I am looking forward to celebrating T.B. Ferguson’s birthday this Friday, March 15 (his birthday is actually Sunday, the 17th) at the Senior Center. But I have begun to think we should also celebrate the birthday of his remarkable wife, Elva, later known as Eva. During a recent visit to the Horizon Hill in Kingfisher, the one-time home of the third territorial governor, A.J. Seay, I found a book in the gift shop in the Chisholm Trail Museum. The book is “More than Petticoats: Remarkable Oklahoma Women” by Deborah Bouziden. Morris Book Pub, 2013.
Bouziden starts her acknowledgments by thanking the site director of the Ferguson Home Museum and Terri Crawford at the Watonga Library for materials on Elva Ferguson, one of 12 remarkable Oklahoma women in the book.
After telling the wellknown story of how Elva answered Theodore Roosevelt’s telegram inviting Thompson Benton (TB) Ferguson to be the sixth governor of the Territory of Oklahoma while T.B. was away printing the paper in Hitchock, Bouziden writes about Elva’s role in Guthrie.
“Elva was always on and by his side. During the social season, she was the one who made sure he was dressed properly. She recalled, ‘It took a great deal of diplomacy on my part to get him into his dress suit and have him in attendance at the social affairs which the governor and his wife were obliged to favor with their presence.’
She also stepped in to make sure anything that wasn’t going well was taken care of immediately. After all, she didn’t want her family to be remembered as country people from the sticks, and she took on roles to make sure that didn’t happen.”
“During the years her husband was in office, she wrote about what was going on in the Indian Territorial Capitol for the Watonga Republican back home. When her husband was ill, she took over his role in the governor’s office, writing letters for him and signing her own name to them. At other times, she didn’t balk from strapping on an apron and helping out wherever she could.
Such an incident happened when the Secretary of the Interior Ethan Alen Hitchcock and several other Washington officials were coming to the Territory to inspect various institutions that were under the Interior’s jurisdiction. A reception was held from three to five o’clock in which the first lady was to stay in attendance, and then they would go to the governor’s home for dinner.”
Elva recalled in her book “During my absence at the reception a general knock-down and drag out scrap had taken place among my help and my cook.” Some telephone calls brought assistance in kitchen and wait staff.
‘We took off our party dresses, put on our aprons and were soon at work in the kitchen, bringing order out of chaos.’
“When the guests arrived an hour later, Elva was back in her party dress meeting the dignitaries with a smile. No one knew of the catastrophe in the kitchen, and the dinner party was hailed a success.”
A remarkable woman indeed.