Ethel Ashby was born on Sunday, March 7, 1920, at Creal Springs, Illinois, to Walter Tanner and Ethel Davenport. Her mother died the day Ethel was born. Due to a fear that the baby would also be lost, Belle and Roy McGowan, aunt and uncle of the child, volunteered to love and care for the little girl at their home in Carterville.
The McGowans provided a good home for the child and her memories of her childhood at Carterville proved happy. When the family moved to Marion, as fate would have it, they lived on North Bentley Street, near the home of Ethel’s future husband, Arleigh A. Ashby, and on May 5, 1938, the young couple was married in Charleston, Missouri, and returned to make their home in Marion. Ethel’s lifelong fascination with history resulted also into a love of antiques, which was encouraged by Arleigh.
After almost ten childless years, in 1946 the Ashbys adopted a ten and a half month old baby whom they called “Woody”, and for some years Ethel’s attention was engaged in rearing that child. Thereafter her antique business was opened in Marion and she began a lifelong interest and “love affair” with the history of the county and the preservation of items of historical and genealogical interest.
It would probably be fair to say that the Williamson County Historical Museum had its beginnings in a little antique shop called “The Old Sleighbell” when the Ashby family opened that business on DeYoung, at the intersection of North Market Street in Marion more than two decades ago.
Mrs. Ethel Ashby felt that there should be a place somewhere to preserve and display objects connected with the early days of Williamson County and she turned a portion of her business into a showplace for some of the lovely pieces of furniture and other memorabilia that would recall Williamson County’s early history.
When the county voted to move the County Courthouse off the Public Square in Marion, many “history buffs” felt that the old courthouse would be an ideal place for a county museum and, at a public meeting, efforts were made to preserve that historic building and to open a museum there.
When these efforts failed, Ethel, perhaps more than anyone else in the county, was deeply disappointed and she expressed her disappointment in such a way that the Board of Commissioners offered the Williamson County Historical Society the use of the old County Jail building for such a purpose.
As a result of her persistence, an agreement was reached providing that the old County Jail building on South Van Buren would be given to the Williamson County Historical Society if, within a period of five years, its members were able to convert it into a museum open to the public and able to operate on its own.
The members of the Historical Society, encouraged by Ethel and a number of other loyal members, labored diligently and by the time the county was observing the Bicentennial of the birth of the nation in 1976, they were able to meet that requirement and the county presented a Warranty Deed to the old County Jail Building, and the Museum was officially founded.
The labors of those early members in clearing out the debris left by the former occupants of the jail cells, as well as other unwanted items, was accomplished by the efforts of elderly members, for the most part, who were determined that the county would have a museum.
The Ashbys donated untold amounts of furnishings and records to the museum, and the late Nannie Gray Parks in her will gave the museum her lifelong collection of genealogical and historical memorabilia. This, combined with the collection of materials, etc., stored in the Marion Carnegie Library over a period of years, enabled the Williamson County Historical Society’s long dream to come to fruition, and the generous donations of priceless antique furniture as well as records collected over a lifetime by Ethel Ashby, with the cooperation of her husband, enabled the museum to open.
I wish it were possible to give the names of those loyal members who labored long and diligently to clean and redecorate the big 20 room building. After the formal opening of the museum in 1976, only a portion of the work was completed for then began the problem of supporting the Museum, and again, Ethel was there for any emergency. She must have spent half of her time there, repairing broken equipment, actually doing most of the cleaning of the Museum, meeting visitors at whatever time they called to ask to see the building, or needed information that might be available there. No one person could equal the dedication of that little woman, for she dearly loved that Museum and its purpose.
Around 1986, Ethel was stricken with a malady too often these days common among people as they grow older and was unable to impart the history and information that for so long entertained and amused visitors, or to try to help such visitors in their searches for their roots.
Visitors from far-away places continued to inquire for her and recall with gratitude her assistance when they visited the museum in its early years. Ethel and her husband’s generosity is attested to by the many gifts from their collection that are displayed in the building today, and a few years ago the Society in a “This is Your Life” program attempted to, in a small way, thank her for her years of unselfish contribution to this important effort to preserve our memories and our county’s history.
Ethel A. Ashby, 72, of Carterville and former longtime resident of Marion, died at 11:27 p.m., Wednesday, September 9, 1992, in Shawnee Christian Care Center in Herrin.
Mrs. Ashby was secretary/treasurer of Ashby Welding Supply of Marion, one of the founders of the Williamson County Historical Museum and a member of the First Baptist Church in Marion.
Survivors include her husband, Arleigh, one son and daughter-in-law, Robert E. and Estella Ashby of Carterville; six grandchildren; one great-granddaughter, one sister, Marcella Absher of Carrier Mills; and one brother, Stanley Tanner of Lansing, Mich.
She was preceded in death by her parents and one grandchild.
Services were held at 2 p.m. Saturday, September 12, 1992, in Wilson Funeral Home in Marion with Rev. Robert E. Ashby and the Rev. Ralph Brandon officiating. Burial was in Oakwood Cemetery in Carterville.
Sam’s Notes: Records indicate that in the 1940 census, Arleigh and Ethel were living at 416 E. Carter Street in Marion. They owned the home and valued it at $500. Arleigh was listed as a road construction laborer. In later years they occupied a home at 301 E. Allen Street.
Arleigh A. Ashby was born in Kentucky on April 13, 1918, per his S.S. death record, however his Kentucky birth record indicates that he was born in 1919. His parent’s names were Edward Ashby and Minerva Stone. The Ashby family moved to Illinois in the early 1920’s with Arleigh being the last sibling born in Kentucky. In the 1930 census, the parental family was living at 805 N. Bentley in Marion. His father was then employed as a garage watchman. Arleigh passed away on September 26, 1998.
(Data extracted from an article by Pearl Roberts and published in the 1989 Sesquicentennial History; Marion Daily Republican Obit, September 1992; Kentucky Birth Records; S.S. Death Records; Federal Census Records; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 11/04/2013)