First, thank you to everyone who attended the T.B. Ferguson Birthday Luncheon and membership drive and to the First Christian Church for hosting.
Continuing the theme of women who married the Fergusons, Lucia Loomis Ferguson was the daughter-in-law of T.B. and Elva Ferguson by virtue of marrying their son, Walter Scott Ferguson. Lucia was born in 1887 in Boggy Depot, Indian Territory. Lucia often accompanied her father, a physician. She was educated in nearby Denison, TX and Hardin College in Missouri for two years. At the University of Oklahoma, she was part of the first sorority. She met and married Walter Scott Ferguson, a founder of the first OU fraternity.
They bought and published the Cherokee, OK Republican debating the suffrage question. That paper remains in publication today. She continued the paper while Walter served in the Oklahoma Senate in 1916. In 1919, the couple sold the Cherokee Republican and moved to OKC and later to Tulsa in 1928. Lucia contributed to the Watonga Republican and in 1922 George B. Parker, editor of the Oklahoma News, asked her to develop a women’s column to compete with Edith Johnson’s column in the Daily Oklahoman. “A Woman’s Viewpoint” became so popular it was syndicated by the Scripps Howard news Service and appeared in 35 newspapers across the USA.
Walter Ferguson and Lucia had three children: Benton, Ruth and Tom. Benton was a graduate of OU and Tom became a famous cardiovascular surgeon at Washington University in St. Louis.
I am still researching Ruth Elva Ferguson.
Benton Ferguson visited the Ferguson Museum in 1970 and presented memorabilia. Benton also compiled a book of some of the many articles written by Lucia over 37 years in “A Woman’s Viewpoint”. The museum has a copy. The autobiographical article in the book is worth a read.
After Walter S. Ferguson’s death at 49 years in 1936, Lucia served as president of the Y.W.C.A and on the boards of the Urban League, Little Theater, and the Thomas Gilcrease Institute and Tulsa Symphony and Chamber Music. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1937. She died in a car accident in February 1962.