GRACE BERLENDIS FERGUSON

My father was born in Venice, Italy. He came to the United States when he was five years old and he came to Bisbee in 1912. (He) worked for the old B.I. Company - the Bisbee Improvement Company - a public service company where he was a clerk. He went to Bisbee High School in 1920 and took accounting and shorthand. On his own he read all of the Harvard Classics. He educated himself.

My mother lived on Opera Drive and so did my father. He married her in March of 1914 at the Presbyterian Church. My mother came from Cripple Creek, Colorado. Her father was a gold miner and the gold mines had petered out so they came to Bisbee. My mother also had only a grammar school education and no training in any particular useful skill. Therefore, she stayed at home and took care of her father and brother. But, when she married and had her own house she loved every minute of her new home. She loved her embroidery. When she was pregnant, she would embroider lots of baby clothes. We lived on Yuma Trail until I was eleven and then on Powell since 1930. My brother still lives there - sixty-four years in one location. 

My mother was devoted to her family. My mother served my father. He was the apple of her eye. Her main interests were her husband and her children. She loved to sew. She sewed all of my clothes and my brother's shirts and pajamas. She was always at the sewing machine. She used to embroider panels for the windows and embroider designs. You can imagine how much work that was for ten or twelve windows! When I was five, she taught me how to embroider. I still like to embroider. Sometimes, we would embroider together. 

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