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Grandson of slave, Anthony Lariccia, late Joanie Abdu to receive award
YOUNGSTOWN
Herbert Marvin Ferguson has led a full life, even for someone who will be 99 on June 26.
The grandson of a slave freed from President George Washington’s plantation, Ferguson served his country in two wars — World War II and the Korean War.
He used his G.I. Bill benefits to finance a bachelor’s degree in education after WWII and, after serving in the Korean War, to earn a master’s degree in education and social work from West Virginia University.
The Youngstown resident also faced racial prejudice along the way.
Ferguson, Joanie Abdu, in whose memory the Joanie Abdu Comprehensive Breast Care Center at Mercy Health’s St. Elizabeth Hospital Youngstown was created, and Anthony Lariccia, one of the Mahoning Valley’s leading philanthropists, will receive the Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing our Neighborhoods Frances Kerpsack Award at the organization’s 13th community fundraiser and banquet Thursday. The award recognizes individuals and organizations for enhancing the quality of life in the Mahoning Valley.
The banquet, at St. Michael Family Life Center, 300 N. Broad St., Canfield, will begin with a social time from 5:30 to 6 p.m. followed by the dinner and program from 6 to 8:30 p.m. The featured speaker will be Jim Tressel, Youngstown State University president.
With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education, Ferguson said he was allowed to teach only high-school typing, which caused him to move to Ohio and then Michigan seeking better opportunities.
During WWII, he was drafted into the Army in April 1942 and served the United States doing clerical work in units that trained infantry troops at a time when blacks were not generally assigned to combat units.
After his discharge from active duty in 1945, he joined the West Virginia National Guard and was 44 when he was called up in 1950 for the Korean War. He was discharged in 1952 with the rank of warrant officer.
“I dreaded to go to Korea because I had to leave my family behind,” he said.
While in Korea, Ferguson worked in an ordnance unit “repairing big guns and delivering them where they were needed,” and sometimes picking up and transporting dead American soldiers.
“The bodies were piled up like logs in the truck. It was a terrible sight,” he said.
Ferguson, who also was a unit payroll officer in Korea, was decorated with the Korean War Service Medal with Bronze Star and the United Nations Service Medal for Korea.
He came to Youngstown in 1957 to work at the Child Guidance Center of Youngstown as a social worker and moved to Detroit about 10 years later to take a similar position with the Michigan Department of Mental Health, retiring in 1970. During the decade in Youngstown, Ferguson also cut hair on Saturdays at John’s Barbershop at Westlake Crossing on the North Side.
Ferguson returned to Youngstown in 1994 to operate Morgan’s Lube Oil & Car Wash on Market Street to help his daughter, Nicolette (Nikki) Morgan, after her husband, Gerald C. Morgan, who founded the business, died.
To say education is stressed in the Ferguson family would be an understatement.
His wife, Ida, who died in 1999, had earned a master’s degree in social work and once headed the Head Start Program in Mahoning County.
His three daughters also have post-high-school education.
Marva Nathan of Boston graduated from the St. Elizabeth Hospital School of Nursing as a registered nurse and received a master’s degree from Harvard University; Nikki, who lives with Ferguson in Youngstown and is a property owner, has an associate degree in business administration from ETI Technical College of Niles; and Monessa Ferguson Tinsley, who is deceased, received a master’s degree in journalism from Youngstown State University and was a reporter at The Vindicator, The Tribune-Chronicle in Warren, and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Asked to what he attributed his longevity, Ferguson said he couldn’t think of anything special he did to extend his life.
As for his passion for higher education, he said: “When I was doing it, I didn’t see anything special about it. I still don’t. I just did what was in front of me. I’m glad I did.”
Tickets for the Thursday event are $35 per person and $250 per table of eight. For information, call 330-782-7433.