Wapello County IA Archives Biographies.....Asbury, William S. 1873 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 June 29, 2013, 5:33 pm

Source: See Below
Author: S. J. Clarke, Publisher

WILLIAM S. ASBURY.

William S. Asbury has been successfully engaged in the practice of law at
Ottumwa for the past five years and has won a merited reputation as an able
representative of the profession in the county. His birth occurred in
Blakesburg, Wapello county, Iowa, on the 1st of August, 1873, his parents being
B. F. and Alta M. (Van Cleve) Asbury, who are likewise natives of this county,
the former born on the 13th of June, 1852, and the latter on the 9th of March,
1850. At the present time they are residents of Albia, Monroe county, this
state. Both the Asbury and Van Cleve families were among the first settlers of
Wapello county, taking up their abode here before the advent of railroads.
Benjamin Asbury, the paternal grandfather of our subject, was a native of
Virginia, while the maternal grandfather was born in Indiana. B. F. Asbury, the
father of William S. Asbury, followed general agricultural pursuits throughout
his active business career. To him and his wife were born six children, as
follows: Frank J., who passed away at Glenwood, Iowa, in 1907; William S., of
this review; Fannie D., at home; Albert, who is deceased; Zilpha, the wife of
Paul H. Barker of Des Moines, Iowa; and Zell V., at home.

William S. Asbury spent his boyhood at home with his parents, who in 1876 hail
taken up their abode on a farm in Ringgold county, this state. In 1884, when
eleven years of age, he went to South Dakota and in that state herded cattle.
There being no school in the vicinity; he carried books and conned his lessons
while seated on his pony and attending to his duties as a cattle herder. He
returned to Iowa in 1890, locating in Ringgold county, where he resided on a
farm for two years. On the expiration of that period he entered a normal school,
pursuing a general course in shorthand and typewriting. Subsequentiy he was
employed by different firms at Sigourney, Keokuk county, as stenographer and
bookkeeper, and later worked in a printing office, while in 1896 he became
stenographer for Morris & Lowenberg, attorneys of Ottumwa. It was while in the
service of this firm that he took up the study of law. In 1903 he became
identified with the conduct of an institution for feeble-minded children at
Glenwood, Mills county, Iowa, being placed in charge of the printing department.
He remained at Glenwood until 1907, when he entered the Creighton Law School of
Omaha. The following year he became a student in the law department of Drake
University at Des Moines, from which institution he was graduated in 1909, being
admitted to the bar in the same year. During the past five years he has followed
his profession in Ottumwa, enjoying an extensive and lucrative clientage. He is
remarkable among lawyers for the wide research and provident care with which he
prepares his cases. At no time has his reading ever been confined to the
limitation of the questions at issue. It has gone beyond and compassed every
contingency and provided not alone for the expected but for the unexpected,
which happens in the courts quite as frequently as out of them. Mr. Asbury has
met with experiences of a varied nature in the course of his business career.
For several seasons he acted as advance agent for a theatrical company and in
that capacity visited nearly every state in the Union.

In 1905 Mr. Asbury was united in marriage to Miss Pearl V. Miller, a native of
Mills county, Iowa, and a daughter of Clarence L. Miller. They have one child,
Charlotte Lemoine. Mr. Asbury gives his political allegiance to the republican
party, while fraternally he is identified with the Knights of Pythias and the
Ancient Order of United Workmen. He has attained an enviable position in the
ranks of the legal fraternity in this part of the state and in professional and
social circles alike has won a host of warm friends.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:
HISTORY OF WAPELLO COUNTY IOWA
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME II
CHICAGO
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1914


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