Duncan Malcolm Ferguson
Passed on: August 31st, 2015
Our father, Duncan Malcolm Ferguson, lifelong Glace Bay resident died today, Aug. 31, 2015, at 91.
As Dad believed the coffee break and long obituaries had impeded the advance of civilization, this obituary will have to be as brief as we can possibly make it. Actually, if the choice had been left to Dad, the opening sentence would have sufficed as a full and perfect obit. But, sorry Dad, we have to go on a bit longer. (Still, as promised, there will be no eulogy at the funeral!)
He loved our mother Lois (Kerr). When she died in 1989, just before Dad retired as timekeeper at various collieries with the Cape Breton Development Corporation, he could have become a solitary man. Thankfully, he didn’t. He carried on just as Mom would have wanted -- a wonderful example to all of us, Marion (Blair Mitchell and son Alexander), Scott (Diana and children, Adam, Eric, Curtis and Sarah Jane) and Eric (Patricia and children, David, Jane and Michael). He showed us how to live life with dignity, common sense and an always important sense of humour.
Seriously wounded in 1944, while serving in Italy with the West Nova Scotia Regiment, Dad, like most of his generation coming out of that experience, spoke little of that time. But most recently, things changed a bit. If you were lucky to be chatting with him at just the right time, a story would be shared.
Our Dad was the smartest person we have ever known. We miss him already and we miss Mom every day but we also know how privileged we were to have them as our parents.
Dad was predeceased by parents, Norman Dan and Etta (MacVicar) Ferguson; sisters, Mamie Ripley (Laun), Sarah Smith (Gordon); brothers-in-law, Donald Kerr (Greta), Allister Kerr (Min); sister-in-law, Jean Phillips (Blair); nephews, Launie Ripley, Brad Kerr, Ross Kerr and niece, Lindsay (Phillips) Campbell and his always remembered childhood friend, Neil Bond, who sadly did not return from overseas.
Funeral arrangements are being handled by Patten Funeral Home, of Glace Bay. The wake will be Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and the funeral at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, Glace Bay on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015 at 10 a.m.
Our best to all and in the words of Dad’s favourite poet, Robert Burns:
Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's comin yet for a' that
That man to man, the world o'er,
Shall brithers be for a' that.
