Mary Ann Ashley

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=39500988

Mary Ann Kirkpatrick Ashley was a preachers wife and mother to six children. Her most famous son was Gov. James M. Ashley of Montana.

Mary Ann was a true Irish woman. She was always described as kind and loving. She was a very devoted mother and wife. Mary Ann met and married John Clinton Ashley while in PA. She had been helping to organize a Christian group in which John Clinton became involved. After a few years working together to form a new Christian based church, they married--it was about 1820.

By the 1830's, the family had moved to Wayne, Ohio and then later to Portsmouth. John Clinton Ashley became a traveling preacher for the Disiples of Christ and helped to build churches around the Ohio and Illinois area. He died in an accident while traveling through Illinois and was buried in the yard of a church he hepled to establish.

After her husbands death, Mary Ann took in her grandchildren of her son William. She was living in Grandview at the time. She kept the children until her death in 1861 where her wishes were carried out and she was buried by her daughter.

The old church standing next to the cemetery is where Mary Ann's husband, John Clinton Ashley, preached at times. The church bell was donated by him and dedicated to his wife. The bell is now long gone. She and her daughter are burried in graves with markers that can no longer be read.