About Us

In 1935, Mr. W.L. Sturdivant established the former Reins-Sturdivant Funeral Home in a building in downtown West Jefferson, North Carolina. (At one time, Reins-Sturdivant had funeral homes in West Jefferson, Sparta, Newland, and North Wilkesboro in North Carolina, and in Independence, Virginia.) In 1961, the owners of Reins-Sturdivant Funeral Home established Ashelawn Memorial Gardens on U.S. Highway 221 North in Jefferson, North Carolina, leaving vacant a parcel of land adjacent to the cemetery for an eventual funeral home. In 1972, Ashelawn Memorial Chapel was built on that site, creating Northwest North Carolina's only combination funeral home/cemetery operation. In early 1993, the interior of the funeral home, which remained as it was when constructed in 1972, was completely renovated, and the parking lots adjoining the funeral home and the driveways throughout the cemetery, which were surfaced with gravel, were paved with asphalt. In early 1994, construction of the Mausoleum of Prayer, Ashe County‘s only above-ground mausoleum, was begun on the prominent hill overlooking the memorial park. Even before its completion, several of the structure's 240 crypts for caskets and a number of its niches for cremated remains had been sold prior to the time of need. The mausoleum features an indoor imported Italian Carnera marble finished chapel for protected committal services. The chapel provides a place for family meditation in its center. As a funeral home and cemetery combination, the Ashelawn staff is able to assist grieving families with all funeral home, cemetery, cremation, and monument needs at one convenient location.