Uncle Pat

By Bob Ferris

I was cleaning out my book case this morning and was stalled by the above.  It is a self-published book written by my uncle Morris Patterson Ferris who recently passed.  My cousin Patty and I had made a side trip to see him, but he died before the wheels of my plane touched the tarmac in Atlanta. I got the news as I was settling into my hotel room.

My uncle was a writer.  He wrote nearly every day.  He wrote about his garden and his sweet potatoes.  He wrote about his dogs like Beaver.  He wrote about what he shot hunting, netted shrimping, or gigged floundering.  He wrote a lot and most of it was not sterling prose or exciting, but it was all pure Pat.  (For a recording of Uncle Pat telling stories and oral history visit here.)

"Ground Swell" by Edward Hopper (1939)

Uncle Pat and my father sailed in a 25-foot catboat from Long Island to South Carolina in 1938 right before a hurricane hit the southern coast and the world exploded in war.  He wrote about this trip (which always reminds me of the Edward Hooper painting Ground Swell above painted about the same time) and was frustrated because he could not get it published.  He sent it to me with an entreaty to help him edit the piece.  I read it and gave him what feedback I could given my other projects.  My sense was that it needed more context and commentary.  It needed some life blown in it.  The most interesting things about that trip could not have been my father constantly fixing the make-n-break, one-lunger that drove them in ports or how much they spent on their various purchases.  These were the things of day diaries, but not gripping sea stories.  Now I wished that I had spent more time with the Ferris brothers reconciling the two stories and adding the fabric of the tale where needed.

Bill and Pat riding a sleigh in New York.

And the Ferris boys, Bill and Pat, had adventures and tales that should have been told.  They both "ran away" to sea on a four-masted, timber schooner the Annie C. Ross and they both served in World War Two in the Pacific...one in the Army Air Corps and the other in the Coast Guard.  Though they were born in the north, they were formed, in part, as they roamed their grandmother's Cat Island Plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina where so many of us since spent time with the mosquitoes and gators while pursuing ducks and deer along with sipping Aunt Mary Morris' "home-made" corn whiskey.  Now they are both gone.

Screen shot of photo of someone walking the deck of the Annie C. Ross while under sail.

Both my father and uncle passed in their nineties with Pat making it closer to the hundred mark than my father who died just short of ninety-five.  They had full lives with big stories and small.  I cannot say that I ever had a meaningful discussion with my uncle about politics, science or religion let alone feelings or philosophy, but that is not to say we shared nothing.  We had experiences and memories.  We had those aplenty and my cousin Scott reminded me of that recently when he mentioned a time when the two of us found ourselves bootless and asked to join a deer drive on Cat Island.  Each of us stood at the side of the muddy roadway in loafers while Uncle Pat played dog.  All was quiet for a time and then the swampy forest was filled with crashing and Uncle Pat shouting "Owooo, Owooo, don't shoot boys it's your Uncle Pat.  Owooo."  Those of you who knew him will probably chuckle at this and understand that while my cousin and I tried to remain appropriately vigilant and maintain our hunter visages both of us were likely incapacitated by laughter.
 

My Brother-in-law Rob and I book-ended by my father and uncle after a hunt on Cat Island.