Thomas L. Ashley


Thomas William Ludlow "Lud" Ashley was an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served as a U.S. representative from Ohio from 1955 to 1981.

Early life and education

Ashley was born on January 11, 1923 in Toledo, Ohio and was raised on the Old West End. He was the son of Mary Alida Gouverneur Ashley and William Meredith Ashley, who owned a small steel manufacturing firm. His older brother William was killed in May 1944, at the age of 22, when his Army bomber exploded during a training mission over Massachusetts.
His maternal grandparents were Harriet Frances Putnam Ludlow, a direct descendant of Lewis Morris, and Thomas William Ludlow III. Among his great-grandfathers were James Mitchell Ashley, who was also a congressman from Ohio, and Dr. John Murray Carnochan, a surgeon who performed the first successful neurosurgery for trigeminal neuralgia.
Ashley attended Maumee Valley Country Day School and graduated from the Kent School in Connecticut in 1942. During World War II, he served in the United States Army as a corporal in the Pacific Theater of Operations. Following the war, Ashley attended Yale University, where he graduated in 1948. While at Yale, he was a member of the secret society Skull and Bones along with future U.S. President George H. W. Bush.
Following his graduation from Yale, he worked with the Toledo Publicity and Efficiency Commission. After encouragement from Michael DiSalle, who was then mayor of Toledo and later governor of Ohio, he began studying law through night classes at the University of Toledo College of Law. He then graduated from Ohio State University College of Law in 1951. He was admitted to the bar the same year and began practicing law.

Career

Ashley joined the staff of Radio Free Europe in 1952. He served in Europe for RFE and was the co-director of the press section and later was the assistant director of special projects. He resigned from RFE on March 1, 1954 in order to wage a successful bid for Congress.

U.S. Congress

Ashley was elected to Congress in 1954, beating the incumbent Frazier Reams, an independent, in a three-way race by 4,000 votes. He went on to serve thirteen terms in Congress and served as the Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy from 1977 until 1979 and then as Chairman of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries from 1979 until 1981.
In 1961, Ashley was one of six congressmen who voted to withdrawn funding for the House Un-American Activities Committee. He helped pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act and was a proponent of anti-poverty and housing legislation.
In the 1980 general election, Ashley lost in an upset to Republican challenger Ed Weber.

Later career

Ashley was a member of the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum board and served on many corporate boards including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest mortgage lenders in the United States.

Personal life

Ashley was twice married. His marriage was in August 1956 to Margaret Mary Sherman but they separated shortly thereafter. He married for the second time to Kathleen Lucey, by her uncle, Msgr. James O'Toole, on August 26, 1967 at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Trenton, New Jersey. Kathleen, the daughter of Charley Lucey, was a graduate for Trinity College and the Georgetown Law School and was the Washington editor for the United States Savings and Loan League. Together, they were the parents of a daughter and two sons:
His wife died of heart failure at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C. in 1997. Ashley lived in Leland, Michigan until his death from melanoma at his home on June 15, 2010. After his death, former President Bush said in a statement that he Barbara Bush "mourn the loss of a very close friend" and said Ashley "might well have been my very best friend in life."