Mary McHughes (Ferrell)
was born in Memphis, Tennessee on 26th October, 1922. She married
Hubert Ferrell in 1940. Over the next few years the couple had four
children.
In 1957 the family moved
to Dallas, Texas and Mary Ferrell found work as a legal secretary.
Ferrell took a keen interest in the assassination of John
F. Kennedy and
created a database on the subject. The information was placed on over
40,000 cards. This included details of over 8,200 people involved
in the case. This data was eventually entered into a computer. Ferrell
also created a four-volume set of chronologies, covering all aspects
of the assassination.
Mary Ferrell died in Dallas
on 20th February, 2004.
Assassination
Namebase
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
Jerry
McCarthy, NameBase NewsLine (January-March 1994)
Mary Ferrell is busier
these days than ever before. On November 22, 1963 Mary was a 41-year-old
successful legal secretary in Dallas. Instinctively, she began collecting
information and storing it in whatever form proved convenient at the
time. She did not know then that she would become the most comprehensive
clearinghouse of facts on the Kennedy assassination, a source so valuable
that virtually no researcher working on any aspect of the assassination
can ignore her work. At the ASK symposium, Mary Ferrell was accorded
the role of "consultant," and was treated as perhaps the
quietest celebrity since St. Francis.
"I've never given
a speech in my life," she told me, and agreed to the interview
on the grounds that we focus on her database of assassination information
which she is only now readying for distribution in a comprehensive,
electronic format.
In thirty years, Mary has
collected information on over 40,000 3x5 cards focusing on names of
individuals. She began the process of entering the data into a computer
in 1986, when Bud Fensterwald sent Daniel Brandt to help her with
the project, and continued with the help of then Drake student and
now programmer for the city of Dallas, Trafton Bogert. She estimates
that, when finished, the data base will consist of approximately 8,200
names -- with information on name(s), address (current and in 1963,
if relevant), current phone number, her sources, and a variable field
to provide the amazing bits of information she carries in her head
and on her cards. During the symposium, someone asked if anyone knew
about one dim figure, and she said, "I can tell you his shoe
size." I asked her if such information could be found on her
data base and she said, "if it's relevant."
Her information will be
available sometime this coming summer, if things work out. In her
role as consultant to PBS's "Frontline" program on Oswald,
Mary was able to gain access to their work in updating her own files
and has promised not to publish hers until a book by the program's
principal investigators is published. And then, consistent with her
work for 30 years, Mary will not ask a penny for the information above
the cost of reproducing and sending it. She does not, however, judge
others who make their living writing books about the assassination.
In fact, Mary has nursed many writers along through their darkest
periods as they prepared their material for publication. She is proud
of the writers she has helped, and speaks of their upcoming work with
almost a mother's pride. When I spoke with her shortly after the symposium,
she was devastated by the news that a research colleague, Sue Robinson,
had just died at the age of 49.
"I'll be 72 on my next birthday," she says, "and I
have to do something with this information so that it is available
to people." The release of the CIA documents is particularly
exciting to her, and keeps her very busy. She doubts that the FBI
files will contain anything of use.
"Am I optimistic that
the truth will emerge in my lifetime? No. But I disagree with what
Sylvia Meagher wrote 25 years ago when she said that new researchers
wouldn't help. The new people will continue the work, and eventually
we will know the truth."
(2)
Dallas
Morning News (23rd February, 2004)
Mary Elizabeth McHughes
Ferrell died peacefully at her home in Dallas, Texas, on Friday evening,
February 20, 2004 at age 81, surrounded by family and friends. Mary
had struggled for years with her typically dogged determination against
a variety of health problems, supported by her devoted and loving
family and many friends. However, she never lost her interest in the
world and the people around her. Her intelligence, wit and lively
personality will be remembered by the many people who knew and loved
her. Born in Memphis, Tennessee on October 26, 1922, she married Hubert
Afton "Buck" Ferrell on June 18, 1940. Together, they had
four children. Mary and Buck moved to Dallas with their family in
1957 where she worked more than thirty years as a legal secretary
for a law firm and also in the Governor's office in Austin. Mary was
a woman of rare ability who is regarded internationally as one of
the most knowledgeable and respected historical researchers of the
assassination of John F. Kennedy. In 1963, she was working in downtown
Dallas, when on November 22, John Kennedy was assassinated. Mary began
a lifelong inquiry that brought her into contact with researchers,
authors, law enforcement, the United States Congress, and people from
all over the world. She developed and continually updated a database
of the vast array of information which she had accumulated, with her
last entries made in December of 2003. Mary also created a four-volume
set of chronologies, covering all aspects of the assassination with
annotations in extraordinary detail. Her archives, which gained worldwide
attention, were donated in 2001 to the Mary Ferrell Foundation base
in Boston, Massachusetts.
Available from Amazon
Books (order below)
