Eugene Meacham Ashley

Eugene Ashley, was the youngest child of a family of five children. He was born in a small farming community of Orland California and living to the age of 90. He grew up there where his family worked their dairy and farm. Eugene had one brother and three sisters, but was born 15 years later than the next youngest sibling so he grew up virtually an only child, during the Depression Era. He joined the Air-Force toward the end of World-War II. The war ended before completing his pilot training. He shorty there-after was released from the service and then went to college at Northrop for his degree in Aeronautical Engineering. Eugene work for several aerospace companies, but then settled in Windermere Florida working at Martin Marietta until he retired. He enjoyed some 28 years in retirement. Eugene and Louise sold the family home in Windermere to travel the roads of the USA in their trailer. After a couple of years on the road they bought a smaller retirement home in the Williamsburg development close to SeaWorld Orlando. After Louise passed away he re-married to Ilse which he was with for the last 15 years. In addition to touring the country with his various trailers he had over the years, he also travel the world: Jamaica, Hawaii, Alaska, Japan, New Zealand, and Europe. 

 

Eugene Meacham Ashley is survived by wife Ilse and his progeny: Children Kathleen, Charles, and Carl. Grand-children Amber, Autumn, Stefanie, Elissa, and Maura. And one great-grand-daughter Paisley.

 

Eugene lived a full life. Found love twice, raised a successful family, and lived to enjoy all his grand-children. He was a highly successful aerospace engineer for a highly competitive field. Was a good carpenter: building cabinets, shelves, novel space saving furniture, go-cart, and tree house from bamboo. Eugene had participated in various activities such as: boating, scuba-diving, snorkeling, canoeing, hiking, piloting airplane, riding motorcycle, square dancing, ToastMasters (speech training club), assist in election campaigns, hypnosis, and hand-writing-analysis. 

Eugene was always reading and expanding his knowledge in countless areas and keeping up with current affairs. This continued up until his Alzheimer’s and dementia got to where he couldn’t remember what he was reading. I thought it interesting that he could fix the Air-Conditioner but then couldn’t remember how he fixed it. Early when he was having memory problem he bought a new home computer but then couldn’t handle the switch to a new version of Windows. It never occurred to me that someone who spend a career working with computer simulations would hit that wall. Eugene’s mind failed long before his body gave out but it was eventually pneumonia that took his life.

 

The date/time for Eugene’s memorial service is at St. Luke United Methodist Church of Windermere (http://www.st.lukes.org) on Friday March 27 at 10:00am with Minster David Stevens.

 

St. Luke’s United Methodist Church

4851 South Apopka-Vineland Road

Orlando, FL 32819