William H. “Bill” Ferguson of Flagler Beach, Florida, slipped the surly bonds of earth on April 25, 2019, surrounded by his wife and two daughters. He had celebrated his 91st birthday exactly one week earlier.
Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on April 18, 1928, to L.E. and Lois Ferguson, Bill commenced an extraordinary life. Early hints of genius became evident to his teachers in elementary school and he was allowed to skip the second grade.
At 14, Bill became fascinated with a neighbor’s amateur “ham” radio equipment. He began to study radio right then and mastered the skills needed to assemble his own radio circuitry and other equipment. This fascination would last throughout his life. He loved conversing in Morse Code and did so as easily as he could speak. He was an Amateur Extra licensed level ham operator with the call sign W4DSR.
After graduating from Tulsa’s Will Rogers High School in 1945, engineering seemed a natural calling and Bill enrolled at the University of Tulsa to pursue his degree. But fate took a turn when Bill broke his arm in a fierce arm-wrestling match with fellow ATO member Jack Gentry. Surgery was needed to repair the fracture and this experience led him to reconsider his career path. He abandoned engineering to focus on becoming a physician and surgeon.
Bill graduated from the University of Tulsa in 1949 and in the fall, he left Tulsa aboard a train bound for Washington, D.C., and George Washington University School of Medicine. A med school classmate introduced Bill to his sister, registered nurse BettyAnn Gillard of Pittsburgh and the couple married in 1951.
He graduated from G.W. in 1953.
In 1954, Bill enlisted in the Air Force and served as a flight surgeon based at Warner Robins Air Force Base near Savannah, Georgia. Flying to exotic places, such as Morocco, in the company of air force pilots was a magnificent experience and Bill watched the navigators whose mission it was to guide these flights. They sensed in Bill a keen mind and a devotion to learning and he became a frequent passenger at their invitation to adventure. Now, Bill not only saw but learned navigation techniques- including celestial navigation. Another favorite story from his time in the Air Force was his delivery of a baby during a power outage by light streaming from the headlights of a couple of military issue Jeeps.
At the end of his time in the service, Bill completed his internship at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. A residency in ophthalmology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit followed.
When the time came to launch his practice, time spent in Miami led Bill to bring his wife and 2 young daughters to Florida. A pre-Disney Orlando seemed an ideal spot for a new ophthalmology practice and Bill opened his first office there in 1960. A baby boy, William, arrived soon after.
For recreation at this point in his life, Bill set about building a telescope with which he could study the planets and stars. His knowledge of optics allowed him to be able to grind his own lenses. It was also at about this time that he got to work carving the face plate of a violin. He loved beautiful forms of wood as much as he loved working with his hands. Little did he know that he would not complete that first violin for another 35 years.
A love of birds and bird watching led to weekend family camping trips to many of Florida’s state parks. Camping gave way to boating and deep-sea fishing when Bill purchased the “Temptation” in the late 60’s. On his first boating trip from Florida to the Bahamas as part of a caravan of over 30 boats, the group came upon a disabled boat. As he had one of the larger boats in the group, Bill offered to tow the craft on to West End. This offer was gratefully accepted and over the next few hours he towed the boat after the caravan quickly moved out of sight. Upon arrival at customs, Bill explained he was the final boat in the large caravan. “What caravan?” asked the puzzled customs agent. It turned out that without Bill’s navigation guidance the rest of the caravan had missed the island completely. They eventually made it, but not for several hours.
Pursuing many varied interests was a constant throughout his life. In the 1960’s, Bill raised wild waterfowl from around the globe on an extra lot next to his home on Winter Park’s Lake Sylvan. He kept a walk-in size incubator in the master bedroom and the sounds of the egg rotating functions of the incubator were a familiar sound to the family. Swans and ducks of all kinds attracted curious visitors to the neighborhood almost as much as did the peacocks at nearby Genius Drive.
Bill studied beekeeping and kept several hives. Sometimes, to the consternation of neighbors, they swarmed. Other times, Bill received angry phone calls about errant bees, even when those bees were not his own.
Ham radio continued to be a passion and an exceptionally large antenna apparatus was simply an accepted part of the external architecture of the family home. Occasionally, gardening as a hobby meant that a greenhouse could also be spotted atop the flat roof over the carport. Bill had the ability to cultivate anything- from a large garden to a grape orchard.
Always in motion, Bill was by turns an avid runner and cyclist. His daughter Bonnie cherishes the memory of running the Winter Park Road race together. Not content to simply ride his bike from home in Winter Park through downtown Orlando to work at his office near ORMC, he carried his bike on a train to Savannah, GA, and biked from there to the UF in Gainesville where Bonnie was in college.
When woodworking began to reassert its’ attraction. Bill began to craft beautiful grandfather clocks. Then, the idea of building a sailboat took hold and together Bill and his son built a catamaran sailboat complete with twin, curved hulls.
Ultimately, Bill’s first marriage ended in divorce. Then on May 23, 1986, Bill married the love of his life, Pamela Peterson. The couple worked in Orlando and on weekends they searched Florida’s coasts for the site of their eventual retirement. They built a small waterfront home in Flagler Beach and it proved a wonderful respite from city life on the weekends. As the time they spent in Flagler Beach expanded, so did the size of the home.
Easing into retirement meant opening a part-time practice in Flagler Beach. For fun, the couple loved to ride bikes together. At one point they rode from Tallahassee to Flagler Beach- taking the back roads as much as possible and contending with many a logging truck.
Once retired, Bill was able to turn to wood working in earnest. His work shop and collection of tools were unparalleled. He built his own customized work benches. He began to build furniture for himself and for family members. But, the old violin face plate from decades earlier kept calling him.
He enrolled to study violin making at the University of New Hampshire under the tutelage of Karl Roy of the famed Mittenwald Violin-Making School in Germany. He and Pam would stay in Durham, N.H. for weeks each summer so Bill could advance his skills. Indeed, Bill finished that first “fiddle” and went on to make several others.
He worked alongside other makers, including renowned cello maker David Wiebe, of Woodstock, New York. Wiebe came to Flagler Beach at one point so he and Bill could concoct batches of special varnish because varnish is thought to be one of the key elements that goes into what makes the world’s finest stringed instruments (think Stradivarius) sound so fine.
Computers fascinated Bill early on and he loved the technology. He learned Linux and abandoned the “inferior” Windows. Ultimately, the Mac won him over in his later years. Cell phones, on the other hand, utterly confounded him.
Pam and Bill shared a love for driving vacations. Each trip meant new opportunities to explore or to visit friends and family. Long hours on the road passed happily on trip after trip as they took turns driving. Turns out Bill hated to fly despite his early air force years.
The couple eventually discovered “outstanding Florida waterway”, Lake Disston in west Flagler County and designed and had built a charming home on its shores, complete with free standing workshop and another “shack” for radio operations. “Wunderwood” as it was known, became a happy spot for family gatherings over the years.
Bill was a voracious reader on challenging subjects and of history. He was a lightning fast typist. Photography was a subject of fascination. A surgeon, he could clean a fish like nobody’s business. He authored numerous articles for publications related to his multiple interests. He was the hardest of workers. It was impossible for him to be idle. There were not enough hours in any day to do what he wanted to get done. He asked more questions than most could think of. He chose to do things not because they were easy, but because they were challenging and interesting. He had a ferocious intellect and he used it to the fullest possible extent. Despite his many talents and accomplishments, he was self-effacing and humble. His generosity was significant and benefitted many, while at the same time he never felt comfortable accepting any gift intended for himself.
But most of all Bill was a dedicated father, a devoted husband to Pam, and a steadfast friend. Suffice it to say there will never be another quite like him and he will be sorely missed.
Bill was predeceased by his son, William I. Ferguson and by first wife, BettyAnn (Gillard) Ferguson as well as older sister Lois Ruth Taylor of Tulsa,OK. He is survived by his wife of 33 years, Pamela J. Ferguson of Flagler Beach, FL; his daughters Bonnie Ferguson (Carl) and Beth Hall (Charles) of Winter Park, FL; step- children: Todd Peterson (Audra) of Hartland, WI and Angel Thomsen (Michael) of Pleasanton, CA; by grandchildren Christian and Sami Jo Peterson and Erik Thomsen; as well as by sister Betty A. Barb (Jerry) of Choteau, OK.
A private memorial gathering is planned for a future date. Should you wish to memorialize Bill, the family suggests donations to the Stuart F. Meyer Hospice House, 150 Memorial Medical Parkway in Palm Coast, FL; the Alzheimer’s Association; or to your favorite charity.
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Stuart F. Meyer Hospice House150 Memorial Medical Parkway, Palm Coast, Florida 32164
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