Leonard Pressley Ashton, Jr (1919-2001)

Leonard Pressley ASHTON, Jr. was born at home on April 14, 1919 in Wellington, Collingsworth, Texas to Leonard Pressley Ashton, Sr. and Elsie Wilson Ashton. He left us on November 08, 2001 in Scottsdale, Arizona where he was surrounded by his girls.

When Pressley was 11 years old, he supported his family by delivering papers before school and then rushing to wash dishes at a local restaurant before he started his school day. After school, he again washed dishes and was often able to delight his family with leftover food. Many nights, the food he brought home was the only food his poor farming family had to eat. As many others during the depression era, Pressley contracted tuberculosis and was taken from his family, scared and homesick, to a clinic for a year when he was only 13 years old. He often expressed that was the most horrible and lonely year of his life. He worked the rest of his life to surround himself with family and friends.

Pressley married LaVerne Robertson {the love of his life}, from Reed, Oklahoma, on June 18, 1941. He served as a pilot in the US Army Core in World War II, stationed out of Shepherd Field. Pressley and LaVerne moved to Cactus, Texas in 1942 when Brown & Root Chemical Corporation {later Phillips Chemical Company} opened their ordinance plant. They lived in tents with hundreds of other workers while company housing was constructed.

Pressley was directly responsible for bringing most of his friends and family to Cactus to work for the chemical plant at a time when jobs were scarce and times were hard.

Additionally, Pressley served as an officer of the local AFL-CIO for over 20 years representing the union men with which he worked for many years striving continually for better working conditions and wages. Pressley never failed to pack up his family to drive all over the country with them in tow to union meetings in exciting and exotic places when, traditionally, men flew to the meetings and left their families at home. Pressley also gathered up his wife and daughters along with a caravan of friends and family every year for fifteen years for an annual drive to camp out at Yellowstone National Park in a time when most people rarely traveled outside the state much less across country. He made life-long friends every year on Fishing Bridge. A host of people have great memories of trips to Wyoming with Pressley leading the caravan.

Pressley was a strong advocate for construction and operation of the Cactus Recreational Center, bowling alley and tennis courts to provide activities for the youth of the community. He was an active member of the Etter Baptist Church where he was the most jovial and original Santa Claus annually for many years to hundreds of children.

When Phillips closed the plant in 1971, Pressley retired and formed, with a small group of men, the Cactus 287 Corporation of which he was the President. The company purchased the township of Cactus. He loaned and financed money to people moving to the community for both homes and automobiles. He and LaVerne continued to live in Cactus where they have many friends and loved ones by whom he will be sorely missed. Pressley served as a Cactus City Councilman for many years and helped to bring several large businesses to the Cactus area to provide jobs for the community that was left impoverished as the plants closed after the war.

Again, he was instrumental in planning a new Cactus Community Center providing another generation of Cactus youth a place to learn and play in a safe environment. He worked his entire life trying to better conditions for his family, his friends and the Panhandle community.

LaVerne and Pressley moved to Scottsdale, Arizona in 2000 when his health started to fail to be close to two of his daughters. Although he missed Cactus, Pressley loved Arizona and the warm sunshine; he spent many hours on his porch watching the hummingbirds, the palm trees sway, the beautiful sunsets and his fruit trees grow.

Pressley is survived by his loving wife, LaVerne; his four daughters, Sherri Smith and Danyce Ashton of Scottsdale, Candace Scott of Austin and Kim Wallace of Wylie; two son-in-laws, Charlie Smith and Randy Wallace; his brother and wife, Archie Lee & Lillian Ashton of Amarillo and his sister and husband, Wilsie and Edwin "Skip" Skipworth of Amarillo; two grandsons and their families, Ashton, Tisha and Sawyer Nowak of Austin and Joshua, Collin and Pressley Pipkin of Amarillo. Pressley leaves behind a host of other family members and many, many friends. He will be missed tremendously - he was loved by all.

Because of his big heart and kind soul, this world has been a better place for the past 82 years. Pressley was a 32nd Degree Mason of the Grand Lodge of Texas AF&AM Dumas Lodge 1009; he belonged to the Loyal Order of the Moose in Dumas and was a member of the High Plains Army 36th Division Association in Amarillo. He was an independent car dealer for 30 years and was a member of the Amarillo Auto Auction.

Pressley will rest at Paradise Memorial Gardens in Scottsdale on a grassy hill overlooking a lake filled with swans and a panoramic view of his beloved sunsets. Today Pressley is happy and smiling at us all while he plays basketball with his adored grandson, Dallas Smith, who has been waiting for him.

This tribute written by daughter Sherri Smith, Scottsdale, Maricopa, Arizona and submitted by Edwin "Skip" Skipworth, Amarillo, Potter County, Texas.