Charles M. Ashely

ASHELY, JOHNSON

Posted By: Connie Swearingen - volunteer (email)
Date: 1/31/2016 at 15:09:32

ANTHON IOWA
1888-1988

Charles M. Ashely, page 321-2

Charles M. (Charley) Ashley, youngest child of Elisha Baker Ashley and Martha Noel Shirley Ashley was born March 11, 1883 at Macedonia, Iowa. He was brought by his parents to a farm in Woodbury County, near Battle Creek when only two weeks old. In 1890, the family moved to a farm in Wolf Creek Township near Anthon. Charley remained in the vicinity his entire life. He attended rural schools and farmed with his father as a youth.

On January 1, 1906 he married Mrs. Mary L. Johnson, daughter of Louis and Ellen Emerson Johnson of Sioux City, Iowa. Mary was born May 27, 1886 at Merrill, Iowa. She attended school in Sioux City, where she had moved with her parents. She later became a rural school teacher in Woodbury County, at Wolf Creek Township School No. 5, near Anthon. This is where she met Charlie, his father Elisha being the school director. She boarded in their home as was customary at that time.

In 1906 they purchased the farm in Section 21, that his parents were renting and two years later moved to that farm where they lived the remainder of their lives with the exception of five months they spent in California. Easily viewed from the country road were the neat white letters on the barn which proclaimed this as “Ashland”. Indeed it was as all the buildings standing were designed by them during their married life. Charley was a lover of animals and took great pride in his stock of horses, hogs, cattle and sheep.