Sometimes a family name takes on a life of its own. In the Holloway family the name is Ashley. It has found its way into every generation of our Holloway family beginning with its original possessor born in 1830. Oddly enough, this Ashley was never a blood relative of the Holloway family.
The name originally belonged to Ashley Appleton Sanders. As far as we know he and his wife never had any children of their own. But he has a legacy none the less!
He became a member of the Holloway family when his mother married a Holloway after his father passed away. He went with his new family as they moved as a clan from Mississippi to Louisiana in the mid-1800’s.
By all accounts, Ashley Sanders was a gracious and honorable man, offering his home as the site for the wedding ceremony of his uncle Archibald Holloway and Miss Margaret O. Graves. And in 1861, when the call to arms sounded in his home of Franklin Parish, Louisiana, he was ready to enlist as a soldier in the 31st Louisiana Infantry, CSA. His regiment fought at Milliken’s Bend, LA near Vicksburg, MS, Jackson, MS, Port Gibson, MS and they endured the six-week siege at Vicksburg. After Vicksburg surrendered, his regiment was captured and later paroled by Union troops. The regiment reorganized in A. Thomas’ Brigade in the Trans-Mississippi Department and fought in more conflicts in Louisiana.
Three years after the war, his step-uncle Archibald Holloway died, leaving a family of a wife and six children. In keeping with his character, thirty-eight year old Ashley and his wife Sybil took in one of Archibald’s young children, William Willis Holloway, and raised him as their own. Ashley appeared to have had a great impact on William. He stood as a witness in William’s wedding and later William named his first child Ashley Sanders Holloway.
Ashley Sanders Holloway grew up, married, and named his first son Ashley Snyder Holloway. Several of Ashley Sanders Holloway’s grandchildren bear the name Ashley, one being my husband with Ashley as his middle name. And it hasn’t stopped there. One of our daughters has Ashley as her middle name. At present there are at least ten namesakes of Ashley Appleton Sanders in our extended Holloway family.
For a man who had no children of his own, but instead shared his love with those around him, he has gained a lasting legacy.
© 2011 Melinda Holloway All Rights Reserved
Fascinating stories discovered along my heritage journey 
Photo of Ashley & Sybil Sander’s gravestones – what cemetery???
Their graves are in the Crowville, LA cemetery across the street from the Baptist Church.