Gal with gusto

• An Albany woman’s upcoming 102nd birthday doesn’t dampen her zeal for life.

Cathy Higgins

ALBANY — Louise Ashton may be looking toward her 102nd birthday on Thursday, but she’s got plenty of vim and vigor to spare.

“I like to be motivated,” she said in a recent interview at her apartment at Morningside Assisted Living. “I like to meet challenges.”

That desire to meet challenges isn’t wasted, either.

After learning the Monroe High School Marching Band had the opportunity to perform in the nation’s capital this past Memorial Day, Ashton initiated a penny drive at Morningside Assisted Living and implored her fellow residents to give to the cause.

“I wanted those kids to have some spending money,” the widow said.

For her efforts, Ashton raised close to $400 in pennies.

“Some people gave checks,” the Vada native said. “With the checks, it came to about $500.”

That’s not the only time Ashton’s efforts to motivate her neighbors have been successful.

“One of her projects has been to get them interested in supporting local candidates,” daughter Lacey Lee said.

In doing so, Ashton urged her fellow residents to transfer their voting registration and to make their voices heard at election time.

And she doesn’t take moving to an assisted-living facility as an excuse.

“I have no patience for people who don’t vote,” Ashton said. “It’s our inalienable right.”

To honor that right, the second of six children urges her neighbors to learn all they can about political issues that affect them.

“Enough that they can have an opinion,” she said.

One of Ashton’s own political hopes has yet to be realized.

“She was hoping to see a woman president elected in her lifetime,” Lee said. “She was a Hillary Clinton supporter.”

Ashton’s belief in standing up for herself is nothing new.

“I guess I was just born with it,” she said, explaining that the ideal started shaping her life early on. “I’ve had to think things out and decide what’s best for me.”

One of the earliest times Ashton had to make such a decision came when she was just 17 years old.

“Mother left ABAC college after being there because she did not enjoy the girls having to wait on the boys to eat at lunch,” Lee said. “They had to clean up behind the boys, too.”

The dress code wasn’t so great, either.

“We had to wear uniforms with black stockings,” Ashton said, “and no makeup.”

In protest of the situation, she simply quit.

The Vada High School valedictorian then came to Albany to study bookkeeping at Freeman Business College.

“It took me about a year to finish business college,” Ashton said.

Once finished, she went on to work for M.W. Tift, grandson of Albany’s founder.

“I was secretary of bookkeeping for 32 years,” Ashton said.

Once that chapter in her life closed, she went on to serve as Dougherty County’s chief registrar in the 1960s, during the civil rights unrest.

“That was quite volatile,” Ashton said.

That experience would require Ashton to once again stand firm as people from outside the area tried to illegally register to vote.

“But I don’t like to talk about that,” the grandmother of seven said. “It was a bad time in history for our area.”

Instead, Ashton prefers to look on the good she has done in her lifetime.

“I’ve done a lot of volunteering,” the great-grandmother of nine said.

That has included volunteering for several years with March of Dimes, as well as with Easter Seals and the Albany Museum of Art.

“I never volunteered to do anything that I never saw the rewards of,” Ashton said. “I love volunteering.”

She also put plenty of time in First United Methodist Church, which recently recognized her as its oldest member.

“I’ve served in different capacities,” she said, explaining that she’s been a part of First United since moving to Albany at age 17.

While Ashton’s attitude is an enviable one, the soon to be 102-year-old doesn’t think she’s unusual.

“I’ve never felt exceptional, at all,” Ashton.