Ashley Lake Hamilton

Ashley Lake Hamilton

The vibrant life of Ashley Lake Hamilton came to a sudden end on the Sunset Highway between Airway Heights and Fairchild Air Force Base on Thursday, December 10, 2020.

Ashley was born on a sunny Monday morning, June 2, 1980, at St. Ansgar Hospital in Moorhead, Minnesota. She was the second child of Barbara (Lake) and Douglas Hamilton. Ashley was a beautiful, creative and strong-willed child and she carried those traits into adulthood.

Ashley moved to the Pacific Northwest as a teenager and lived in various places in Oregon and Washington before settling in Airway Heights. She loved the forests and rivers and lakes and mountains— terrain very different from the vast prairie and farm fields where she started.

Ashley finished high school with the North Dakota Center for Distance Education. She practiced a variety of creative arts over the years and produced pieces by blowing and fusing glass, painting and drawing. She attended Spokane Falls Community College and graduated with an associate degree in May 2019.

Ashley’s most cherished creation arrived near midnight in the middle of May, 2014, with the birth of her son, Hunter. She loved being his mother.

Ashley was preceded in death by her mother in 2008 and her companion Hamilton Snavely, whose life ended on a winding road near Birkenfield, Oregon, in 2007.

Ashley is survived by her father; her life companion, Chad Graves; their son; brother, Benjamin Lake Hamilton; sister, Sarah Wyner Mastrud-Gackle; step-mother, Sandra Buttweiler; aunts and uncles and cousins— and many friends.

Ashley affected people in a special way. Her premature passing is a deeply-felt loss to all who loved her. Her life will ripple through the lives she touched.

There will be a Fargo celebration of her life on her birthdate in 2021.

There was a memorial visitation at Heritage Funeral and Cremation, Spokane, WA, on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020. A celebration of her life will be held at Wright Funeral Home in Moorhead, MN, on Wednesday, June 2, 2021, at 2:00 pm