Son of John Buhle Ashby and Opal Trackwell Ashby. Johnny Ashby died as a small boy, drowning at age 3 at Cedar Lake in Denville, NJ.Jacqueline Conkling McClatchey, his first cousin, who was a teenager at the time, writes: "Little Johnny drowned in May of 1939. He was playing in the backyard of the house, which was fenced. Aunt Opal was ironing and Uncle Jack was lying on a couch, when they missed him. Aunt Opal went down the road to look for him and was over on the dam. Uncle Jack came out of the house and walked out on the dock and saw him in the bottom of the lake at the end of the dock. They think he was trying to feed the fish which he loved to do. I can't remember exactly now how old he was, two or three or four. They did not hear him go through the house, which he would have had to do to get outside. Mr. Rudolph handled the funeral. It was the first time our family had lost a child and it sure was rough. The male cousins were the pallbearers and it was all they could do to hold themselves together." [E-mail of Sept 29, 2002.] Information provided by Wilson Brown 1/16/09.

The pallbearers were his male cousins: Raymond (Conkling) Brud (John Frank Porter) Billy Ashby Roger (Collins)