Widgets worked in 2nd column but without heading. When I added a heading widget, it messed up the display of the 3rd column. Again, ‘forcing’ the display of the full post is just nuts in a footer column. There should be options to display title, date, author, & excerpt. Then the website designer/developer can create the display they want for the website.
I finally gave up and put in a footer menu in the 2nd column.
It is a major problem I have seen for 20+ years with templates/theme development teams when they make design decisions which should be left up to the firm that is developing the website, ie: displaying content in ‘plain text’ when the option to display in HTML or Plain text should be offered.