We continue to celebrate the United States 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I have written this month about the impact on the Fergusons of inventions shown at the Centennial Exposition in 1876 and Mrs. Ferguson’s leadership in the Sesquicentennial (150th) 1926. I think of the 200th (Bicentennial) in 1976. In that year, Mr. Ferguson had already passed 55 years and Elva 30 years earlier, but their legacy lived on in Ferguson Home Museum, four years old in 1976.
It (1976) was an important year for “The Ferguson”. Mrs. Ellen Shaw writes in her book “This Old House in Watonga” the Mothers’ Self Culture Club, to which Mrs. Ferguson belonged, celebrated 50 years. They had bought, restored and opened the home as a museum in 1972. The number of visitors to the museum surpassed 10,000 in the first four years! Oklahoma History delivered a document confirming the home on the National Registry of Historic Places.
In the October 1976 Ferguson Feature, Mrs. Shaw reprints an article from Oct. 11, 1025 published in the Kansas City Journal Post. The headline reads: “Woman Who May be Oklahoma’s ‘Ma Ferguson’…” This was a takeoff on Texas’ first woman governor ‘Ma Ferguson’ who served 1925-27 and 1933-35 Wikipedia on Miriam A. Ferguson. The article informs how highly Elva Ferguson was regarded as an editor and leader in the 1926 Sesquicentennial.
“During all these years there’s but one breadwinner at a t time in the Ferguson Home. Once it was T.B. Ferguson- an early0day governor of Oklahoma. Today it is his widow who may go to Congress or be ‘Ma’ Ferguson’ of Oklahoma. In a state where women do not hold major political offices, she is mentioned for both places for governor and for a seat in the Congress from her district….”
“And in the little town of Watonga the matter of where Mrs. T.B. Ferguson will spend the summer of 1926 is of overshadowing importance. As a statewide issue it is attracting considerable attention. Will Mrs. Ferguson swelter with the rest of Oklahoma, quill in hand? Or will she spend the summer in Philadelphia as a member of the advisory committee for the Sesquicentennial?”
Mrs. Ferguson’s involvement in the Sesquicentennial continues to be a matter of research