Peggy Joyce Ashby

Peggy Joyce (Armstrong) Ashby was born on July 8, 1934, in Eastland, Texas, to Lucy Mildred (Kight) Armstrong and Robert Lee Armstrong. In her early childhood, she and her family lived in Eastland and Arizona (where her father briefly worked in the mines), before arriving in Odessa, Texas, in the late 1930s. During World War II, her family drove from West Texas to Vancouver, Washington, in the Spring of 1943, so that her parents could work in the Kaiser Shipyards building Liberty ships for the war effort. Since her father worked the night shifts, and her mother worked days with little overlap, nine-year-old Peggy often had to take care of her two sisters, aged 4 and 2 years, by herself. In 1945, the family made the long journey back to Odessa, Texas, where they celebrated the end of the war.

Peggy was always a voracious reader and an excellent student. She repeatedly made the honor roll at Odessa High School, where she was a National Honor Society member. She received her high school diploma in 1952. On October 20, 1951, Peggy married C.L. (Charles Lafayette) Ashby, in the Parsonage of the Immanual Baptist Church in Odessa, and the couple spent their honeymoon in the Davis Mountains, before returning to Odessa to make a home.

After graduation and marriage, Peggy and her husband moved to San Antonio in 1952, due to his service in the U.S. Army, where he was stationed at Fort Sam Houston. Upon C.L.’s honorable discharge from the Army, the couple briefly lived in Orla, Texas, before returning to Odessa. While in San Antonio, Peggy found work at an insurance agency. Given her prior experience, upon returning to Odessa in the mid-1950s, Peggy initially went to work at the Permian Basin Life Insurance Company, a local firm. But when the personnel director of that company, J. R. Todd, founded his own oil well servicing company in 1956, he asked then 23-year-old Peggy to join him as its new office manager. While serving this primary role, she would also fill in as the company’s truck dispatcher, bookkeeper, and secretary when the need arose.

It was natural for Peggy to work at a well servicing company, as her father had been employed in the industry for several years. Peggy reminisced that when in Junior high school, she would visit her father in his company yard and on occasion even help him take a line off of the spool, mounted on the truck, and respool the pulling unit with a swabbing line. In 1956, Peggy and her husband C. L. would purchase their brand new home on 44th Street, which at the time was considered the outskirts of the town.

As an employee of J. R. Todd Company, Peggy soon became a member of the Odessa Desk and Derrick Club, serving as treasurer in 1959, and was elected President of that organization in 1960. The purpose of the club was to "promote among women employed in the petroleum and allied industries" a clearer understanding of the industry as a whole. During her tenure as club president, she flew to Chicago to attend a national meeting of the organization, her first time in an airplane.

In 1961, she stepped down from her responsibilities as president, and entered private business as the manager of a western wear clothing store. On February 16, 1963, her son Todd Allen Ashby was born in Stanton, Texas. In the late 1960s and 1970s, Peggy and her family resided in Conroe, Louisiana, and in the town of Rock Springs, Texas. By 1977, the Ashby family had returned to Odessa, when Peggy began working at Marks Crane and Rigging, and later, served as oilman Dick Gillham’s executive secretary in a number of business enterprises. She was working in this capacity, until her official retirement in May 2022.

Her hobbies always included reading, and fishing, but beginning in the 1980s she became an increasingly accomplished painter, with her medium including landscapes on canvas, as well as Tole decorative painting. From the 1980s to the 2000s, Peggy would routinely enter her artwork in the Ector County Fair and Exposition competition, often taking first prize honors, and increasingly, receiving Best in Show, Best in Division, and Committee Chairman’s Choice.

She is preceded in death by her husband of 62 years, Charles L. Ashby (who died in 2013), and her parents Lucy Mildred (1987) and Robert Armstrong (1987). She is survived by her son Todd Allen and his wife Pamela Ann, and their son Will; her younger sisters, Sandra Ann (Armstrong) Davidson, and Mary Louise (Armstrong) Rowell; her nephews James M. Davidson (wife Alyson Dew), Matt Rowell (wife Tammy), and Wesley Rowell, as well as her niece Samantha Ann (Davidson) Robertson (husband John). She is also survived by her grandnephews Ian Michael Robertson, Jacob Riley Robertson, and Henry Dew Davidson, as well as a grandniece, Carly Rowell.

A graveside service for Peggy will be held Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 10:00 AM at Ector County Cemetery, 300 South Dixie Boulevard, Odessa, Texas 79761.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.frankwwilson.com for the Ashby family.