Fayola Fullingim was born on 20 July 1912 in Carnegie, Oklahoma, the ninth of ten children born to Wesley McMahan "Mack" and Kate Fullingim. Premature by two months, little Fayola weighed only three pounds at birth. The doctor said she would die in a few hours, but her oldest sister, Turpie, took the little infant, cleaned her, kept her warm, fed her, and thus saved her life.

She was enumerated at age seven along with her family in the 1920 U.S. Federal Census for Kiamichi Township. Pushmataha Co., Oklahoma. Her oldest sister, Turpie, was twenty and already married to Elbert Biggs and living in the next adjacent household. Fayola's father and her brother-in-law, Elbert, were working as farmers on a "general farm."

By the time the 1930 U.S. Federal Census was enumerated, Fayola was seventeen, but by this time her family had moved to Custer County in western Oklahoma, and her father, Mack, was working as farm helper. In January 1933, Fayola was married to Willie Arthur Crawford in Watonga, Oklahoma. Willie had been married before, and he had two sons from that marriage, Lonnie and John Crawford, who usually spent summers with their dad. During that year Fay and Willie went to Illinois to work with Fay's older brother and wife, Guy and Etta Fullingim. It was a very cold winter, and Fay had twelve flannel diapers for baby Mildred when she was born in December. In the spring of 1934 the young family returned to Oklahoma in order to help grandpa Mack and grandma Kate Fullingim on their farm.

Fayola's husband, Willie, worked at various jobs in different localities of Oklahoma, but primarily oil field work. He also was employed for a while in building the dam on the Red River. In October 1935 Lorene Frances Crawford was born, but unfortunately, she died the following summer in Anson, Texas, from a form of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).

[BIO is still in process, 20 Oct 2013]