Cousin Agam Fhein

by Frank Macdonald

The first time I visited Detriot was the summer of 1963 if I recall correctly, when Greet and Hughie bundled me amid all the other children in the station wagon and set off from Cape Breton. This was an adventure for me, including one of my boyhood’s most memorable moments. I was a fierce baseball fan and rooted then, as today, for the Cleveland Indians.

One day while I was in Detroit the Indians were in the city to face the Tigers in a doubleheader. I was given enough for a fare and directions on the bus (the city was that safe then) and found my way to Tiger Stadium where I watched Rocky Colavito and Al Kaline change place in centerfield in the slow ballet that is baseball.

But another sports event stands out as well. When I left Cape Breton as a green teen for the streets of Detroit I couldn’t imagine what summer heat actually was. It was terrible, day and night of unrelenting 90 to 100 degrees.

A street away from Cherrylawn I discovered a bowling alley, my first experience with air conditioning. I would go there almost daily and roll balls down the lane. Before this, I had never been in a bowling alley or picked up a ball.

As the days passed with me bowling against myself (all the Ferguson kids seemed to have jobs) I imagined I was getting pretty good at the game.

One day, when I was the only bowler, a taxi driver came in, guiding a man on his arm. He spoke with the manager who then came down to talk to me. The taxi passenger was a blind man who wanted to bowl but needed to bowl with someone who could tell him the story of the pins after each throw. Would I mind if he bowled with me?

I said yes, but was already embarrassed for this poor handicapped man and decided that no matter how many gutter balls he threw I would tell him they were strikes.
He sat beside me then , opening a sports bag from which he pulled a bunch of aluminum pipes and connected them one to each until he had built a rail. He asked me to set it up in the middle of the gutter line and from there he picked up a ball and gauging his distance from there to his chosen place on the lane fired a ball.

I told him it was a strike because it was.

I told him what pins formed what splits as we played and at the end of our first game he had beaten me by 100 points. It didn’t get any easier after that although I nobly refused to lie when he hit a strike by telling him his ball went in the gutter.

The blind bowler never returned while I was there that summer, but he left a lasting impression that I still try to evoke when meeting with or dealing with other people with disabilities.

Greet: Greet Macdonald, Frank’s aunt
Hughie: Greet’s husband, Hughie Ferguson

by Frank Macdonald

In the spring of 1967 I arrived in Detriot, a hungry relative who had failed to find work in Vancouver, barely worked in Sudbury and had the idea that I would make my way to Boston. I only had enough money to get to Detroit but I had this aunt and uncle, eh?

So I welcomed into Hughie and Greet’s, offered a bed and since I was looking for work to earn my fare to Boston Hughie offered to put me to work painting his house. We agreed on a price and I undertook the contract.

Unfortunately for Hughie, I also discovered that summer all-night television, so most nights I was sneaking off to bed just as he was rising to go to work. Several hours later, Greet would wake me with, “Hughie will home in half an hour,” and I would scurry to the garage, get the ladder and paint and be high on the side of the house by the time he got home.

The flaw in my deception was that I would be high on the same wall of the house just about every day, and Hughie would count the singles that had been freshly painted. Five or six.

The spring moved along and after two or three weeks one side of the house was almost finished. Eventually, probably fearing that I was there for the winter, Hughie presented me with an air ticket to Boston and a few dollars to feed myself when I got there. I might even have promised to come back and finish the house, but I think he asked me to promise that I would not come back to finish the house because he wanted it painted, all four sides in the same decade.

This was just one of a number of trips I made to Detroit as guest of Hughie and Greet, but on none of those other trips was I ever asked to take up a task.

Hughie: Hughie Ferguson
Greet: Greet Macdonald, Hughie’s wife

by David Ferguson

I moved from Detroit to Washington DC in 1977. For many years afterward my parents would visit us from time to time.

During one trip, in 1983, Dad said one day that he’d like to go into Washington with me (I was going into work part of the time while they were visiting). He said he wanted to do some sightseeing.

I thought this was a bit odd, because I never thought of him as much of a sightseer. I asked if there was anything in particular he wanted to see. He said yes: the Canadian embassy.

That wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it was fine with me. At that time, the embassy was on a part of Massachusetts Avenue that the tour guides call “Embassy Row.” I gave him some directions as well as the address and phone number of my office near Union Station. Cabs in D.C. are fairly inexpensive, so I told him that he could flag down a cab to 400 North Capitol Street any time he felt like it.

As I remember, I dropped him off at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, just off Dupont Circle and not that far from the embassy:

Here’s what I found out later about his sightseeing:

He did walk from the cathedral up to the Embassy. When he got there, he went up to the Mountie on duty. (At American embassies, security is provided by the United States Marines. At Canadian embassies, it’s the Mounted Police.) The Mountie asked if he could help him. Dad said yes, that the Mountie could tell him his regimental number.

(As I understand it, the first Mountie ever would have had a regimental number of 1.)

The man told him the number, which was somewhere around 49,000 or so, and asked why Dad wanted to know.

“Well, my regimental number is 12375.”

The Mountie was impressed — a number that low meant someone who’d been in the force well before 1939. (Dad joined in 1934.) He excused himself and made a phone call.

Within twenty minutes, the Mounties had taken Dad inside the embassy, into their own offices, where he spent the morning having tea and telling stories. In other words, he felt right at home.

They offered to arrange a tour to the FBI, and would not hear of him taking a taxi to come meet me for lunch. Instead, they drove him in an embassy car, and gave him an LP of music from the RCMP band.

I visited Mom and Dad this past July. One of the things he showed me was this notice clipped from the RCMP Quarterly magazine. The date is spring or summer of 1983.

Here’s the text in case you find the image hard to read:

Veterans’ Affairs: Among the recent visitors to the RCMP Liaison Office at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, was Reg. No. 12375, ex-Cst. Hugh J. Ferguson, who dropped in on February 28, 1938, to say hello during a visit to this area. Born on April 1, 1913, ex-Cst. Ferguson joined the Force in 1934, took his training in Regina and his discharge in 1935. Reenlisting in 1941, he served in Halifax until leaving the force in 1946. After two years as Chief of Police at Inverness, Nova Scotia, Hugh worked for Inverness Coal Mines until settling in Detroit, Michigan, in 1951. He retired from Chrysler Corporation in 1976 and resides with his wife and two of their five children in Detroit. His many travels during retirement include trips to three of his children throughout the United States.

• Mom and Dad: Greet Macdonald and Hughie Ferguson, Dave’s parents

by Bruce Ferguson

One of the things I remember about Inverness was the times we spent on vacation there. Mom and Dad would farm out the five kids to various relatives so that we wouldn’t be such a burden to one family. John would stay with uncle Danny, Art would stay with uncle Roddie, Dave would stay with someone else(?) and Anne Marie would stay with aunt Billie. I spilt my time between aunt Billie’s with mom or with dad at Grandma and Grandpa’s.

As a young child, I was fascinated with the idea that the hot water heater was connected with the stove. Aunt Sadie would be up early to fire up the stove for breakfast. After breakfast, there would be enough hot water to do the dishes, do the laundry and begin to prepare for supper. She would roll out the wringer washer and do the laundry in the kitchen. She would utilize her time during loads to bake the world’s greatest sugar cookies! The laundry would then be hung out on the line. (It was summertime and it wouldn’t take long to dry. During the winter it would be hung in the attic.)

After supper, which would include vegetables, gravy, meat, rolls, and etc., the entire kitchen would be cleaned up and everything put away. Then the hot water would be turned off. Dinner would consist of biscuits, cookies, fruit, cheese and whatever happened to left over.

As a kid, not having to take a bath at the end of a long summer day was something I was not used to.

• Mom and Dad: Hughie Ferguson and Greet Macdonald
• John, Art, Dave, Anne Marie: Hughie and Greet’s kids
• Aunt Billie: Greet’s sister
• Aunt Sadie: Hughie’s sister
  
• Uncle Danny: Hughie’s brother
• Uncle Roddy: Hughie’s brother
• Grandma and Grandpa: Hughie’s parents, Mattie Ferguson and Sadie MacDougall

by Rose Ferguson

I remember that one year my parents took us to Detroit for Thanksgiving.  It was supposed to be a surprise for my grandparents, that all their children and grandchildren would be home for Thanksgiving.

I had sprained my wrist on the playground at school, and I had some sort of soft cast on my arm.  We drove up in my dad’s tiny hatchback car instead of renting a car, I’m not sure why.  I got to sit on the end the entire time, never having to sit in the dreaded middle seat, because of my injury.

My dad had us practice saying “Ciamar a tha?” all the way up to Detroit, to say to my Grandpa when he saw us.

I don’t remember how the “surprise” went off, I was only 9.  I do remember sitting at my grandmother’s table for Thanksgiving dinner, and Grandma cut all my food up in tiny bites for me.  I had to eat left-handed because of my arm.

I can remember going up, but I don’t remember the trip home.  Like all trips to Detroit, the best part was getting and being there, not going home.  Playing the license plate game with Kevin and hearing Dad sing “Are we there yet? (no it’s just a stop sign) Are we there yet? (you’re driving me out of my mind)” which I am still not sure if that is a real song or not.

My grandparents: Hughie Ferguson and Greet Macdonald
My dad: Dave Ferguson, Hughie and Greet’s son
Kevin: Rose’s brother

by Julene Coady

While living in Nova Scotia, I got to know family I had only heard about. One time when I was out visiting Aunt Billie, we were talking about weddings and Anniversaries, and the way things were done and the way things were celebrated. Aunt Greet & Uncle Hughie were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. I could not go to Detroit [where they lived]; some of the other family was going.

I said to Billie, “You know, it would be great when Greet and Hughie come home this summer if we had a surprise for them. We could have a party and invite people they haven’t seen for years. We could have it at my place.” We knew we probably could not outdo the Detroit gang but it would be fun nonetheless.

With the support of Billie and her family, and of course my family, I pitched the idea to our cousin Kay Stubbert who lives in Timberlea. We put our heads together. Kay was a great one for parties, and she got contacts for people she knew in the area who knew Greet and Hughie. I enlisted the help of Danny’s daughter Jane Webber (that is a whole other story) and Janice Ferguson to give me the names and addresses of the Ferguson relatives in the area. I started calling people and sounding much like a telemarketer explained who I was and how I fit in the Ferguson crew, and invited all kinds of people I never met before to my house on an August afternoon to celebrate Greet and Hughie’s 50th anniversary.

Kay Stubbert enlisted the help of her sisters who were home visiting. Anna came from Vancouver, Evelyn Stubbert, myself, and Kay (MacKinnon - Stubbert married to Ambrose Stubbert). I don’t think Edna was home this time; I know she was home for the August party the year before. We made lobster sandwiches, egg sandwiches, tuna sandwiches, we had vegetables and dip, cheese — tons of food. We had a cake, tea, coffee, the works, and the people came, and it was a tribute to Hughie and Greet like no other.

Cyril Sampson got a piano and Kevin and Theresa [Macdonald]’s daughter Marie played a few tunes for us. We had music, but it was difficult to hear the music over the talking.

Alan MacKenzie (piper with the 78th Highlanders Citadel Halifax –- My son Coady was instructed by and played with Alan), stopped by late in the afternoon on his way home from teaching at the Gaelic College in C.B. to play a few tunes and the guests were entertained by Anne Marie (my oldest daughter) and Kevin and Theresa’s daughter Marie with a couple of dance numbers.

The funniest thing was when Aunt Greet came up the stairs and the place is blocked, she stops on the stairs and looks at the people.

She had that look that said, “I know all you people, but what are you doing in this house.� They had a marvelous time.

One of Uncle Hughie’s nieces still owes me Rocky Road Squares; I have to find the paper to remember her name.

Aunt Billie: Billie Macdonald, sister of Julene’s mother Edith Macdonald
Aunt Greeet: Greet Macdonald, Billie’s sister
Uncle Hughie: Hughie Ferguson, Greet’s husband
Kevin and Theresa: Kevin Macdonald and his wife; Kevin is the son of Charlie Macdonald, brother of Billie, Edith, and Greet
Marie: Marie Macdonald, daughter of Kevin and Theresa
Kay Stubbert: wife of Cyril Sampson; cousin of Greet, Billie, and Edith
Evelyn Stubbert: Kay’s sister, married to Greg Mullins
Kay MacKinnon: wife of Ambrose Stubbert, Kay’s brother
Anna: another sister of Kay and Evelyn
Edna: another sister of Kay and Evelyn

Danny: Danny Ferguson, Hughie’s brother
Jane Webber: married name of Jane Ferguson, Danny’s daughter
Janice Ferguson: daughter of Hughie’s brother Johnny

Coady: Coady Summerfield, son of Julene Coady and Everett Summerfield
Anne Marie: Anne Marie Summerfield, daughter of Julene Coady and Everett Summerfield