Perhaps the best local newspaper reporter at the turn of the century wrote for the Bulletin and published a column as simply “Mme. Annette.” Her frequent columns included lively interviews with early settlers, visits to local sites such as the underground coal mine and county jail, activities of local clubs and literary groups, fashion, social issues such as women’s suffrage and poverty, and more. Her columns appeared in the Bulletin from October 1898 through October 1900.
Research suggests that this mystery woman may have been a Mrs. Annette or Anna Ferguson of 212 ½ E. Washington St. In the 1900 census, she is reported as a childless 40-year-old widow born in Iowa in 1860 – information which was probably provided by some other person.
Most likely, she was born in Iowa in 1865 or 1866 as Anna B. King, to Almedia A. Curtis King and George Buchanan King. She was reared at Panora, IA, along with several siblings, and wed newspaper editor Will M. “Ferg” Ferguson in May 1884. She lived with him in Jefferson, IA, and wrote a popular column for his paper.
W.M. Ferguson sold his ownership interest in the Jefferson newspaper in 1894 and moved back to his native Ohio to work. In late 1901 or early 1902, he returned to Jefferson to manage and edit a newspaper and died of natural causes in April 1902.
Presumably, the couple split up in 1894, and she went to Des Moines to become society editor for the Daily Leader and then the Record. She also appears to have edited and compiled a handbook entitled Iowa Legislature of 1898 which was published in Des Moines in 1897.
Her life after October 1900 remains a mystery thus far.