Background
William H. Ayres was born in Eagle Rock, Virginia.
United States representative politician
William H. Ayres was born in Eagle Rock, Virginia.
He attended the Weller Township High School, and graduated from Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1936.
He worked as a salesman for heating equipment in Akron, Ohio, from 1936 tot 1944. During the Second World War served as a private in the United States Army until discharged December 17, 1945. He was president of the Ayres Heating & Insulation Company, Akron, Ohio, since 1946.
Ayres was elected as a Republican to the Eighty-second and to the nine succeeding Congresses.
He usually did not list his party affiliation on his campaign literature instead listing himself as "Your Congressman." He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1970 to the Ninety-second Congress defeated by John Seiberling, an Akron Democrat and scion. He died of heart and kidney ailments on December 27, 2000, in Columbia, Maryland.
Interment at Arlington National Cemetery. Representative Ayres"s wife of 61 years, Mary Helen Coventry Ayres, died in 1999.
A son, Frank Hanes Ayres, died in 1991.
Ayres was well regarded by House members of both parties.