Ashby
Grant
1865 – 1915
Grant Ashby was the youngest child of Job and Eliza Ashby. In 1883, he married his first cousin Elizabeth “Lizzie” Ashby. It is assumed that Lizzie and Grant met during a family visit. They would not have seemed like cousins to each other as they grew up in different states.
Settling Down
Grant and Lizzie settled in Fayette County, Iowa. By the end of the century, however, they had moved to southeast Kansas where the last five of their twelve children were born. Their children were:
- Sarah Ellen “Sadie Ella”
- Deward Clinton “John” [m. Josie Green]
- Harry Milton “Milt”
- Robert Verne [m. Lavina]
- Bessie
- William (Lloyd) [m. Emma Witt, Lola Carson]
- Claude C. [m. Myrtle Allenbaugh]
- Grant McKinley “Mac” [m. Helen McGuire]
- Olive Lucille [m. Richard Allenbaugh]
- George Raymond [m. Eunice, Ruth Johnston]
- Ruby Bell [m. Clinton Wurtz]
- Lester Pete Ashby [m. Carrie Witt]
Move to Colorado
Grant and Lizzie stayed in southeast Kansas until 1910 when they moved to an area about 25 miles south of Holly, Colorado, where they had 1280 acres of land with a small cabin and a storm cellar. The land was arid and barren except for buffalo grass. Grant and the boys had to make trips across the entire eastern plains of Colorado to reach the Rockies just to cut fence posts. The family farmed, had a small dairy, and Grant hauled freight to stores across the prairie. However, Grant died only five years after moving to Colorado and is buried in Garber Cemetery south of Holly.