Editor’s Note: When Daisy M. Artis, daughter of Bellefontaine residents Frank and Lillian McCullough, contacted the Examiner to ask about the cost to print an item sharing her parents’ extraordinary milestone, the response was immediate: Are you kidding? Stories like this are among the reasons hometown newspapers — even recently closed ones like the Examiner — exist. If anything, we should be paying her for such stellar content. Our only regret is that we learned of the celebration a few days after the fact and that we can’t put a million print copies on the street to spread the good news. Some say the Hubbard family’s Examiner legacy is impressive. With respect, the legacy built by the matriarch and patriarch of the McCullough family easily “one-ups” us.
Milestone indeed.
Walker Street, Bellefontaine residents Frank and Lillian McCullough each turned 97 years old in 2025 and celebrated their 81st wedding anniversary on Christmas Day, Dec. 25.
The couple was married on Christmas Day, 1944, in Heathman, Miss. Both were just 16 years old when they began their life together, working as sharecroppers in the Magnolia State. Frank McCullough learned the value of hard work early, laboring in the cotton fields and later serving as a supervisor — known as “the Boss Man” — on a cotton plantation under J.A. Marcus.
Providing for family always came first. Over the years, Frank traveled wherever work could be found, including Mississippi, Detroit, and Indiana, often returning home every two weeks during especially difficult economic times in the late 1980s. He retired from the Ford Motor Company in 1992 but continued working well into his late 80s as a janitor alongside his sister, Mary Breaston. Frank was 89½ years old when he finally stopped working.
Together, Frank and Lillian McCullough became the parents of six children—three sons and three daughters. Their family has since grown to span five generations. While exact numbers are difficult to pin down, the family’s best estimate places their legacy at approximately 36 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren, and 52 great-great-grandchildren, with the total continuing to grow.
Seven years ago, their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, family members, and friends gathered at Christ Our King Church in Bellefontaine to celebrate the couple’s 90th birthdays. As their family reflected, God granted them seven more years to remain together, surrounded by those they love.
This Christmas, as they marked 81 years of marriage, Frank and Lillian McCullough quietly demonstrated what a lifetime of faith, perseverance, sacrifice, and love can build — an enduring legacy measured not in years alone, but in generations.
