Wiedmer: Ashleys are Memorial Day at its best

Ester and Bill Ashley spent part of Sunday helping return flags to their upright position in front of headstones at Chattanooga National Cemetery after storms swept through the area ahead of Memorial Day. But that's not all the Ashleys, both veterans, have done to help others in this area.
Ester and Bill Ashley spent part of Sunday helping return flags to their upright position in front of headstones at Chattanooga National Cemetery after storms swept through the area ahead of Memorial Day. But that's not all the Ashleys, both veterans, have done to help others in this area.
photo Mark Wiedmer

Maybe you saw Bill and Ester Ashley at Chattanooga National Cemetery on Sunday. They were the forever young couple wearing patriotic red-white-and-blue shirts and blue shorts while thoughtfully returning all those miniature American flags to their rightful spots in front of headstones after storms had knocked the flags over.

"We've been out here for an hour or so," Ester said.

Added Bill: "We'll be back here on Tuesday, helping take them all down."

A dear friend of mine has a word for older folks such as Bill, 79, and Ester, 75. She calls them "ghee" - as in cute, sweet, inspiring. They are easily all three.

They are also proud veterans of the U.S. Army. Bill served in the 92nd Infantry in Korea in 1961 and 1962, where he worked in a supplies warehouse at Camp Kaiser. Ester was with the Women's Army Corps at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, where she was a signal analyst.

"It no longer exists," she said of the government's decision to disband the WAC in 1978, merging its units with the men's army.

This column space usually exists to salute or slam members of the athletic community. And Bill and Ester are certainly athletes. They participate in our area's Senior Games in both pickleball - "old people's tennis," Ester said with a chuckle - and badminton. They work out several days a week at the Frances B. Wyatt Recreation Center in North Chattanooga. They've reached the state games on occasion. They might take in the National Senior Games next week in Birmingham, Ala.

Ester also played softball in her youth back in Mill Creek, Pa. Bill's daily exercise during his teenage years on Sand Mountain was slightly less enjoyable, though unquestionably more important.

"I was too busy trying to survive," he said. "There were times in those days that I didn't even go to school in order to work our family's farm so we'd all have something to eat."

You could say it all worked out. Meeting later in life, the two have been married the past 26 years. Retired now from DuPont, Bill has helped Ester cope with the death of all three of her children from an earlier marriage, with her beloved Donald, Candice and Robert all struck down by heart disease.

They do as much charity work as they can, often buying winter coats and sleeping bags whenever Goodwill has a 99-cent sale, then donating them to Community Kitchen in hopes of helping the homeless.

"We're just trying to help somebody," Ester said.

Knowing more veterans than ever need help these days, that Community Kitchen has become a necessary gathering spot for far too many of our bravest Americans, Bill sagely said "we've got too many veterans on 11th Street."

It is a message that needs shouting more than ever, especially today, when we officially honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for this great and free nation to remain that way.

"To me, (Memorial Day) honors a group of guys who died defending our country so we could be free," Ester said. "And a lot of them went and probably didn't want to go."

"This honors all our military, and they deserve it," Bill said.

But what did we do to deserve citizens such as Bill and Ester? Was it their DNA? Their environment? A sense of duty to country that sometimes seems lacking in too many of us?

At Christmas, Ester saw a Facebook post about a trucker bringing hundreds of wreaths to Chattanooga National Cemetery.

"A guy in Maine makes them," she said, "and doesn't charge the country a penny for them."

But similar to the wee, wet hours of Sunday morning, a storm knocked many of those wreaths over. Bill and Ester spent more than five hours helping prop them back up the next day.

"It just seemed like the right thing to do," she said.

Like many of us, the Ashleys worry about the right things to do concerning our future. They shake their heads over the latest terrorist acts, including last week's suicide bombing in Manchester. They worry about health care and North Korea.

"I don't think they've got a missile that can reach us," Ester said. "But they've probably got one that can reach some country."

Yet on Sunday afternoon, the humidity beginning to wear on them, they were most worried about returning all those miniature American flags to their rightful spots.

"We just want this place to always look nice," Ester said as her eyes scanned a cemetery dressed in its best patriotic glory. "We're both going to be here one day."

It doesn't get any more ghee than that.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.

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