Willa Lybrand Fulmer

Willa Lybrand Fulmer (February 3, 1884 – May 13, 1968) was a United States Representative from South Carolina and a member of the Democratic Party who served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives during World War II. She was born in Wagener, Aiken County, South Carolina, where she attended the local public schools. Raised in a rural community in the late nineteenth century, she came of age in an era when educational opportunities for women in the South were limited, yet she pursued formal schooling beyond the primary level.

Fulmer continued her education at Greenville (Baptist) Female College in Greenville, South Carolina, an institution devoted to the higher education of women and affiliated with the Baptist denomination. She graduated from Greenville Female College, which later merged with Furman University, a development that placed her alma mater within one of the state’s leading institutions of higher learning. Her education reflected both the religious and cultural traditions of the region and provided a foundation for her later public life and involvement in civic affairs.

Willa Lybrand married Hampton P. Fulmer, a South Carolina Democrat who was elected to the United States House of Representatives and served continuously from 1923 until his death in 1944. During her husband’s long tenure in Congress, representing a largely agricultural district, she became familiar with political life and the concerns of their constituents, particularly in the areas of farming and rural development. His service in the House, spanning the interwar period, the Great Depression, and the early years of World War II, placed the Fulmer family at the center of significant national legislative debates.

Following the death of Hampton P. Fulmer in 1944, Willa Lybrand Fulmer entered public office herself. She was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-eighth Congress in a special election to fill the vacancy caused by her husband’s death, representing South Carolina in the United States House of Representatives. Her term of service ran from November 7, 1944, to January 3, 1945. Although brief, her tenure occurred during a critical phase of World War II, and she participated in the legislative process at a time when Congress was addressing wartime mobilization, military affairs, and the transition toward postwar planning. She thus joined the small but growing number of women serving in the United States House of Representatives in the mid-twentieth century.

Fulmer’s service in Congress lasted for the remainder of the Seventy-eighth Congress, and she did not seek election to the Seventy-ninth Congress. After leaving Washington, she returned to South Carolina and engaged in agricultural pursuits, reflecting both her personal interests and the economic base of the district she had represented. She remained involved in the life of her community and continued these activities until her retirement, maintaining ties to the agricultural sector that had long shaped her family’s public service.

Willa Lybrand Fulmer died on May 13, 1968, aboard a ship on the North Atlantic Ocean while en route to Europe. Her death at sea marked the close of a life that had bridged the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and included service in the national legislature during a pivotal moment in American history. She was buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where she is interred near the constituency and region that had defined both her private life and her brief but notable congressional career.