Our Rugged Individualism : Biography of Lester Harold Mullan, 1943

Lester Harold Mullan was born to a fourth generation Irish-American Christian and a Belarussian Jewish emigrant on October 12, 1943. Life was not easy growing up in a household of parents who were alcoholics. Later, his mother, Pearl, divorced his father, Harold, in order to reach sobriety for herself.

Until then, Lester's childhood was a series of unknowns and unpredictability. Adult supervision was sparse and so were any good role models. Lester was left to his own devices.

Unfortunately, he contracted Polio at any early age. He ran a fever and was ill without much medical attention afforded him. His illness only progressed to his left arm where the muscle atrophied. He spent most of his life lifting weights to keep his arm as strong and usable as possible.

This Polio-induced injury kept him from fulfilling his dream to be a baseball player. He did spend a summer in the Minor Leagues and he could throw a baseball ninety miles an hour. It was not enough to be good at baseball when you want to make it your career.


Wendell, Dawn, Kassandra Mullan (photographed by Lester Mullan)

So he joined the military. In 1962, Lester went into the Air Force where he was stationed at Luke A.F.B. in Glendale, Arizona. There he earned Airman 2nd Class working on the aircraft. He gained enough experience to eventually become a machinist for the Catepillar Company. First he met and married his wife, Anna Elvira Chisum from Avondale, Arizona. They married on May 8, 1965 in the old Nazarene Church on Central Avenue in Avondale, Arizona.

After the military, he worked as a machinist at small companies while he raised his family in Glendale, Arizona. Right before he left the military, his son, Wendell Harold, came into the world at 4lbs and 3oz in March of 1966 at Phoenix Hospital. Six years later, he welcomed a daughter, Dawn Leslie into the world at Glendale Hospital in July.

Anna, Dawn, Kassandra Mullan
(photographed by Lester Mullan)

Several weeks later, Lester told Anna that he was taking her back to God's country as he received a position with Caterpillar. He neglected to mention that God vacationed in Florida during the winters and Anna was not used to the cold and snow.

In 1977, Lester's father Harold Albert Mullan passed away.

By the time 1978 came around, their third child, Kassandra Ann, was born in Davenport, Iowa in June. Later that year and early into the next, the Mullan family moved out to sunny San Diego where Lester worked for other companies tied to the airline industry manufacturing parts. The family stayed in California for five years before another job moved them back to Arizona.


Pearl Chasky Mullan (photographed by unknown)

The eighties saw the death of his mother, Pearl Mullan, and the hard economic times of unemployment.

Many years of economic hardships plagued the family. With the death of Pearl, a small inheritance sustained the family along with government benefits, Lester became dependent on unemployment as the slow de-industrialization of America subtracted jobs from the economy at a faster rate than creating them. At the end of the economic downturn, benefits were ended by Congress and so was the hope of any positions for a middle-aged man.

A difficult even challenging personality at times led to further self-destructive behaviors because there were no jobs available in his field. So his challenges became volatility. Some bad choices also contributed to his feelings of failure until the volatility became rage.

This unpredictable and aggressive behavior led to Anna and Lester divorcing by the early 1990's. Lester then wandered. Unsure of his place in the world, he bounced from place to place. His health also declined as his diabetes worsened almost taking his eyesight.

Lester Harold Mullan
(photographed by nursing home?)

His deteriorating mental and physical medical conditions qualified him for disability, which he remained on until his death. He eventually entered a nursing home where his needs could be looked after on a daily basis. This move kept him safe in a world he no longer recognized and could not function in.

Even though Lester Harold Mullan had more downs than ups in his lifetime, he still stepped to the beat of this own drum. Wherever the band played, he was there. He is just now doing it in heaven.

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