Biography of Edward Ash, St Francis County, AR

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Submitted by: Paul V Isbell
        Date: 19 Nov 2008
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In 1941, Mr. Edward Ash purchased the Gilbert Furniture Company, in the same
building where he housed his Maidwell Garment Co., manufacturers of low cost
womens dresses until it was closed down in 1947 when government labor problems
continued to mount. The furniture store is under the management of V. P. Harmon,
Sr. Louis Ash, a nephew of Mr. Ash assumed the management in 1949 when Mr.
Harmon entered business for himself. Mr. Louis Ash remained until moving to
Arizona for his health in 1953, when Miss Madolyn Ash, bookkeeper and buyer, and
his other two nephews, Shelly Ash and Bob Van Vranken, undertake their share of
management to insure the success of the firm. Within twelve years after an
ambitious teen-age young man reached the strange shores of America in 1910, and
his arrival in Forrest City to work in his brother's restaurant, speaking only
the unfamiliar tongue of his native land of Lebanon, he became the prosperous
owner of Arkansas' largest dress manufacturing plant as well as a leading
citizen and property owners of Forrest City. In 1914, Ed Ash and his brother
opened the Ash Bros. clothing store on North Washington in the building now
occupied by Broadway Drug Store. In World War I he found himself facing still
another challenge with English in the Army Quartermaster Corps, when the war
ended he was in officer's training. He married his youthful sweetheart, Miss
Elsie Beshwate of New York City. The dream of entering the manufacturing field
materialized when he started making two dressy aprons with four machines over
the store now occupied by Busy Dept. Store. Practically overnight he sold his
designes to Bry's in Memphis, and Marshall Field. He expanded, first over
Grobmyer's Grocery, then to his own small building, which he enlarged, now the
Ash Furniture Company building. Mr. Ash is President of the Forrest City Savings
& Loan Assn., a past President of the Rotary Club, and has been President of the
Forrest City Country Club for the past six years, and a Warden in the Catholic
church.


SOURCE:
HISTORY of ST. FRANCIS COUNTY, ARKANSAS, 1954 - Robert W. Chowning

Copyright, with Permission: Weston McCollum Lewey, Publisher
-Times Herald Publishing-Forrest City, Arkansas