Ferdinand Ashley, PhD
Dr Ferdinand Giles Ashley (a.k.a. Ash)
Associate Professor of archaeology, specializing in Egyptology. Participated in the Western Australia Expedition. He is still young enough for field missions and still researches in the field regularly.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Ferdinand was born in New York in 1890 to Francisco and Margaret Ashley. His father was a successful maritime insurer whose father Pedro Diaz had expanded the Spanish family's European business to North America and also taken the surname "Ashley" as he thought it would be better for business. Ferdinand never showed any interest in the family business and his lack luster performace at school was a great source of consternation with his father. Francisco had to call in many favors and contacts in order to get young Ferdinand into graudate school after his disasterous undergraduate performance at Miskatonic. Rumor has it that these efforts included threats and blackmail.
Ferdinand has two older borthers, Paul and Estaban, as well as a twin sister Georgia. Always a bit of a blacksheep in the family they are never-the-less close and extremely loyal to each other. His success in recent years has done much to reduce stress in the family and improve his relationship with his father. His mother is a dutiful businessman's wife and is an excellent host but is of a rather fragile nervous constitution and reacts to quarrels and unpleasantness, especially within the family, extremely poorly. An argument between the brothers can send her into fits of tears and confine her to her bedroom for a couple of days.
His broken engagement with Emily Bromfeld still deeply pains his mother. Ferdinand is unaware that Emily's father was at one time a substantial banking resource for the family business and since the breaking off of the marriage, so too has the business relationship been severed which has put a severe strain on the business. His father has never mentioned any of this as he sees the personal and business side of his affairs as distinct and non-overlapping. It would put even further stess on Ferdinand and his mental state would certainly suffer as a result.
Education
Employment
Ferdinand was hired by Miskatonic University in 1916 and he is popular with students and faculty alike. It is not expected that he will have any problems securing tenure when his time comes and his so far excellent field work means he is likely to someday become chair of the department. Ashley is very active in the field and enjoys it far more than the classroom or library. He takes his teaching duties seriously, but he is almost always thinking of, or planning for, the next field expedition. He expects that as long as he can walk, he will continue to spend time in the field as that is his true passion. He gets along well enough with Francis Morgan although he thinks his focus on the American Southwest is decidedly less important when compared to the classic cradles of archaeology of the Near East.
Accomplishments & Achievements
Despite a poor showing as an undergradute, Ashley more than proved himself a capable graduate student. His dissertation was published shortly after his defense and is considered an important and illuminating work in the field. The department expects great things from him in the future hope his growing reputation and scholarship will allow them to compete with the more "A-List" ivy league schools in America.
Failures & Embarrassments
While no one except a couple older faulty from Miskatonic may periodically gently tease him for his lackluster performance as an undergrad at MU, Ferdinand is extremely sensitive about it himself and always imagines people are making fun of him behind his back. He took the position at MU to redeem his performance there but also regrets having done so as he worries it will always follow him there as long as there a faculty who remember him from those days.
He is still single and may remain so. He was once engaged to Emily Bromfeld from a prominent Boston banking family and a date had been set for the wedding. Hs roommate at the time, Aaron Smount, a fourth year achaeology graduate student, fell and broke his leg. This accident meant Smount was unable to participate in the Egyptian dig that summer and an opening arose which Ashley jumped at. He had assumed Emily would be willing to postpone the wedding but she was not. In the ensuing argument, she broke off their engagement and Ashley went to Egypt. While the trip made his career, he was heart broken and still is very much in love with Emily. Unfortunately, the following year, she an Aaron Smount were married.
Mental Trauma
While Ferdinand is overall very likable and gets along well with faculty and students alike, he is suffering from increasing anxiety and self doubt which threatens to overtake him. He keeps his anxiety internalized well and aside from a few public "outbursts" he appears to most as a serious young academic. However, those close to him have noticed the past several years that he has changed and he is slowly coming apart at the seams. This corresponds to his break up with Emily Bromfeld and he certainly came back from Egypt changed somewhat.
Internally, he is shameful of his failures at Miskatonic. These may not have been so weighing had he just gone into business but choosing to remain in academia, even though he has been quite successful there, he feels they are more of an issue. Being from a wealthy family and a young man of means, he always took for granted he would get what he wanted. Emily shattered that belief and he realized too late that nothing is certain. What troubles him perhaps more is the realization that as much as he still loves her, if he had to choose Egypt or her again, he would choose Egypt and his career. His time in Egypt during that first trip made his career, but there are things he knows and discovered there that will never be published by him, and these dark things also hang about his mind.
Professionally, he worries that Miskatonic may be a dead-end for him. He was glad for the position and initially hopeful that the department would grow and become perhaps the most prominent in the country. However, while initially Miskatonic had taken the new field seriously and invested considerable resources to its development, their interest has waned recently as the other Eastern Ivy League schools ramped up development of their own departments. Miskatonics endowments are not as deep and they are falling behind in their ability to mount large field expeditions. He envisions large scale expeditions to both Western Australia and the Antarctic but those are still in the planning infancy. He also worries about the direction of the department. While he gets along well with Francis Morgan, he worries that his focus on lesser areas of research like the Americas and Western Australia are leaving them well behind of the expeditions in Babylon, Egypt, Greece, etc.
Intellectual Characteristics
While some academics from wealthy backgrounds may attempt to at least conceal the fact while maintaining enough to keep a sheen of respectability above thier position at University, Ashley makes no such efforts. He is wealthy, or at least will inherit wealth, and is accustomed to his life style. Not that he is a spendthrift, he lives within his means, but those means are not insubstantial. He takes this for granted often and can be dismissive of those he finds beneath him. His fondness for his students, especially well intentioned ones who struggle academically, overcomes this arrogance and he does respect his colleagues as he recognizes that the standards of academia form its own pecking order. However, outside of academic circles, socially he throws the weight of his social position around when it suits him. However, while very well off, he is hardly a Rockefeller and those of an even loftier tier view him as a bit of a lightweight and interloper in their social circles - not quite new mone, bet certainly newish money. His Spanish heritage does not help matters much.
Relationships
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