George Ferguson, Mormon Horns

Before George moved to Sparks, he worked in a variety of jobs. According to his biography he worked as a deliveryman in Ogden. 

One time he was sent to pick up a man at the train depot. As they traveled the man looked as if he were bothered. Finally George asked him what was wrong?  He said, ‘I am looking for Mormons.’ George told him, ‘I am a Mormon.’ Whereupon the fellow asked, ‘Where are your horns?’ George replied, ‘Well they now have a potion they put on us when we are babies. When I was a baby they didn’t get it in quite the right place so one of mine came partly out. Here, feel.’ He took the man’s hand and put it on a bump on the top of his head. George had acquired the bump that morning when he hadn’t ducked enough going through a low door. As soon as the man felt the bump he jumped off the wagon seat, even though the wagon was moving, and the last George saw of the man, he was running up the road. George called him to stop but he wouldn’t. George just took the man’s bags and dropped them off at the hotel where the man was supposed to stay. He never saw the fellow again.”

He was later trained as a plumber. Quoting his biography, “In those days, the railroads required plumbers and pipe fitters, not only for new construction and kitchen/bathroom repairs, but also for a host of other functions. Much of the machinery in the roundhouses and other railroad buildings ran on steam rather than on electricity. Given these needs, George was hired by the Southern Pacific railroad around 1910.”

By this time, George had wooed his childhood sweetheart, Estella, whom he loved and adored. They were married, then one and half years later they had a baby girl named Helen. When Helen was less than a year old, George had a couple of accidents that left him with a badly broken leg and a limp for the rest of his life.

There was one definite difference between the two affable brothers. George had a predisposition to addictions stemming from a broad swath of alcoholism in the family. Off and on throughout his youth, George indulged in alcohol, smoking and chewing tobacco. Peter never touched alcohol at all.

 George’s background reinforced his bad habits on one hand and diverted his afflictions on the other. “He absolutely did not want to put his family through what his mother and he had gone through.” When the family moved to Sparks, his wife Estella, Pete and other church members in Sparks encouraged George to change. With the spiritual cost of breaking the Word of Wisdom, George had become passive about his activity in the church. After many years of continued support from family and friends he quit smoking “When he became active, he thoroughly dedicated himself to serving the Lord. He would spend the next forty years of his life trying to make up for the time he spent in inactivity and the things he had done that he was not proud of.”

“When George was getting back into activity in the church, he was taught the principle of tithing. He was making $100 per month and spending every penny of it. He was finally convinced to try paying his tithing when he was promised that if he did, things would work out. The first month he paid his tithing he expenses were $110. Luckily he had a small savings account to draw on. The second month the same thing happened. So he went to his branch president and complained. He was told he should keep paying his tithing, and things would work out. For the first six months, his monthly expenditures were $10 more per month than his income. The seventh month his expenditures, including tithing came to $95 so he was able to put some money back in the bank. Things improved from there until at the end of the year, he was able to put $10 in the bank each month, pay his tithing and still live as well as he had been doing. He never lost his testimony of tithing and that was always the first check he wrote out when he paid his monthly bills.”

“Once George became active again in the church, he tried to serve the Lord with full heart, might, mind and strength. Nevertheless, he believed the Lord gave him a family to care for and he always tried to put his family first.

On one occasion, Branch President Giles Vanderhoof and George’s brother Pete met him just as he was arriving home from work. They said, “Brother George we have to go and administer to Sister so and so and we need you to come with us.” George said, “Let me go in and tell my wife where we are going.” They replied, “No, we are on the Lord’s work, and we have to go right now.” George said, “My wife is expecting me home for dinner. The Lord gave me a family to take care of and that is my first responsibility.” He then went in and told his wife where he was going and why. When he came out the two brothers chastised him, telling him that if he did the Lord’s work first, the Lord would take care of his family. George still maintained that his first responsibility was to his family and that if he properly took care of his family, he could and would also find time to properly take care of the Lord’s work. And he did. George maintained that putting family first would not guarantee all your family would remain active in the church, but it would give you a better chance of keeping them close to you and to the church.”

During their vacation back to Ogden, the family enjoyed a fishing trip together. They had gone fishing several times before but this time was memorable in that Stella announced she was to have another baby. It had been nine years since she had their first child; a little girl named Helen.

Shortly after Helen was born, Stella expected another child. A few months passed and Stella became nervous about the future birth. In April of 1919, a baby boy was born by Caesarean section, a fairly new procedure at the time. The birth seemed to go smoothly at first. Stella was told to rest in the hospital for 10 days and another week at home. At the end of that period, Stella died of a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the pulmonary artery. There was nothing that could be done.

“Not only did George and young Helen have to deal with the loss of their wife and mother, but soon they also had to deal with the loss of the baby. The baby was born with a heart defect and only lived another two and a half weeks after his mother’s death.”

“Estella’s death devastated George. He had been getting his life in order, he had been ordained an Elder two months before, and he and Estella were preparing to go to the temple and be sealed the next month in June. After many years, he was seriously trying to do what the Lord wanted him to do, and the Lord took from him his beloved wife. For the next three years, his daily prayer would be an anguished, “why?” Even so, George never lost his new-found faith.

“Later in July 1919, George was set apart as the second counselor in the Sparks branch presidency. He also served twice as Sunday School Superintendent over the next three and a half years.”

Following Estella’s death, George and Helen lived by themselves in their little home in Sparks. George worked ten hours a day. While he was gone at work during the day, Helen would stay with close family friends, or the Purdy family, another founding family of Sparks. Margaret Purdy and Helen became best friends.

Around 1920, Helen became very ill with a viral form of pneumonia. The doctor was surprised she survived. “George’s mother decided she should stay and take care of Helen and keep house for them. She did this for a number of months, but then her health failed, due to her diabetes. Grandmother Annie wanted to go back to Ogden so it was agreed that Helen would go back and nurse her grandmother as her grandmother had nursed her.

On one of George’s visits back to Ogden, they met an old friend from Sparks, Roy Porter. Right then, Roy determined George should meet an old acquaintance named Charlotte. The three of them: George, Helen and Charlotte became great friends. Charlotte became a real blessing in their lives as she and George were married in the Salt Lake temple and moved to Carlin, Nevada to live in 1923.