Ferguson Home Page:Information about Jack Lee Ferguson

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Home Page |Surname List |Index of Individuals |InterneTree |Sources

Jack Lee Ferguson (b. April 14, 1929, d. date unknown)

Jack Lee Ferguson (son of Jesse Raymond Ferguson and Emma Ethel Walker) was born April 14, 1929 in Compton, California, and died date unknown in living. He married Yvonne Mabel Lindores on April 16, 1952 in Los Angeles at Glen Manor Place (mom and dad's back yard), daughter of Alexander Lindores and Ida Wells.

Notes for Jack Lee Ferguson:
I was born on April 14 of 1929 in Compton, California. We moved to Hawthorne, California in 1932 where my earliest memories include my grandmother Minnie and my grandfather, John Alexander Ferguson. After attending Hawthorne Elementary school for about eight years, we moved to Gardena, CA where I attended Junior and Senior high school until 1946 when I enlisted in the navy.
In the Navy I was sent ot the Mariana and Marshall Islands. I was discharged from the Navy in February of 1948 and then attended the University of Hawaii for a semester. After that, I enlisted in the Army in August of that year, and was sent to Ft. Ord, Ca for refresher training.
While apprehending and bringing back a prisoner from Davis Montran Airbase in Tuscon, AZ, I was coming back on the San Joaquin Daylight Train in CA when I met Yvonne Lindores on the train. I was nineteen and she was seventeen. From Ft. Ord I was sent to Ft. Riley, Kansas and from there to Ft. Lee, VA. At Ft. Lee in 1950 the Korean War began in June of 1950 and I was shipped to Korea in August of that year. I served until April 1952, in Korea, and then was transferred to Camp Roberts, CA.
I married Yvonne on April 16, 1952 and we went on a honeymoon to Northern California and the Yosemite area. From there we went to our new assignmeeent at Ft. Hoachuca, AZ. The weather was so hot there I put in for a transfer to reserve duty, and was transferred to the Reserves for duty in Reno, NV in September of 1952. Our first child, Holly was born at the Presidio (Letterman Hospital) on April 9, 1953. Early in 1954 we were transferred to Las Vegas, where we stayed until after our son Scott was born (at Ft. Ord, CA) the 1st of September, 1954. From there I was transferred to Monterey, CA, where I attended the language school to learn Chinese-Mandarin. I graduated in November 1955 and was sent back to Korea, while Yvonne, Holly & Scot went to live with Yvonne's parents in the Atwater district of LA.
My first trip to Korea was as a refridgerator mechanic. I kept refridgerated vans working. These vans would take fresh food to the soldiers all over Korea. This was from August 1950 to April 1952. When we first got to Korea, we only had 12 miles of the country in our hands.
Later the generals thought it would be good if the troops could have ice cream once in a while, so we took a metric ice cream machine from Nagoya, Japan and fixed it so we could make icecream. One of the problems we ran into was what we would put the ice cream into (containers), so we finally put them in halves of beer cans, covered them with wet gunny sacks and took them to troops in our refridgerated vans.
On one of our trips north, we stayed in a little Korean village at and took off in the dark of the next morning. We later found out the village had been almost completely surrounded by Chinese (the enemy).
One thing I did in Korea was send away to Sears-Roebuck for a J.C.Higgins shotgun and plenty of shells. With this I was able to go into the hills and go pheasant hunting, which I did quite a bit. One time, by keeping thepheasant cold in our refridgerated van, I fed a whole company of men 108 pheasants.
I am sorry to say I can't tell you about my second trip to Korea. I was in the intelligence service and it was classified as a secret.
When I returned in March of 1957, we were again assigned to Ft. Ord, where I taught Army Administration until 1959 when I was assigned to Ft. Bragg, NC. Just before we were reassigned, our son, Rod, was born on January 2, 1957. At. Ft. Bragg I worked for the Inspector General and stayed there until 1962, when I was appointed Warrant Officer and was sent to Germany. Three months prior to being reassigned to Germany, our daughter Heather was on born on November 3, 1961. (aside from Holly, Mom brought the 4 kids over on Lufthansa and the stewardess spilled hot coffee on heather). We were stationed in Germany for 3 years adn while there we visited France, Belgium, Ireland (w/out kids), Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Spain & Luxembourg. Then we were sent back to Fort Bragg in March of 1965.
(aside from Holly: when we got our things out of storage, it looked like someone had been using it). After staying at Fort Bragg until December of 1966 I retired on the 1st day of 1967, whereupon we moved back to Reno and I worked at Harold's Club and attended the University of Nevada.
I graduated from the University of Nevada in January of 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in education, with a major in English.From there we moved to Winnemucca, NV where I taught at Albert Lowery High school. Holly moved out on her own to Corona Del Mar, CA. In 1971 we moved back to California, me in Glendale teaching at Hoover High School and the rest of the family in San Clemente. After about four months I moved back to San Clemente and soon after we moved to Pensacola, FL> Right after this Scot moved out on his own.
I taught six years in Pensacola at Pensacola High School and then we moved back to CA in 1978. Soon Rod & Heather decided they wanted to return to Pensacola so they did. In October 1979 Yvonne and I moved to the Auburn area of Northern California, and we have been there ever since.

Note from Holly JUne 2000.
He was in army intelligence and worked doing that during the Korean War where he was stationed in Seoul, Korea and Okinawa. He also was flown into the Domincan Republic during the "crisis" there. He stayed in the army and retired when he was 39, but not before being stationed in Monteray, Fallon, Fort Bragg (several times), Frankfort, Germany, etc etc and then went back to college at the University of Nevada where he got his university degree and became a high school teacher, teaching, history, english and Chinese. Jack says he retired from the Army when he did because he knew that he was going to be called up (he was part of the 108th Airborne Division in Ft. Bragg) to go to Viet Nam and after all the other wars he was in, he didn't think the odds were very good for one more. After he got his university degree, he and Yvonne moved to southern California and from there onto Pensacola, Florida. Jack worked as a school teacher there for awhile and then when Yvonne couldn't take the humidity anymore, they moved to Newcastle, California where they live even now.

While Dad was in the 10th and 11th grade, he worked putting furniture together. In high school didn't have his own car. His mom took them to Texas jack ,nana,and sonny. No dad. they stayed with her sister Iva for awhile, and Jack worked at the Swisher county creamery (---a creamery is where they bottle milk, cottage cheese, buttermilk, a cream for whipping etc,) in Tulia,Texas. Jack handed his paycheck over to his mother.Then she, nana, sonny,moved over to grace's place in McLean, TX.and Dad went up to Jinky, who was in Chicago,He (jinky) was working in an automotive place with June's brothers. Dad worked at a creamery in Jefferson Park, Chicago.he continued to send his mother all his paycheck. Then he decided to hitchhike back to California,and joined the Navy. He was in the SeaBees. and they cleaned up the Mariana Islands after the war was over. Mainly, Tinian.for dad. (He worked for the Navy in daytime and the Knudsen contracting company at night picking up oil cans for 15 cents each and would back up the truck with 108 barrels on a lowboy truck and would take off real quick to leave them behind on the dock.

Note from Yvonne Ferguson, June 2000
It takes a grant of congress for a soldier to become a warrant officer, so dad did pretty good.
No, dad had no car in high school. they walked everywhere, or took the streetcar.---grandpa ferguson may have worked for the
railway. No,dad doesn't anything about his great grandfather. i think he's the one shot by frank james. About the Pete tatoo- he went on one date with Janet Peterson.,and he's embarrassed that he put her name on his wrist. NO, Dad won't tell---it's Top Secret.!!!!!!. HIS MOUTH IS
SEALED.!!!

I'm sorry but we have no idea about this tom ferguson. we thought Frank James shot grandpa for his horse- on his farm. Everyone knew about the James gang. so thisTom thing seems unlikely for our family.----- No--Dad was too embarrassed to tell you kids the tattoo story, so he just made up a story!!!!!

Medals earned by Jack Ferguson:
Good conduct medal with two bronze loops
Army Commendation Medal (an exceptional job in Ft. Bragg, received it in Hanau Germany)
Asiatic-Pacific campaign medal (being in the South Pacific during the end of WWII)
World War II Victory Medal (mop up of Marianas)
Army Occupation Medal (Japan)
Korean Service Medal (with 5 bronze campaign stars)
United Nations Service Medal (for being in Korea)
Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal (Domincan Republic)

Worked during war years for Douglas Aircrafts as a reamer for 60 cents per hour (in high school).

More About Jack Lee Ferguson and Yvonne Mabel Lindores:
Single: April 16, 1952, Los Angeles at Glen Manor Place (mom and dad's back yard).

Children of Jack Lee Ferguson and Yvonne Mabel Lindores are: