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:anet-Smith, Field Worker
Interview with Mrs. Clara
PerA;usson
About words
WITH MRS. CLARA FL.RGUSOY
When I asked Mrs. Perguson to tell me of her pioneer life in
New Mexico, she answered, "I'm not a pioneer in the exact sense of the
word. Pr a native born New Mexican. I have spent most of my life
here, an ell four of my childmen were born her in New Mexico."
Yrs. Ferguson' father, Franz mining, came to New Mexico over
the old Santa Pe Trail, by ox team in 1849.
Ker husband, Harvey B. Fergusson, was the first New Mexican Congress.
man.
Two of her children have loved and understood New Mexico so well
thyt they have been able to describe and interpret the country and its
people in several Oidely read volumes. Harvey Fergusson has written
a number of novels, among them Blood of the Conquerors, WOU Wong, and
Footloose McGarnigal, in which he has dealt with various types of
New Mexicans and periods of New Mexican life,.. --the Spanish American in
his relation to a superimposed Anglo civilisation, the mountain men in
contact with the old Spanish culture, glimpses of Indian life, and some.
What caustic descriptions of the comparatively receni art colonies.
Always the background, the feel of the country, is splendidly and
convincingly done. Rio Grande, with the Rio Grande basin for its
central scene, is, in the words of the author, an attempt to "portray
a region" and to "comprehend the present in term of the forces that
made it." His most recent book Modern Mans -a profound and mature work,
Tenet Smith
into/glow with Mn,
Clara Pergusson
page 2
is concerned with modern behavious in the entire western world. In
contrasting primitive with modern mans Mr. Pergusson makes use of his
knowledts of the southwestern Indians explaining his serenity and lack or the
conflict so apparent in moddrn mans bu his compiete reliance upon the taboos
of tribal c ustom. Erna Pergussonos first book was Dancing Gods,
deseribing and explaining the dances and ossemonies or the Pueblos Nasjos
Zunis and Hopi Indians, Fiesta in MeZieo is a varied picture of Old Mexico
seen through her fiestas. Ramey and Erna Pergiasson are among the very fa
writers who have been able to give the feeling of Now Meats.. including
its beauty and strangeness, without falling into lulahSw00 and picturesque
language. Perhaps their realness of spAioach is due in some part to the
that they were born and grew up here.
asked Mrsaorgueson how she accounted for this quality in their
writings and she smiled and said that she was sure at any rate that all
of their writing was well substantiated and authenticated1 that neither
of them spared any effort to add a significant detail or track down a
source.
Mrs. Pergusnon is a charming white haired woman. She has a keen way
of looking at ones and smiles unexpectedly with her eyes. we sat talking
on the porch of her modern adobe house at;, Orchard Road. Ofthard Road
A one street that has been allowed to lag a bit in Albuquerque's effort
for an efficient, eastern air. A huge old*ttonwood stands not far from
the middle of the unpaved road. At the side of Mrs. Pergusson's home are thre
old cottonwoods. 'Ithink it was the trees that drew me to the places, she A4
said.
Janet Smith
interview with Mrs.
Clara Pergusson
Pegs 3
Mrs. Pergusson told ma that her father came to America from Germany
in 1848, The port of New York was closed at that Lisa, o he landed at
New Orleans and want up the Mileill4Poi to St Louis. In 1849 he went west
and lived for some time in Santa Ps. He learned Spanish and interpreted
for the soldiers, who had Some Alth the Amerioan occupation of New Meals*.
"I believe he always liked langueles better than business," Mrs. Fergus's=
said. In 1883 he located at Albuquerque where he Ater up a general merchandise
store, ten years later nebrought to Albuquerque his bride, Simestina Pranks.
She too had come fnom Germany to St Louis by way of New Orleane,
Mn, Pergusson talked a little about her childhood whiohwas spent in
an adobe house in Old Town. The house, now known as the Calkins' House
stands on the north side of west Central Avenue at 1601. It is separated
from the street by a high adobe wall, and approached through a wooden )(gate
and a pathway arched by trees. Seen from the front the house is long and
low and beautifully proportioned. An open portal extends entirely across
completely,
it, Upon entering one discovers that the house is built —assamespi around
a large square patio. In the centre of the patio is a cottonwood so large
and old that it is now supported by massive chains. The rooms are long and
narrow and the walls are over two feet thick. The windows are small and
the fireplaces huge. °Of -course there was no grass in, the patio or in
front of the house in those days", Mrs. Pergusson explained, but one min ism
imagine that it must n a delightful place for a child to grow up in
Pergusson Mexican girls passing by dressed in bright
Mrs
calico and jf "slat' sunbonnets, the same kind the oovered wagon women wore.
Janet Smith
Interview with Mrs.
Clara Pergueson
Page 4
Their mothers were always wrapped in black shawls. She rams mbers hearing
her father tell of *seine, the Penitentes *hipping themwelves with cactus
Whips, in the Old Town plaza, though she herself never saw them until
yers later, add then with more difficulty, in an out of the way Mexican
village.
In the middle of ta plaza stood an octagonal adobe nowise In it dwelt
the barber, a big fat man named Brown* Barber Brown was ease the town's
one dentist. Wheneve anyone suffered from toothache, the barber *ailed
and pulled the tooth, on top of the octagonal house was a flag Ale, and
in the yard a cannon. It was the barber's duty to raise the flag and
shoot off the cannon every Fourth of July
The funereal processions of children are among the strangest of Mrs*
Pergusson's rPmembrances of this period* The box containing the small
body was always placed in the middle of 0 a wagon. It was covered with
a piece of gay pink cambric. Around it sat the relatives, and in their
midst a fiddler played bright and carefree tunes. The child's death
was considered an occasion for rejoicing as
not yet been touched by sin would surely go
escaping the trouble and sorrow of a longer
the soul of a child who had
straight to heaven, thus
earthly life*
She remembers too/ processions of Mexicans carrying the 'virgin
through the fields and around the plaza, praying for rain. Later they would
sit up all night in their houses praying and singing for the rain to coml.
The problem of securing a variety of food was a real one in those
days. The Huning family did its own slaughtering. Her tabbor built an
ice house, and ice was hauled from the river. ater too was brought from
the river every morninz on a wagon loaded with big barrels. It WRS then
Janet Smith
Interview with Mrs. Clara
Fergussou
Paje 5
poured irto other barreis and allowed to settle. There were no oranges
or lemons, and lemonade was made from a Canned preparation. "Terribb
stuff", Mrs, Ferguson said, "but we thought It Was good." Her mother learr
ed from the maxioan women how to dry and preserve the native fruits.
Everybody made wine. Mr. Huniry built the first steam flour mill, and
the natives would COMA 00, with their wheat and corn in exchange for flour,
"Very little money was usedv! Mrs. Fergusson told me. "It was mostly a
matter of trading, The people bought what they had raised to the store
and received things that they could not produce themselves in return.
A eeneral merchandise store in those days had everything. Twice a year
my father went to St Louis over the Santa Fe Trail, with ten or twelve
wagons drawn by mule teams and returned with all kinds of merchandise.
There Is in one of the rooms of Castle Hulling now a Pteinway piano my
father brought out by mule team,"
I asked !:r.s, Pooguason about her early schooling, ohe replied that
"the Brothers" a d schools for the boys, but it was evidently not thought
worth while to teach n. girl in those days. then she was nine her father
sent her to Santo Fe, an overnight trip by stage, to spend. a year at
Loretto Convent, Her greatest treat there WCF to be allowed to go into the
garden of i,rehbishop Lamy, She remembers hio as a tall, handsome man with
a kind smile ---she does not think that Willa Cather oortroyed the real
archbishoo Rt ell, later nrs, Pergussonis tether brouat her a governess
from st Louis, Rnd still later she was sent there to school.
Mrs, Fereve on remembers the time the Rio Grande flooded over its baro;e,
she believes it WEF in 174 or 175. The water come down as far as the :point
Janet Smith
Interview with Mrs. Clara
Fergusson
Page 6
that later became Twelfth Street. The people in Old Town, which was then
all there was of Albuquerque, withdrem to the sand hills, *here they lived
in tents until the water subsided,
nIt was the railroad," mre. Ferguson said, "which final4 changed
Albuquerque and the pattern of life here." she remembers when the first
train came in 1881. Everybody turned out for a big celebration* speeches
and a dance in the evening.
"Soon after that I went to Germany for two years," !rs. Fergusson
told me. "When I left there was only the railway station about a mile
from the houses in Old Town and a dusty lonely road stretching between. A
man named Cromwell built a track between the two towns end a mule pulled
the ear. Later the line was eictrified. When T returned from Germany the
single street reaching toward Old Town was built up a 3 far as Sixth Street,
Another street ran alory by the tracks. Mew Town co.s shaped like a big
cross."
"The new town was different from the old. Inst_r,d cf ::faits low
adobe hOW;CY ShdPd by cotlr)11W00(1S, it waq built of woo.. Thrn rers stores,
some oI them ritn two story fronts, and narly everl ttr bullding was
a saloon or a ambling house. The sidewelks were rint, ty board walks.
The was a sense of WSfl excitement and feverishness An- rici
'fore the cy,ing of the railroads° Mrs, Fer6usson ao4d, "there was
nothin6 very affectiv;-, in the ,ay of law or law enforeeTert. There was a
great decd oV stealing, speoial..y horse thieving, and scrletiTes shooting.
Feople to Ihicc the law into their own hands, and thieves were st-:ung qp
on the tee& neare t to te 21ace where they were caught s're often than mA.
Menet Smith
Interview with arse Clans
Pergusson
Page 7
After the co-ing of the railroad there was even more lawlessness for
awhile, but within a few years things quieted downheres and the outlaw*
moved on to wilder places."
With the railroad came sober solid business men, interested first of
all in making money. They intended to have safe respectable homes for
their wives and children, and an environment that weld Ippeal to home
builders, and before many years Albuquerque had become a comparatively
peaceful place.
Sometime before the first train came, men had started work on the
great, white house, surrounded with trees add coolness, knows as Castle
Nuning. /n a country where assubmstuuskumussafts the houses were
casually
sprawling and earth colored and map built, a white house with a tower
and plumb lines,that took three years to build must have been a emse
for conversation. The walls of the house were madd of "torrone, out from
the sod, and larger that "adobe" bricks. Cement Susi for the foundation
was imported from England. Lumber was brought in from Illinois. The
house was patterned from houses which Frans Nuning remembered in Hanover
Germany, and it was named Castle Huning. In 1883 it was finished. Apart
from the slow Spanish life of the Old Town, it stood equally remote
ftom the wooden shanties and hectic life which was rapidly gathering
about the railroad station to the east. MUSEULUMMUILli /n its solemn
interior one of the rooms is today preserved in the style in Which It
was originally furnished —heavy draperies, a patterned carpet on the
floor, gilt framed enclosing serious faced family portraits, be -tasselled
furniture.
The year after the coming of the railroad Harvey B. Pergusson, a
Janet Smith
Interview with tires Clare
Fergusson
Page 8
young attorney from Wheeling, W. Va., cam* to New Mexico as attorney -for
the North Homestake Mining Company, He (Melded to remain permanontlY
in the territory, locating at Albuquerque.
In 1887 Harvey Fergusson and Clara 'tuning were married. For awhile
Mr. and Mrs. Ferguseon lived in the Castle, and their first child Line,
was born there. Later they moved to the beautiful old adobe house in Old
Town Where Mrs. Fergusson had spent her childhood. There three other
children Harvey, Francis and Erna were born.
Most people don't know I have more than two children," Mrs. Pergussoi
said, "because Line and Francis left Albuquerque when they were rather
young and don't come back very frequently. Lina is married and lives in
California, and Francis is head of the dramatic department at Bennington
1
Cclege. I am going there to visit him and his family this month.'
asked Mrs. Fergusson if she would tell me alittle about the two
children who are so well known for their portra'alis of the New Mexican
scene.
"Harvey", she said, "was always a dreamy, imaginative child, too much
so to suit his teachers. They used to say he was forever gazing out of
the window instead of paying attention to his lessons. He was never very
interested in competitive sports, football or even tennis, but he loved
to go away by himself, hunting or just wandering with his dog and his
horse.. --still does in fact. His father wanted him to study law, but
Harvey wasn't interested. He studied at the University of New Mexico,
where he majored in English. During the rummers he worked in the
Forestry Service. He used that material in parts of Footloose Mc Garnigs
years later.
Janet Smith
Intervidw with Mrs* Cilia
Pergusson
Page 9
I think Rarvey always had the idea that he wanted to write* Later he
Continued studying at Washington and tee, his father's university, I
guess his father decided finally that there was no use trying to push
him into the lay bulkiness, and Narvey took a job in a newspaper office
in Washington when his father was in Congress there* Later he was
connected withthe Haitians Syndicate* He gave up steady positions to
try fiction, and he hag been writing books ever since.
"Erna graduated from the University of New Mexico and got her MA
at Columbia* She used to write a little for the newspapers in
Albuquerque, going.about talking to people about old times and
writing ud their stories* Narvey always encouraged her to write, but
she was not very sure she could dd it until she had her first book
published*"
I asked Ars* Pergusson whether Harvey and 3rna Pergueson were at
present working on books, "Harvey", she said, "agreed to write two books
on the Guggenheim fellowship, one non..fictions which was Modern Man, and
the other, fiction* He is engaged on the novel now, Erma is writing
a book on Guatemala* There", she finished with a smile, don't you
think that's enough about the Pergusson family?"