In 1874, Henry Fuller moved to Covina, CA from Vermont. He had bought land and was hoping to make a living raising turkeys and farming wheat. Henry sent for his wife, Helen Day, after getting situated, but a drought hit hard that year and they lost all. He and his wife moved to Los Angeles, and he opened a furniture store with a starting inventory of 24 rockers and 120 chairs.
His store became successful because of the manufacture and sale of bedsprings. And, family and children were well taken care of.
Charles Fuller was born on April 25, 1887, being the fourth son born to Henry and Helen. Charles loved going into town, and was often seen around the fire station in town. He was known by the firemen so well, that they sometimes let him ride in the fire wagon with them to watch them fight fires.
Shortly after his birth, his mother's asthma got very bad. She would go to the Redlands to get relief in the drier climate. His father took their savings and bought 70 acres in the Redlands area where he hoped to start a new business with an orange grove. From 1889 until 1893, Charles' father operated his furniture store in Los Angeles while building their new business in the Redlands.
His father sold the final inventory of his furniture store at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and moved to the orange grove for good.
There were no fire stations around. There was nothing around but nature. Charles spent his free time wandering the hills enjoying the beauty of God's creation. Though, much of his life was spent working the orange grove with his father and brothers.
The Fuller family belonged to the Methodist Church in the Redlands, and Henry made sure that his boys tithed part of their wages to that church. Charles grew up in a Christian home having morning Bible studies with his father and singing hymns with his mother as she played a pump organ.
By 1902, Fuller's Fancy Oranges were doing quite well. Henry took the time to take one of his sons around the world to see the mission field. He would send back letters to his family of their encounters, and when he arrived back home they published all the letters together in a book titled A Californian Circling The Globe. Henry had a great love for missions, so when his orange business started doing extremely well, he started to support missionaries himself. First, there were three, but by the end of his life Henry was supporting 55 missionaries around the world!
Charles grew to be around 6 foot tall by the time he was in high school. He was a shy boy, but that didn't stop him from playing on the football team. He even made captain.
It was here that he met his future wife Grace Payton. Charles proposed while they were still in high school, but Grace wanted to go to college first. She asked him to wait until they had graduated to ask her again. He was willing to wait for her, and made her a cedar hope chest.
They graduated high school in 1906. Grace went to Cumnock School of Expression in Los Angeles, and Charles enrolled at Pamona College- half way between Los Angeles and the Redlands.
Grace had moved from Cumnock School of Expression to the Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio. Then she went on to the University of Chicago. But, her father's death brought her studies to a halt, and she moved back to help her mother.
Charles went all four year to Pamona, and enjoyed college. Though he wasn't good in English, he excelled in Math and Science. He continued playing football as left-tackle and became the captain of his college team. Grace would sometimes attend his games.
Charles and Grace were engaged the summer between his Junior and Senior year of college.
He graduated in 1910, and took his knowledge of chemistry back to his father's orange grove. He began to analyze the soil and create fertilizers to help the trees bear more fruit.
Henry had purchased a gold dredging operation in Northern California, and asked if Charles could go find out why it wasn't it wasn't doing well. While there, Charles had a near death experience. He was swept off a boat and whipped around in the currents of the American River. He had a hold of a cable, and cried out to God that he would serve Him always if God would allowed him to live.
Charles did survive, and returned home in the summer of 1911. He and Grace were married that fall. Charles continued using his knowledge of chemistry to make a living testing rancher's soil and creating fertilizers for their needs. The second year of the marriage, they were able to purchase a 10 acre orange grove.
Their venture into the orange industry didn't go well. Their first crop was killed off by a freeze just a few months after they bought their farm. And, in 1913 they again lost it all to a cold front. Charles decided to apply for a management position in Placentia and they moved in April 1913.
It was in 1916 that Charles went to hear Paul Rader preach in Los Angeles. The former wrestler/boxer turned preacher was having an 8 month evangelistic campain. Rader was the pastor of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, and had been called the "New Elijah".
That night changed his life was forever. The message made Charles realize that he wasn't living how he should. He didn't go forward for the invitation, but he didn't make it home without yielding to the conviction. He knelt in the back seat of his car and gave his life to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The seed for the love of missions that was planted in him as a young boy started to bear fruit. Within a year, he and his wife were traveling throughout the Western United States as evangelists to rural cities. When Charles saw that the need was great, he enrolled in a Bible Institute in Los Angeles in 1919 to train to become a preacher.
He served as a Bible teacher at Calvary Church in Placentia, CA for 10 years. It was here that the Old Fashioned Revival Hour came into existence. When Charles realized that this ministry had the potential to reach more than any pulpit anywhere, he resigned from the church and went full time into the radio ministry.
From 1925 on, this evangelistic radio broadcast sent the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ out into the airwaves from a Hollywood studio. By the 1940's his radio show was being played on stations all around the world thanks to the help of the Gospel Broadcasting Association, which was established by Charles for the purpose of keeping the radio show going.
At the beginning of World War II, the Old Fashioned Revival Hour moved to the Municipal Auditorium in Long Beach, CA. It is unknown just how many soldiers gave their lives to Christ before shipping out to give their life for their country- only eternity will tell.
Charles was sad to see that Protestant churches across America were closing. He was even more saddened by the fact that there weren't enough preachers to fill the pulpits of the ones that were still open. So, in 1947, Charles opened the doors to the Fuller Evangelistic Foundation where he trained young men to be pastors, missionaries, and evangelists. His training produced soul winning preachers who sought the lost where ever they could find them.
The last broadcast from the Municipal Auditorium was aired on January 12, 1958. Charles moved his radio show back to a Hollywood studio and continued sending the gospel out as 30 minute broadcasts.
In 1969, the Old Fashioned Revival Hour was taken over by David Hubbard, a member of the Old Fashioned Bible Hour quartet, who changed the name to The Joyful Sound.
Charles died on March 18,1968, at which time his Old Fashioned Revival Hour was being played on over 500 stations around the world. One of the last things he said was , "As I look back on my life, how glad I am that I have spent it preaching the Gospel."
The broadcasts of the Old Fashioned Bible Hour were brought to life again in 1997 by Charles' son, Dan Fuller, as the Old Fashioned Revival Hour.
