Dr. Ferne Price

Most of us are lucky to have childhood friends that are still in our lives. Friends who know us forward and backwards and all twisted up inside. Friends whom we have lived with, traveled with, and bunked with. Friends who have been there through thick and thin, through laughter and sadness, and births and deaths. I love that my girls get a glimpse of who their mother once was through the eyes of someone who was there.

My mother had three friends from her youth and college days with whom she kept in touch, and my brother and I got to know them too. They were as much a part of our family as those who had been born into it. One of the hardest things I had to do was give my mother's two friends the news that she had died. Now I'm dealing with, and reeling from, the news of one of her friend's death.

I don't remember when I was first introduced to Dr. LaFerne (Ferne) Price. She was tall and lean, with a deep, gravely voice, and a hand shake that meant business. As a youngster, Ferne scared me. On our way to visit her her my mother always lectured us on what we were to do, on what Ferne expected from us, and I always worried I would let my mother down. Here was a woman we were told who expected our best behavior, for us to stand straight and give her a good handshake upon our arrival, to be polite, and to frankly, abide by the old rules of children should be seen and not heard. Of course, while some of that was true, Ferne was always very interested in us first.

I was not a child who spoke up around most people (that came much later), and so it was agony knowing I would have to communicate with this imposing woman who so loved my mom. But Ferne respected us and treated us as adults. She would greet us and then ask us millions of questions about school, our activities, our friends, our interests, and our grades. She knew things about us through our mother, and she had a great memory for detail. If we whined about a problem she would question us, turn it around for us to look at it from all angles, and then suggest some ways of dealing with it. She taught us that a handshake was the most important part of meeting someone, and that a good, steady, grip could tell you everything you needed to know about a person. To this day, I still believe that, and always eye with suspicion the ones who give the dead fish handshake.

Once she had gotten what she wanted from us she and my mother would take up from where they had previously left off, no matter how much time had passed. This was fascinating to me at a young age to watch my mother become something I didn't often see, and I would pretend to read my book while listening to their conversation. Here was someone who wasn't afraid of my mother, who could wave away her biting remarks or give her a swift kick in her ass if need be. All while still loving her and accepting her for who she was. It was probably a good introduction into lifelong friendships for me.

As I got older, Ferne would pull me into a conversation if she thought I could, and should, contribute. She and my mother always had tons to talk about, and they would argue and laugh, and solve all of their problems and the world's during our visits. Between visits they burned up the phone lines talking hours upon hours to one another. They shared a love of sports, especially Indiana State University basketball, and when they were together traveling to and from California during ISU and Larry Bird's pursuit of an NCAA championship in 1979 they watched the games from wherever they could. Even if it meant befriending and sweet talking an owner of a store who ended up letting them sit and watch the game after closing on one of the televisions he sold.

Ferne loved dogs, a source of irritation to my mother because she hated it when Ferne would beg off from traveling because she couldn't find a sitter for her animals. Ferne always had more than one dog following her around, and she use to say that she preferred them over most people. She loved to garden, tomatoes were her specialty, and she once mailed a huge box of them to my mother so that she could get her fill of Indiana tomatoes.

My mother met Ferne at Indiana State University where Ferne graduated and worked as a physical education professor for 23 years. I'm not sure how they met. I must have been told the stories, but frankly, and this would truly annoy Ferne, I obviously did not retain that information. As a child, I knew that Ferne had taught synchronized swimming, coached swimming, had written two books, and was a decent artist as well. Her book, The Wonder of Motion - A Sense of Life for Women, from her doctoral dissertation, was purchased by the Board of Directors of the Swimming Hall of Fame and was displayed in the Art Museum in the Hall.

As an adult, I learned that Ferne was a pitcher in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball league which the movie, A League of Their Own, was based on. She pitched for the Milwaukee Chicks in 1944 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988. I visited the Hall to see the exhibit before Ferne. I wrote about that trip and experience here. From that visit, I also learned Ferne's birth name was LaFerne, a cute, girly name I didn't think really fit her like Ferne did. By then I think I was paying better attention to details. Years later, Ferne took the trip to the Hall of Fame and finally got to see her name herself.

Ferne learned she had muscular dystrophy when I was still young. It didn't stop her from continuing her life, she was determined to make the best of her time, and she didn't like to talk about it around us kids. We, however, took it upon ourselves to join forces with Jerry Lewis' Labor Day Telethon every year, and did our best to raise money in our neighborhood because we felt we were helping Ferne.

Ferne died in May. I didn't find out about her death until weeks later when I got a message from a stranger on my mother's answering machine. Apparently, Ferne had never passed on the news that my mother had died to her friends. No one really knows why, but I do know she took the death hard. She had to tell me she would call me back when I first gave her the news, and when she did she wanted to make sure that my brother and I were okay. I regret not keeping in better touch with her these past two years. I had misplaced the address where she was currently living, and had just found it to send off a letter I wrote when I got the news of her death. I thought that eerie timing.

In going through my mother's belongings I recently found this letter she had written to nominate Ferne for an award at Indiana State. I thought printing excerpts from the letter a fitting tribute for someone she deeply loved, respected immensely, and considered one of her very best friends. We loved you too Ferne. You will be missed.

March 12, 1988

Dr. Ferne E. Price epitomizes the teaching profession. Her career spans parts of five decades in forty years on the job, and it includes instruction on both the junior and senior high school and university level. Longevity, of course, in and of itself, is certainly commendable but scarcely unique. What makes Dr. Price's years on the job so worthy of note is the fact that year after year, day in and day out, she has approached each class with fresh enthusiasm and originality, creating new course and updating old ones, and forever challenging young minds to greater achievements. No matter what the name of the course being taught, the main subject of any class has been "Life and how to live it to the best of one's ability," and her own life has served as a model for her students. 

Beginning in 1956 Dr. Price directed and produced water ballet and synchronized swimming programs at Wiley High School and later at ISU. Absolute perfection and total attention to detail were the hallmarks of a Ferne Price production, and participating students learned to seek the outermost limits of their talents and to to know the total satisfaction of having been a part of a masterpiece.

In the final analysis, Ferne Price has made her mark in the world by never deviating from her principles, by never yielding despite physical and spiritual injuries and illnesses, and by, above all, demanding of herself the very best that is within her and never being satisfied with anything less. She has been, is, and always will be a rare and exceptional human being, who by her very existence and example enriches and enlightens the lives of all who know her. In her early years she undertook a lifetime struggle that has consisted of climbing upward from ledge to ledge in a steady assault of the top, and should she die "without reaching full sunlight, she will die on a level touched by its rays."

©The Estate of Constance Mason 2016