Faye Ashley seemed destined for a career as a dental assistant.
Her mother was a nurse, her sister, a nurse practitioner.
She took yearlong dentistry courses at a Pennsylvania community college before landing a $10.50-an-hour job at a small practice in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
Ashley enjoyed calming patients’ nerves and saw her hourly wages climb to $21 over a dozen years, most recently at a dental office in Woodstock, Virginia.