Patricia H. Ferguson of Santa Fe, New Mexico, died August 17, 2017, of congestive heart failure. She was born in Lockport NY August 25, 1929, daughter of Richard Savely Head and Virginia (Buterbaugh) Head. A younger brother, Robert Head of Houston, TX, predeceased her in 2006. Patricia spent her early years in Brooklyn NY, moving to Falls Church VA in her teens. She attended Western High School in DC, graduating in 1946. At Western HS, while interviewing area students for a radio program, she met her future husband, Glenn W. Ferguson. They dated through college. Mrs. Ferguson graduated from Mary Washington College (now Univ. of Mary Washington) June 1950 and married in that month. Mrs. Ferguson shared her husband’s diverse career in US government, academic and non-profit work. She accompanied him to the Philippines during the Korean War and subsequently lived overseas in Thailand (with the Peace Corps 1961-63), Kenya (where Mr. Ferguson was US Ambassador 1966-69), Munich (RFE-RL 1978-82) and Paris, where Mr. Ferguson was President of the American University of Paris (1992-94). While her husband served as President of the University of Connecticut (1973-78), Mrs. Ferguson earned her MA in Sociology (Gerontology). She helped develop and fund Juniper Hill retirement center, now the Mansfield Retirement Center, on the board of which she served twenty years later. Mrs. Ferguson volunteered with the International Refugee Committee in Bangkok in 1980, and in 1987 spent several months in Niamey, Niger as a consultant for VOCA, assisting a cooperative for local artisans. The Fergusons owned a home in Westerly RI, where Mrs. Ferguson served on the board of the Westerly Land Trust, for more than twenty years. In 1998, they moved to Santa Fe, NM. Mrs. Ferguson then served on the boards of Aid to Artisans, Cornerstones preservation group, and the Governor’s Mansion Foundation. Mrs. Ferguson cheerfully moved her household more than twenty times in her married life. A tireless and intrepid traveler, she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro twice. In the last two years before her death she visited Cuba, Mexico, the Panama Canal, UAE, the south Pacific, Sri Lanka, Madagascar and Namibia. Glenn Ferguson died in Santa Fe in December 2007. Mrs. Ferguson is survived by her three children: sons Bruce W. Ferguson of Great Falls VA and AUIS, Iraq; Scott S. Ferguson of Santa Fe, NM; daughter Sherry Ferguson Zoellick of McLean VA; and four grandchildren.
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