A life, recovered / 1886/1887–1974
Della Mae Ferguson
The woman who kept asking
AI-assisted historical reconstruction based on HIM-2026-012. Della Mae Ferguson Hollingsworth, reconstructed from the family portrait identified as Rochester, Texas, 1911. The setting, color and reconstructed details are interpretive; the preserved 1911 family photograph remains the source record.
01
The young woman before the land claim
Lue Della Mae Ferguson, usually remembered simply as Della, was a daughter of David Alston Ferguson and Mary Ann McCollum. The family reconstruction places her birth near Brady, Texas, in 1886 or 1887; that one-year disagreement remains unresolved. A Ferguson group photograph, probably made in Haskell County around 1905, belongs to the world of her youth. Family notes identify Della, her sisters Mary and Nora, two brothers and a cousin, although their precise positions remain uncertain.
Family recollection also remembers Della as an early Haskell-area beauty queen. It is a lively detail beside the determined elder she later became. On October 12, 1907, she married William Edward “Edd” Hollingsworth. The date is consistent across the family accounts, while the marriage location is still disputed.
Sources: Della Mae Ferguson Hollingsworth — Finished Research Edition, August 30, 2026 · How a Family Becomes an Archive · Recovered family photograph register
Six young Ferguson relatives, including Clayton’s second-great-grandmother Della Mae Ferguson. Her sisters Mary Ferguson Hollingsworth and Nora Ferguson Hibdon appear with two Ferguson brothers and a cousin; the exact positions remain under review.
View the source record →02
Building a household
Edd had worked as a cowboy, cedar cutter and licensed barber. Together he and Della farmed outside Chillicothe, growing cotton, maize and sorghum. Their later years centered on Rule and Rochester. The family’s 1911 Rochester portrait shows the young couple with Minnie and Edgar, the small boy later remembered as Tex.
The household included joy and loss. The working family reconstruction identifies Minnie, Edgar and Maudie Mabel among the children who survived infancy. It also records the loss of twins in 1925 and a son in 1928; the complete count still needs reconciliation with the obituary. Those losses belong to Della’s life alongside the crops, photographs and long marriage.
Sources: Della Mae Ferguson Hollingsworth — Finished Research Edition, August 30, 2026 · How a Family Becomes an Archive · Recovered family photograph register
03
Nineteen years of letters
Between 1939 and 1958, according to the family account, Della repeatedly wrote about a Ferguson land interest she believed had been lost through wrongdoing. Her inquiries reached East Texas offices, Austin, Texas land authorities and federal land offices. She called the property a Spanish land grant.
The original letters and replies have not yet been brought together, so those particulars remain attributed to family history. Even with that qualification, the account describes sustained work: returning to a question across nineteen years, continuing to ask officials for an explanation of something that had happened long before her birth.
Sources: Della Mae Ferguson Hollingsworth — Finished Research Edition, August 30, 2026 · How a Family Becomes an Archive · Recovered family photograph register
04
The land beneath the story
Research has connected that memory to a real Republic of Texas headright. Patent No. 527, issued January 20, 1846, granted Della’s grandfather Alston Ferguson 1,476 acres in Harrison County. The official record establishes the grant, although its legal category differs from the family’s remembered phrase.
County records begin to explain what followed. A May 1849 deed runs from Alston to John Ferguson and appears to convey the eastern half of the headright. An 1850 index entry records a mortgage; an 1859 entry points to a sheriff’s deed. Those are concrete movements of title. They do not establish fraud or explain the entire later loss. Della’s grievance remains an unresolved question attached to identifiable land.
Sources: Della Mae Ferguson Hollingsworth — Finished Research Edition, August 30, 2026 · How a Family Becomes an Archive · Recovered family photograph register
05
The clock and the later years
A later photograph shows Della holding the ornate clock that eventually reached Clayton through his paternal grandfather, Papa Bill Hollingsworth. The image connects an object still in the family with Della’s own hands. The complete sequence of intermediate transfers is unfinished, but the photograph preserves a direct moment in its custody.
Edd died in 1962. Della lived until 1974; her funeral was held at First Baptist Church in Rule, and she was buried beside him at Rochester. Her story survives through a young family’s portrait, a clock kept across generations and a question she refused to let disappear. The surviving records now give that question a patent number, a county and a sequence of transactions that can be followed.
Sources: Della Mae Ferguson Hollingsworth — Finished Research Edition, August 30, 2026 · How a Family Becomes an Archive · Recovered family photograph register
Look a little closer
The photographs
hold more of the story.
Open any image to see the complete photograph. Captions name the people and places in each photograph.
Clayton’s second-great-grandmother Della Mae Ferguson holds the ornate clock that later came to Clayton through his paternal grandfather, Papa Bill Hollingsworth.
View the source record →
Clayton’s second-great-grandparents Edd Hollingsworth and Della Mae Ferguson with their children—Clayton’s great-grandfather Edgar “Tex” Hollingsworth and great-grand-aunt Minnie.
View the source record →
AI-assisted historical reconstruction based on HIM-2026-012. The supplied reconstructed group is retained alongside the earlier preserved family photograph; color, setting and reconstructed details are interpretive.
View the source record →A life in the landscape
The places in this story.
Explore this person’s places in the shared family atlas, or choose All people to follow the wider record.
Continue through the archive
One life leads to another.
Edgar Lee “Tex” Hollingsworth
1910–1972
Read the biography →Child
Minnie Lee Hollingsworth Conner
1908–1984
Read the biography →Spouse in the family record
William Edward “Edd” Hollingsworth
1882–1962
Read the biography →Sibling
Mary Ferguson Hollingsworth
Read the biography →SiblingNora Ferguson Hibdon
Read the biography →Also in this story
These links provide context; they do not establish kinship.
Behind this biography
Sources & further reading
These sources support the biography and its continuing research.
- Della Mae Ferguson Hollingsworth — Finished Research Edition, August 30, 2026
Family research synthesis: Republic of Texas Patent No. 527, Harrison County Abstract 245; biographical evidence and unresolved title history are distinguished.
- How a Family Becomes an Archive ↗
Published family account of Della Mae, the Hollingsworth household and the clock.
- Recovered family photograph register ↗
Photograph identifications and dates retain their stated family-memory or documentary status.
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