The story of Mattie Jacobs Fuller, her portable piano and a ‘silver loving cup’
While concertgoers are nowadays inclined to travel dozens of miles and spend hundreds of dollars on a performance, there was a brief time in the early 1920s when a spirited performer by the name of Mattie Jacobs Fuller brought the show straight to you.
Born in Kentucky to enslaved parents, Fuller and her family moved to Bloomington after the Civil War, but hardship soon followed. After her mother died, the 9-year-old became an indentured servant to an Indiana physician, despite the practice being illegal. Eventually being freed through a marriage at 14, she found a sense of purpose through beautician work. For the next several years, she owned and operated a beauty parlor in the Allen Building on East Kirkwood Avenue, where she would make a name for herself as one of the city's first beauticians.
While Fuller was a beautician by trade, she was a performer at heart. She often sung gospel hymns and spiritual music, crediting her affinity to her early memories of leaving Kentucky with the hopes of making a new life.
"I just believe what makes me love music so well is hearing a big harp as my folks cross the Ohio River on a boat. That was the sweetest music I ever heard," Fuller recalled in an interview later transcribed in "Homeless, Friendless, and Penniless: The WPA Interviews with Former Slaves Living in Indiana" by Ronald L. Baker.
Fuller was a dedicated member of Bethel A.M.E. Church, where she played piano for the congregation on Sundays. When the congregants had to raise funds for their new building, Fuller took her portable Bilhorn organ to the streets.
For several years, she moved her piano across the area, performing her favorite gospels for anyone inclined to drop a few coins into her "silver loving cup." Fuller played at any gathering, whether it was a large crowd at a county fair or a gaggle of picnic enjoyers at a park. Wherever there was an audience, Fuller put on a show. She raised around $12,000 to go toward the church's mortgage.
Her fundraising and building pursuits went beyond her house of worship. As an older woman, she constructed her own home out of various materials she'd collected or was gifted throughout the years.
"The people I was bound to gave me a dollar and told me to build a house," Fuller was quoted in Baker's book as saying. "I have been building ever since."
In that interview, Fuller pointed out several household items — a plate glass window, gifted for her dedication to the church, and a washstand, passed on by a local judge. Following her tumultuous youth, the older Fuller emphasized how important it was to have one's own home.
"I can't bear to give up my home and liberty," Fuller noted. "My father and mother were slaves, and I was bound. So I want to stay in my home."
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Mattie Jacobs Fuller brought music to Bloomington's streets
