Old Missoula

Editor Ferguson Dies After Brief Illness

French T. Ferguson, 71, died at a local hospital Wednesday after a brief illness. He had been editor of The Daily Missoulian and The Missoulian Sentinel since Sept. 1, 1939.

His activities had been curtailed somewhat in recent years because of declining health, but he had been in the hospital only since June 14.

He had been a member of the staff continuously since April, 1908, when he became a Missoulian reporter.

Mr. Ferguson came to Missoula after working on the Pantagraph at Bloomington, Ill., for nearly four years following graduation from the Illinois Wesleyan University of that city in 1904.

In his 50-year newspaper career Mr. Ferguson’s writing covered a wide field. One of his specialties on the Bloomington Pantagraph was interviewing farmers and narrating what they were doing to improve both the quantity and quality of production.

Until the end he was an avid follower of sports, a field he covered in every detail during his early years in Missoula.

For more than two decades, while he was successively city editor and managing editor, he conducted a homespun column in The Missoulian on local and national affairs known as “The Oracle.”

Mr. Ferguson’s understanding of and interest in national and international developments was reflected in his editorial writing, upon which he had concentrated his efforts in recent years.

He was a charter member of the Missoula Country Club, organized in 1917. Thirty-three years later, after he had quit playing golf because of declining health, the club conferred upon him an honorary life membership.

Mr. Ferguson was born on May 4, 1883, at Delaware, Ohio. A change of employment for his father, Wilbert Ferguson, soon took the family to Bloomington, where the father spent the remainder of a long career of teaching foreign languages on the faculty of Illinois Wesleyan.

The professor tutored his two sons through grade school work, two years of which was abroad while the father was a postgraduate student in Germany. It was the father’s desire that the sons follow his profession. But both turned to the newspaper field and came to Missoula in early manhood. The younger, William G., for many years a resident of Helena, died there in 1952.

Constance Ferguson, a younger sister, became a member of the Illinois Wesleyan staff and still resides in Bloomington. She arrived in Missoula a few days ago, due to the critical condition of her brother.

Funeral services will be conducted at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the University Congregational Church. The Rev. Guy L. Barnes will officiate and burial will be in Missoula Cemetery with the Squire-Simmons-Carr Mortuary in charge of arrangements.

The above obituary appeared in The Daily Missoulian on June 24, 1954.

 

The editor of The Daily Missoulian on June 24^th had this to say about French Ferguson:

Rare is the person who has had so much to do with so many aspects of development of a community over such a long period as was the lot of French T. Ferguson in Missoula.

From his arrival in this then comparatively frontier town 46 years ago last April until his death, his life was closely intertwined with that of Missoula and the surrounding area.

He came here from Illinois to join the staff of The Daily Missoulian, an association he enjoyed and an advantageous one for this publication, which was broken only by his passing.

His contributions to the improvement of The Daily Missoulian and The Missoulian Sentinel were many and varied, particularly in the fifteen years since he became their editor.

Quietly and without ostentation he had effective but little publicized parts in the advancement of the Missoula of 1908 to the modern city and center of education and culture which it is today.

His keen understanding of human nature, philosophical outlook and rich background of information, which have dominated the contents of this column for many years, will be long and greatly missed.

 

A short example of Ferguson’s Oracle column appears below.

The Oracle on Joe Bush 1922

On October 5, 1922 French Ferguson’s column started out with the final part of the poem ‘Casey at the Bat’ which, as everybody knows, ends with lament that the mighty Casey has struck out. The occasion for citing the poem was the 1922 World Series between Babe Ruth’s N.Y. Yankees and the N.Y. Giants. Missoula’s own claim to big league fame resided in Yankee pitcher ‘Bullet’ Joe Bush who got his start in Missoula, and who pitched for the N.Y. Yankees in the first game of the 1922 series. Bush gave up 3 runs in the eighth inning and lost the game to the Giants. Bush also lost game 5 in eight innings and the Yankees lost the series. It was the last series that had a tie game – the second game ended 3 to 3. Anyway, Ferguson’s Oracle column cited some interesting local history after crying about the loss in first game:

With its old-time idol, Joe Bush, knocked out of the box in the first game of the Big Series, Missoula knows just how void of morale was the population of Mudville after the debacle of the mighty Casey.

We Exhibit Our Membership Badge in the “Knew – Him – When” Club.

In April, 1912, we went to Hamilton with Manager Blankenship and his Missoula Highlanders. (Yes, we were the Old Reliable’s sporting editor for ever so long.) On the second or third day of the training season in the Bitter Root a green boy arrived at the Ravalli hotel, as all of us were sitting around in the lobby in the evening. We all sized him up. “That’s the kid from Brainerd who says he’s a pitcher,” somebody said and Blankenship started to introduce Leslie Bush. And Bush was green. He wore the loudest clothes we had ever heard and he was cocky, too. He was just 18.

The next morning, though, Bush showed us that he could throw the ball through a brick wall and we started telling the world that he was a “second Walter Johnson.” A few days later, in a practice game, Bush showed his nerve, too. Blankenship hit a ball right at his head, but the pitcher took hold of it, even though it knocked him flat, and held on, too.

He “Probably” Did.

And, as the season was about to start, we printed a full page of pictures and facts and predictions about the team and this is what we said of Bush: “Leslie Bush was signed by President Campbell [former Msla County sheriff – Hugh Campbell]  of the local club last winter. He comes from Brainerd, Minn., and speed is his middle name. He is a pitcher and one of the most promising youngsters seen in this section for a long time. Bush is cutting ‘em loose like Walter Johnson, and will probably stick.”

Bush really was discovered by the McCarthy boys – four of ‘em had come to Missoula from Brainerd. They recommended him to Hugh Campbell.

And that was the start of things for Joseph Leslie, Four world’s – championship series in ten years!