As students begin a new school year, it is a good time to reflect on the importance placed on education by T.B. and Elva Ferguson. T.B. Ferguson was a welleducated man in colleges, and Elva continued life-long learning and teaching of women.
For T.B., early education in country schools led him to Emporia State Normal College, from which he graduated in 1884. He financed his academic career by teaching in small schools, and after graduating he took additional training in Kansas and in Iowa. After finishing college, he was ordained as a Methodist minister and after a short time moved to Chautauqua County, Kansas. There, Ferguson taught school for nine years and married Elva Shartel.
As Territorial Governor from 19011906, Ferguson, an experienced educator, promoted education. Education comprised the largest block of his balanced budget to improve the quality of education at all levels from elementary through college.
Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History And for those going off to college, three universities had already been established by 1901 when T.B. Ferguson was appointed governor of Oklahoma Territory. In December 1890 the first Oklahoma Territorial Legislature created the University of Oklahoma (OU) at Norman, the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (Oklahoma A&M, now Oklahoma State University) at Stillwater, and Central State Normal School (now University of Central Oklahoma) at Edmond.
Northwestern Territorial Normal School (now Northwestern Oklahoma State University) was organized at Alva in 1897 and Southwestern Territorial Normal School, now Southwestern Oklahoma State University, was established in Weatherford in 1901. Oklahoma University Preparatory School in Tonkawa (now Northern Oklahoma College), a secondary institution, was established in 1901 to prepare high school students for OU. Langston University, formerly known as the Colored Agricultural and Normal University, was established in 1897 to serve African American students OK Colleges and Universities.
Mrs. Elva Shartel Ferguson was an educator herself. When she came to Watonga at about 24 years of age, she educated women through her articles in the Watonga Republican, Mother’s Self Culture Club in Watonga, and began and ran the Watonga Library from 1906 to WW1. It reopened in 1921.
Oklahoma Libraries.
Her son, Walter Scott Ferguson, graduated from OU, and married a college-educated woman.
Elva’s brother, John Wilford Shartel, obtained a teacher's certificate and began teaching at age 17.
Encyclopedia of OK History Education was very important to the Fergusons.