William S. ASBURY has been successfully engaged in the practice of law at Ottumwa for the past five years and has won a merited reputation as an able representative of the profession in the county. His birth occurred in Blakesburg, Wapello county, Iowa, on the ist of August, 1873, his parents being B. F. and Alta M. (Van CLEVE) ASBURY, who are likewise natives of this county, the former born on the i3th of June, 1852, and the latter on the 9th of March, 1850. At the present time they are residents of Albia, Monroe county, this state. Both the ASBURY and Van CLEVE families were among the first settlers of Wapello county, taking up their abode here before the advent of railroads. Benjamin ASBURY, the paternal grandfather of our subject, was a native of Virginia, while the maternal grandfather was born in Indiana. B. F. ASBURY, the father of William S. ASBURY, followed general agricultural pursuits throughout his active business career. To him and his wife were born six children, as follows: Frank J., who passed away at Glenwood, Iowa, in 1907; William S., of this review; Fannie D., at home; Albert, who is deceased; Zilpha, the wife of Paul H. BARKER of Des Moines, Iowa; and Zell V., at home.

William S. ASBURY spent his boyhood at home with his parents, who in 1876 had taken up their abode on a farm in Ringgold county, this state. In 1884, when eleven years of age, he went to South Dakota and in that state herded cattle. There being no school in the vicinity; he carried books and conned his lessons while seated on his pony and attending to his duties as a cattle herder. He returned to Iowa in 1890, locating in Ringgold county, where he resided on a farm for two years. On the expiration of that period he entered a normal school, pursuing a general course in shorthand and typewriting. Subsequently he was employed by different firms at Sigourney, Keokuk county, as stenographer and bookkeeper, and later worked in a printing office, while in 1896 he became stenographer for Morris & Lowenberg, attorneys of Ottumwa. It was while in the service of this firm that he took up the study of law. In 1903 he became identified with the conduct of an institution for feeble-minded children at Glenwood, Mills county, Iowa, being placed in charge of the printing department. He remained at Glenwood until 1907, when he entered the Creighton Law School of Omaha. The following year he became a student in the law department of Drake University at Des Moines, from which institution he was graduated in 1909, being admitted to the bar in the same year. During the past five years he has followed his profession in Ottumwa, enjoying an extensive and lucrative clientage. He is remarkable among lawyers for the wide research and provident care with which he prepares his cases. At no time has his reading ever been confined to the limitation of the questions at issue. It has gone beyond and compassed every contingency and provided not alone for the expected but for the unexpected, which happens in the courts quite as frequently as out of them. Mr. ASBURY has met with experiences of a varied nature in the course of his business career. For several seasons he acted as advance agent for a theatrical company and in that capacity visited nearly every state in the Union.

In 1905 Mr. ASBURY was united in marriage to Miss Pearl V. MILLER, a native of Mills county, Iowa, and a daughter of Clarence L. MILLER. They have one child, Charlotte Lemoine. Mr. ASBURY gives his political allegiance to the republican party, while fraternally he is identified with the Knights of Pythias and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He has attained an enviable position in the ranks of the legal fraternity in this part of the state and in professional and social circles alike has won a host of warm friends.

SOURCE: WATERMAN, Harrison Lyman. History of Wapello County, Iowa Vol. II. p. 102. S.J. Clarke Publishing. Chicago. 1914.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, June of 2009