Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” July 13, 1972

 

Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” July 6, 1972

 

Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” June 29, 1972

 

Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” Feb 10, 1972

 

Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” April 30, 1971

 

Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” June 18, 1970

Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” June 11, 1970

 

Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” June 4, 1970

 

Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” March 19, 1970

 

Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” February 5, 1970

Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” January 8, 1970

Agnes Ashby's “The Family Tree” December 4, 1969

 

WKU OHIO COUNTY CLUB 1955-56

 WKU Ohio County Club  1955-56

Includes Billy Tichenor, Otto Ranney, Emmalene Jones, Peggy Ashby, Mary Marks & P.L. Sandefur.

If you can help with names, please let me know.

 Source:  WKU Library

Ohio County Guardianships - Part V

 36. Feb 8, 1907, pg 1, under County Court: BRYANT, ASHBY, BOLTON

37.  Jan 25, 1918, pg 5: COOKSEY, PEYTON, EVANS

38. Mar 21, 1919, pg 5: CROWE

39. Apr 30, 1920, pg 5: THOMPSON

40. June 1, 1917, pg 5: HILLARD

41. Sep 1, 1916, pg 1, under In County Court: GRANT, ROWAN

42. Dec 15, 1916, pg 1, under In County Court: TICHENOR

43. Mar 14, 1919, pg 5: GOFF

44. Sept 23, 1921, pg 5: HORSEMAN

45. May 21, 1920, pg 5: WHITE

Navy Fireman 3rd Class Welborn Lee Ashby

 First Ohio County WWII casualty to be reburied Memorial Day

          By Nathan Havenner

          Navy Fireman 3rd Class Welborn Lee Ashby, a casualty of the Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor attack, will finally be laid to rest among his family in his hometown of Centertown in Ohio County on Memorial Day.

          Ashby was 24 years old and serving aboard the USS West Virginia during the surprise attack. The ship was struck by multiple enemy torpedoes, and 106 crewmen, including Ashby were killed. He was reported to be the first World War II casualty from Ohio County.

          Ashby’s remains were recovered during salvage operations of the ship but were unable to be identified at the time. He was buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. In 2017, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed 35 caskets from the cemetery containing the remains of USS West Virginia casualties. DNA samples provided by his family led to Ashby’s identification in 2019.

          Ashby’s niece, Paula Kern of Tennessee, said that while the family members that knew her uncle, his parents and siblings, are all deceased, it is still nice to be able to bring him home.

          “For us it is closure because it is closure for our parents,” Kern said. “It is unfortunate that they aren’t here to experience it. It is kind of a bittersweet closure.”

          Centertown Mayor Terry Kessinger said Ashby has remained on the minds of community members through the many years.

          “It means a lot to us,” Kessinger said Friday. “Our American Legion post was named in his honor and we had a horse show called the ‘Welborn Lee Ashby Horse Show. We’ve had it for 50 years.

          “He was always in everybody’s thoughts,” he said.

          Born Oct. 19, 1917, Ashby was one of six children born to Otis and Inez Ashby. He was a 1936 graduate of Centertown High School and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in September 1940.

          “His nickname was Tiddly,” Kessinger said. “They nicknamed him Tiddly because he liked playing Tiddlywinks with his friends as a boy.”

          It was through DNA provided by Ashby’s sister, Martha Ashby Christian, who died in 2017, and her son Mark Christian, that allowed the DPAA to positively identify Ashby’s remains in October 2019.

          Kern said it is nice to see how the Centertown community has kept the memory of Ashby alive in the decades since World War II was brought to a close in 1945.

          “It is nice that people are keeping up his memory and they named the American Legion after him and part of the highway,” she said. “We are kind of blown away by all that.”

          Services for Ashby will include a visitation at 10 a.m. and funeral service beginning at 1 p.m. at Bevil Brothers Funeral Home, 226 Louisville Road, Beaver Dam, on Memorial Day. Members of the public are invited to line the route from the funeral home to Centertown Cemetery.

          Full military honors will be provided by the U.S. Navy and Smoke On Aviation of Louisville will honor Ashby with a Missing Man fly-over at the conclusion of the sounding of Taps.

Source:  Messenger-Inquirer, May 23, 2021

Herbert L. Ashby

Source: A Sesqui-centennial History of Kentucky, 4 volumes, published 1945.

Centertown Never Forgets

---

Sunday, May 31, 1942, was the memorial service for Welborn Lee Ashby, service number 287-44-72, who died at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, on the Battleship U.S.S. West Virginia (BB48) nickname ‘WeeVee.’ He was a 24 year old enlisted man, fireman third class. His military tombstone is next to that of his parents in Centertown Cemetery.

He was a 1936 graduate of Centertown High School, enlisting in the Navy on September 24, 1940. His last visit home after basic training was in November of 1940, after which on November 15, 1940 he boarded the West Virginia. He had been in Hawaii since February, 1941. His Naval career was over in February, 1942, with the arrival of a Navy Department telegram to his parents, Otis Welborn and Mary Inez (Tichenor) Ashby, stating they were unable to locate their son. The notice ended with “declared to have lost his life in the service of his country as of December 7, 1941.” He was also survived by two sisters and three brothers. The year 1942 also saw the loss of the Ashby home to fire.

Welborn Lee Ashby was born October 19, 1917, and better known to his friends as ‘Tiddely.’ In a letter, the governor of Kentucky, Keen Johnson, awarded him a posthumous commission as a Kentucky Colonel. His notification of the award referenced “that Kentucky appreciates his sacrifice.”

The service held at Centertown Baptist Church was to serve as a memorial for all war dead. Songs were included in the service by both Centertown choir and West Point choir.
To those living in Ohio County in 1941, this first casualty of the Japanese brought the reality of World War II to all homes, by the end of the war that number increased to 85 from Ohio County. For years the community was reminded of that loss at the annual Welborn Lee Ashby American Legion Horse Show held near Centertown School.

Saturday, June 13, 2015, at 10 AM was the dedication of F3c Welborn Lee Ashby Memorial Highway going past the cemetery and through Centertown on Highways 85 and 69. The dedication took place at Centertown City Hall/Community Center. The City of Centertown also announced the name change of Heritage Park to Welborn Lee Asbhy American Legion and Auxiliary Heritage Park.

As the 1942 memorial service was for all war dead, this 2015 dedication was a symbolic tribute for all community veterans.

A motorcycle escort from Kentucky Rolling Thunder and others met at Midway Taxidermy at 9:30 on Highway 69 South and rode through Centertown Cemetery, where Ashby is buried, to pay tribute to him.

Welborn Lee Ashby is interred in the Honolulu Memorial located in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The cemetery, located in an extinct volcano, is also known as ‘The Punchbowl.’ The Honolulu Memorial includes 18,096 names of American World War II Missing in Action, lost or buried at sea in the Pacific. His remains were recovered in 2007 and after two years of DNA testing, verified for burial. The Japanese attack having killed 2,402 Americans at Pearl Harbor.


Source:  Ohio County Historical Society
PO Box 44
Hartford, Kentucky 42347

HERBERT L. ASHBY

HON. HERBERT L. ASHBY

County Judge Herbert L. Ashby is the most illustrious living member of a family identified with Kentucky since the days of the Revolutionary War and specifically with Ohio County for more than one hundred years. Farmer and judge, he follows other members of the family who have tilled the soil and held public office simultaneously and, like them, he obtained his education, figuratively if not literally, like another celebrated native of the State, Abraham Lincoln, by the light of a fire from the family hearth. Dividing his time between the farm near  Rockport and Hartford, the seat of Ohio County, he has found time to take a leading place in civic and political affairs and other community activities, to serve as a member of the Ohio County Fiscal Court and to wage a long and successful fight for the improvement of the County’s roads. He has thus contributed immeasurably to the welfare and prosperity of all farmers and the entire rural area of the County as well as to the development of its cities and towns, Hartford not least of all. That he has won the gratitude of all the people there is attested by the high esteem in which he is held everywhere among them. Herbert L. Ashby was born on the farm he operates today, the farm on which his mother was born, near Rockport, on August 31, 1885. His father was William Thomas Ashby, born in the same County in 1840, who died in 1901. William Thomas Ashby, descended from Ashbys — among whom a Jesse Ashby figured prominently in virtually every generation — who served in most of the nation’s major wars, including the Revolutionary, and the War Between the States, was a farmer and mill owner. He came of a family which followed, though at a much later date, Boone into Kentucky from Virginia, Ashbys who came in a group of brothers with their wives, children and belongings and fought for their migration and safety with the Indians; one of the brothers was killed by the Redskins on the High River. One of the Jesse Ashbys who had played his part in pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary history incurred the gratitude of Governor Benjamin Harrison of Virginia and the people of that Colony and State and was rewarded with 400 acres of Virginia land. Other members of the family later owned for years several thousand acres of Kentucky land. Herbert L. Ashby’s mother was Sally Mary Tichenor of the large and prominent Tichenor family. Four years after the farm
near Rockport was purchased in 1836, she was born there (1840) and lived there until her death in 1912 — in all seventy-two years. In 1851, she saw this farm increased by a sizeable addition of land purchased by her father. It is this larger farm which her son, the County Judge, operates today. There were nine children in the family.

Herbert L. Ashby went to school in his native Ohio County, but he had long before begun the self-education at home which he has continued all his life. From his earliest days, he worked with his father on the farm, never really interrupting this career.

In 1925, he was elected to the first of three terms as a member of the Ohio County Fiscal Court, serving with increasing distinction. In 1937, he again fully gave his attention to the farm, but in 1941, he was called back to public office, by being elected County Judge. He has thus served in two public offices in a County where his maternal grandfather, one of his predecessors in the ownership of the farm —Byron Tichenor — once served as the County’s first constable. When he was elected to the judgeship in 1941, Judge Ashby headed the ticket of all candidates, coming into office with a majority of 982. He is a Republican and a member of the Baptist Church. Judge Ashby has remained a bachelor throughout his useful career. Of the living members of his immediate family, C. W. Ashby, a brother, lives in Los Angeles, California; a sister, Verda Ashby, lives with him on the farm; another brother, Clarence M. Ashby, makes his home in New Castle, Indiana, and still another brother, Charles R. Ashby, resides in Detroit, Michigan. A fourth brother, Lewis Ashby, died in Leftbridge, Alberta, Canada, where he had been in business for many years, in 1932. Maggie Ashby, who married Nat Lindley, lives on a farm in Ohio County, Kentucky; Mary became Mrs. S. J. Tichenor, and lives in Detroit, Michigan, and Geneva Ashby married E. A. Smith and resides at Red Bay, Alabama.

Judge Ashby grows continually in the esteem of his fellow citizens, for as farmer, fighter for good roads and other public improvements and as dispenser of justice, his personality is felt throughout the area he serves. The area grows with him.

Source: A Sesqui-Centennial History of Kentucky; by Frederick A. Wallis. Published 1945.