Josephine Linscott Ferguson was my father’s mother. We affectionately called her Mama Jo.
Jo was a talented painter, who loved to play cards (bridge and cribbage were her favorites) and had a quick, acerbic wit. Jo grew up in Fairhope, Alabama along Mobile Bay. She would spend summers with her parents and two siblings on Dauphin Island at the head of Mobile Bay.
Jo attended Huntingdon College in Mobile. She traveled to see a friend in Baytown, Texas and ended up going out on a blind date with Harry Ferguson. The two were wed in 1927.
They raised three children in Houston, and all the while Jo pursued her passion for art.
You can see some of her paintings here. Most of them have a southern Gulf Coast theme.
My father Keene Ferguson (see his obit here) inherited his artistic talents from his mother. Jo died in 1975. She was a true matriarch and as a grandmother she loved gathering family at her home on Olympia Drive in Houston.