Wallace Little Ashby
2006
Wallace Little Ashby, 86, an official with the Systems Effectiveness Branch of the Federal Aviation Administration, died Nov. 12 of an aortic aneurysm at Calvert Memorial Hospital in Prince Frederick. He lived in Scientists' Cliffs.
Mr. Ashby was born in Duluth, Minn., and moved to Washington as a boy. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in the District and was an Eagle Scout.
He attended the old Wilson Teachers College and graduated in 1947 from George Washington University, where he was a member of Acacia fraternity.
During World War II, he served in the Army Signal Corps as a cryptanalyst. From 1947 to 1957, he was a statistician with the Agriculture Department.
Mr. Ashby joined the FAA in 1957, shortly after it was formed. His responsibilities included developing standards for takeoff and landing at airports and for determining how closely airplanes could fly to one another. He also developed long-range plans to determine the need for new airports. He retired in 1975.
Mr. Ashby was an amateur paleontologist and fossil expert who donated fossils to the National Museum of Natural History. He was a private pilot and a Silver Life Master bridge player. He wrote articles on stamps and also enjoyed word puzzles.
For many years, he participated in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, conducted by the National Institute on Aging. He delivered Meals on Wheels and, for 21 years, raised and lowered the flag on a beach in his home community.
His wife of 47 years, Elizabeth Richardson Ashby, died in 1999.
Survivors include three children, William Ashby of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Mary Parrish of Alexandria and Martha Miles of Meridian, Idaho; two sisters, Martha Carr and Nancy Milloy, both of Bethesda; a brother, Clark Ashby of Carbondale, Ill.; and three grandchildren.