents in Dubach until they passed away. She never married.
We can only guess what prompted Lenora Fuller to leave the field of education and enter what was at that time an exclusively male world. She appears to have been the first female attorney in Lincoln Parish, and likely the only one outside of Shreveport in North Louisiana.
Did the death of one of her students, the ensuing futile investigation, and the lack of justice for Belle and her family drive her to become an attorney? There was no chance she could enter the realm of law enforcement in North Louisiana, or anywhere for that matter; practicing law would be as close as she could get to the justice system.
Many great attorneys have lived in Ruston and Lincoln Parish. Names like Holstead, Dawkins, Barksdale, Barham, and others are still well known in local legal circles. But the legacy of Lenora Fuller, who should be a shining example to young women seeking their place in non-traditional roles, has all but been forgotten.
Please contact me at campruston@gmail.com if you have additional information on Lenora Fuller—Wesley Harris
