Anthony Leon Asher, son of schoolteachers Anthony W. and Sarah Davis Bird Asher, was born in Mason County, West Virginia, on August 11, 1892. By 1917, Asher was working for the West Virginia Sand and Gravel Company in Charleston, where he had been hired as a local salesman but was promoted several times, eventually becoming assistant to the general manager. In May, 1917, he enlisted in the U. S. Army. After training at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, he was commissioned a first lieutenant of infantry and ordered to France in August. Asher underwent additional instruction in France and Belgium and became an instructor in explosives. He was honorably discharged in September, 1919. During the West Virginia mine wars, Asher volunteered his services in McDowell County in September, 1921, and organized a company of volunteers for the Battle of Blair Mountain. Commissioned a captain, Asher organized Company K, 150th Infantry, West Virginia National Guard and was placed in its command. On January 18, 1922, he married and moved with his wife to Roanoke, Virginia. The 1930 census describes Asher as a 37-year-old building supply salesman, living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with wife Mary, a Wisconsin native. By 1935, the Ashers were living in Pasadena, California, with Anthony Asher listed as owner and manager of a cement business. Anthony Leon Asher died on June 4, 1942, and was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California.