Hammond (“Ham”) Ashley studied to be a mechanical engineer, but music was always an important part of his life. He was also a skilled woodworker, doing fine interior woodwork and making reproductions of antique furniture. Ashley played banjo in a dance band while in college. In Europe with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, he bought a double bass and started learning to play. Later, while working at Boeing in Seattle, he played bass in the Highline Symphony.

After the 1963 Boeing layoffs, Ashley set up shop in SeaTac as a luthier, working on stringed instruments of all kinds. He specialized in building, restoring and repairing all members of the violin family, particularly the double bass. In 1991, at the age of 90, Ham turned over the management of the company to his grandson, Paul Ashley, who continued to run the company after his grandfather’s death in 1993. Hammond Ashley Violins is still in business and is now located in Issaquah, WA, with a branch in San Diego, CA.

Ashley was also interested the acoustics of the violin family, and he worked with violin maker and acoustician Carleen Hutchins in the development of the eight-member “new family” of violins. Here, Ashley holds a treble violin, the smallest family member.

Caption information derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph. Additional caption information: hammondashley.com.