Charles Edward Fuller was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 23, 1907 to John Charles and Elizabeth Kohn Fuller. He grew up in the Cheltenham township and graduated from Cheltenham High School in 1925. After graduating from Dickinson Seminary in 1926 he became a supply pastor in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He received his B.A. in Bible and Theology from Juniata College in 1936. In 1938 he received both a M.A. in History and Literature of Religion from Northwestern University and a M.Div. from Garrett Theological Seminary. Fuller completed his formal education with a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Northwestern University in 1955.
Fuller was a Methodist pastor and missionary as well as a scholar. He was received on trial in 1930 in the Central Pennsylvania Conference and into full connection in 1933. In the Central Pennsylvania Conference he served the charges of Riddlesburg and Burnt Cabins, and he served the Cherry Tree charge in the Western Pennsylvania Conference. Fuller also served charges in the Missouri East Conference in the 1950s. From 1939 to 1951 he served as a missionary in southeast Africa including Mozambique from 1939 to 1942, South Africa from 1942-1945, and Southern Rhodesia where he was Superintendent of Schools from 1947 to 1951. The Methodist missionary was also the associate editor of The Africa Christian Advocate during his tenure in Southern Rhodesia.
Except for brief assignments or visits to Africa during the 1960s, Fuller spent his career in the United States in academia. He was a professor of theology and anthropology at the Missouri School of Religion at the University of Missouri, Columbia from 1953 to 1964; a professor of anthropology at Scarritt College in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1964 to 1967; and a professor of anthropology at St. John=s University from 1968 to 1972 where he was Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology from 1970 until his retirement at the end of 1972. Following his retirement Fuller was a visiting professor at Florida Southern College in Lakeland for seven years. He lived the remainder of his life in Rabun County, Georgia.
Fuller married Edna Marie Worthing on June 6, 1931 and had two children, Charles Edward, Jr. and Judith Anne. He died on March 17, 1990 in Clayton, Georgia.
From the description of Charles Edward Fuller papers, 1908-1988. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122406027
