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Submitted: 2/22/24 • Approved: 2/23/24 • Last Updated: 2/26/24 • R1520895-G1520894-S3
Theodore
August 25, 1918 - June 29, 1996
Lois
March 22, 1925 - August 3, 2015
Lois Ethel Lovett Ashley, of Sanders, Mont., passed from this life Aug. 3, 2015, at the age of 90.
Ethel was born to Sarah Ellen Elizabeth Mote and Thomas Bee Lovett on March 22, 1925, in Barber. She lived most of her life in and around the Fort Smith area.
Living in the South through the Great Depression had a profound effect on Ethel and she carried the lessons from that time throughout her life. When she was 12, her mother passed away, leaving her to attend to her siblings while her father made a living for the family by farming. She remembered eating turnips and putting newspaper between the blankets to keep warm in the dead of winter, and picking cotton in the hot summer. She rode in a covered wagon in the winter of 1932 from Barber to Van Buren to visit cousins. On the way home when the family was near Greenwood, a storm blew up and they had to take shelter for the night in the Greenwood jailhouse, which still stands today on the square in Greenwood. Years later, Ethel would paint a picture of the way she remembered the jailhouse looking at the time.
In the early 1970s Ethel discovered a love for oil painting. She and her husband, Theodore “Ted” Ashley, opened the Hillbilly Art Shop a mile north of Alma. In 1976, her love for painting and the arts, spurred her to become one of the eight founding members of the Crawford County Art Association (presently known as the Center for Arts & Education) in Van Buren. Her works are numerous (signed L.E. Ashley) and can still be found around the area.
Ethel is survived by three daughters, Patricia Wells of Montana, Linda Goens of Malvern and Debbie Goens and husband Bill of Harrison; 11 grandchildren; 25 greatgrandchildren; and 11 great-great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Theodore “Ted” Ashley; a son, Danny Ashley; her parents; and all of her siblings.
Ethel will be cremated in Billings, Mont., and her remains will be brought back to Fort Smith for burial in the spring. Details of those arrangements will be published at a later date.
Arrangements are under the direction of Edwards Funeral Home.
Photo courtesy of Frances Allen Titsworth
Contributed on 2/22/24 by Billsully060
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Record #: 1520895