E. Maude Ferguson

Ferguson was born Edna Maude Fowler in Danvers, Massachusetts, on August 28, 1883. She was the daughter of Dr. Edgar Omera Fowler, a doctor with a large medical practice, and Addie (Bucklin) Fowler. She graduated from Tilton School, in Tilton, New Hampshire (then Tilton Seminary) in 1900. She then attended and graduated from the Greeley School of Elocution and Dramatics in Boston in 1903.[1] Ferguson became involved in her local community in Grafton County, New Hampshire, becoming chairman of the Republican Women of Grafton County and involved in Bristol Women's Club and the League of Women Voters.[1]

Ferguson was elected to serve as the representative to the New Hampshire General Court from Bristol, New Hampshire, in 1927. She was then elected to the New Hampshire Senate for the 1931–1933 term, becoming the first female to serve in that body.[1] Ferguson, a Republican, represented New Hampshire's 2nd State Senate District. She was not reelected to the 1932 term, even though her fellow Republicans had elected her to their caucus in 1931.[2] Rising in the political sphere in New Hampshire, Ferguson was elected as a delegate to the 1932 Republican National Convention held in Chicago.[3]

Ferguson committed suicide on June 23, 1932, a week after she should have attended the Republican National Convention. She had stayed away from the convention and had been "ill" for some time according to her doctors.[4] Her husband found her in their garden, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.[3][4]